Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submitlogin

Kicad is where you want to go in the free price category of ecad programs.


IMHO its better than OrCAD, probably as good or better than diptrace and about on par with Altium for people without managed libraries.

Once they improve their library management system, it will surpass Altium in nearly every way possible.


Push and shove isn’t great, the schematic editor doesn’t sensibly move wires around when you drag components, you can’t query designs with SQLish syntax to make bulk changes, there’s no room functionality, no via stitching and guarding, no multi-channel… it’s good but not there yet.


Isn't scripting API de-facto way to do bulk stuff for KiCAD.

But yeah saying it is as advanced as Altium is a stretch.

"Good enough for all but the most advanced high-speed stuff" is probably better description.


Good enough for most anything as long as you’re willing to really grit your way through it for the more complicated stuff — some of which is high speed but also including multichannel and big bga fan-out and other stuff.

Also — the common open source refrain “there’s a scripting interface” is just another way of saying “the feature isn’t implemented, but you can implement it yourself.” It’s not terribly helpful.


Kicad 7 has orthogonal wire drag in the schematic now.


Ah nice! That’s good to hear. I have no doubt that the things I listed will get implemented eventually. Altium should indeed be scared.




Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: