advise please for getting fusion 360 (subscription) altanative

[Neale]

For home and hobby users, and small business users (can't remember the threshold but I seem to remember something like $100K/year turnover), F360 is free. Download the trial subscription and when it gets close to expiry, you can sign up for the free version. Basically the full version, but free. However, there are people who do not like this because data is held in the cloud (in practice, on Autodesk-managed servers) and there is always the possibility that the "free" deal will be withdrawn.

I hear good things about FreeCAD, but I haven't used it (I'm a F360 user for quite a lot of what I do).

When I first started using a CNC router, around 5 years ago, I tried a range of free software for both CAD and CAM. However, I had quite a few problems. That was 5 years ago and things might well have changed but I bought Vectric Vcarve and found it both easy to use and pretty powerful. It's not cheap but is good. It is designed for woodworkers rather than general engineering, and I still use it for some jobs as it is much quicker and easier than F360 (and is excellent for sign-making as its lettering engraving capabilities are very good). There are a number of different products in the Vectric range, and you can download trial copies if you are interested.

I'm sure you will get lots of other opinions - this is a very personal area and what suits one person might not suit another.