Hi All...
Now that Eagle CAD has gone subscription, is it still the most popular design software? I see there are a bunch of alternatives now, including KiCad, Design Spark? I just don't want to have to be concerned about potential Eagle limitations down the road.
Thoughts?
KiCad is continuously getting more popular with the maker/open source crowd. They're even having a the first dedicated conference just for KiCad in April (KiCon).
I have been watching some KiCad tutorials from Digikey and wow... It seems a bit complex and kuldgey. There are about 7 different programs, and you have to bounce back and forth between several of them to lay a circuit out.
I tend to use EasyEDA. For my $0.02, it is way more intuitive and easy to learn vs. KiCad. I also don't do very complex things so...
To me, easy is important. More important is component library support. Lots and lots of parts. KiCad seems to be married to DigiKey although there is a component editor. Circuit Design is a sort-of hosted solution but everything you do is pretty much in the public domain, ready or not, useful or not. KiCad seems to be a kludge, and for some reason they start the tutorials off with designing a component instead of just placing several from a library. I'll check out a few more. I appreciate the comments!
skyjumper:
There are about 7 different programs, and you have to bounce back and forth between several of them to lay a circuit out.
Why is having separate programs for the separate parts of the design process a bad thing?
skyjumper:
KiCad seems to be married to DigiKey
Absolutely incorrect. Less than a year ago, Digikey released a parts library for Kicad. That's the full extent of the "marriage" you claim. For many years, other parts libraries have been available for Kicad. Anyone is welcome to create their own or to contribute to the library Kicad maintains.
skyjumper:
for some reason they start the tutorials off with designing a component instead of just placing several from a library.
Some people do prefer to create their own so they can be 100% sure it's correct. They would do that no matter which EDA package they were using. The tutorial author may have simply felt that this was the way to provide a complete tutorial, that teaches you everything.
I struggled at first, but as soon as I'd run through the beginner tutorials, Kicad started to seem really natural and intuitive to me.
Yeah the tutorial mentions designing components near the top but the workflow doesn't direct you that way if the component already exists in a library.
As an update...
I have been using KiCad 5 for a week now (not full time of course - I have a real job) and I have come to like it. It does take some getting used to but none of the apps I considered has a great user interface, and KiCad is at least no worse than EAGLE and a few others. If you install it on a Mac you'll have problems getting it to find the footprint library due to errors the installer makes. I have already posted these on the KiCad forum.
Once you have it working and get used to it, you can lay out a board fairly easily. The schematic files it generates are directly readable by OSHPark. It can even import from EAGLE.
One thing I still don't have working yet is auto-routing. As far as I can tell, KiCad does not have its own auto-router and I'll have to integrate it with free route or something like that. There are instructions to DL another package and take a jar file from it. I had some success on me Windows 7 box but absolutely none on my Macbook. Yes, I know, auto routing is Satin! I still would like to have it at least to generate a starting point. That said, the "push and shove" feature is pretty good.
A big difference from EAGLE is that in KiCad the footprint of a component is not tightly coupled to the component. So, when laying out the schematic, I place say a resistor and then, later on, I tell it if that resistor is a thru hole device, SMD 0805, whatever. I have come to like this. It lets me zip through the schematic more quickly and just focus on the circuit. When I do the board layout I can then decide what footprint I want and change it without changing the entire component. The DigiKey library, though, does contain components with footprints.
So then, so far so good.
This is not a complete list, but...
PROS:
Completely free with no limits
Imports EAGLE projects quite nicely
Fairly easy to use once you absorb the learning curve.
CONS:
Version 5 has a different interface from earlier versions, so when you go through the older tutorials, video or text, that can be a bit frustrating.
Having separate apps for each bit or major functionality requires a little bit of extra effort. For example, you have to remember to generate the netlist from the schematic editor before launching the board editor, and then once the board editor is launched you have to remember to load the netlist. If you make changes to the schematic you have to then load them into the board. In practice, this is not that hard.
Poor auto-router integration, if any.
GypsumFantastic:
Yeah the tutorial mentions designing components near the top but the workflow doesn't direct you that way if the component already exists in a library.
I just don't understand why many tutorials do this. Yeah at some point someone is going to have to make a component, but I have laid out a few boards now and have yet to need to do so. Putting this at the front of a tutorial is just scary.
That's way cool that you gave Kicad a chance, after your initial skepticism. Thanks for taking the time to provide an update.
I tend to prefer open source software, not only because it's free, but also because I usually also find that it's superior to the commercial alternatives (or at least not significantly inferior). In the case of Kicad, I think it's a really crucial component of the open source hardware and "maker" movements. It's frustrating to find board design files that were made with Altium or something like that and think "well, thanks for providing the source, but it doesn't do me any good". Yes, Eagle has been the standard, and there will probably always be a free version, but with Kicad we know for sure what the future holds because we have control over it.
Now that Eagle CAD has gone subscription, is it still the most popular design software?
IMHO, the "horror" of EAGLE's subscription model is overstated.
The "Free" usage hasn't changed much, "Pro" versions are still pretty reasonably priced, and there's the interesting possibility of "occasionally pro"... (OTOH, I'm still using the V7 "non-profit" license that there is no longer an equivalent for, so ...)
I had trouble getting KiCAD to work at all on my Mac (a long time ago; supposedly long fixed), and found the "footprints-later" design flow to be disconcerting (there are supposed to be alternatives now?) So I was scared away. If I didn't have ~1000 EAGLE projects, I'd be looking more strongly at KiCAD...
skyjumper:
Poor auto-router integration, if any.
Well, I am sat here with a working PCB that I could not do with my (paid for) version of Eagle. The layout just would not fit in the 100mm x 80mm limit.
I did the original schematic in Eagle, imported it into Kicad, moved all the stuff around so it used a 100mm x 100mm board size that is so cheap to have made, $5 for 10.
Autorouted it with Freerouter, imported back into Kicad, sent off the Gerbers, job done.
This doesn't help most folks with selecting a tool: I went to a Pro license of Eagle quite a while, stopped updating at Version 7.7.0 when they went to subscription basis starting at 8.0. I do really large boards with it, the largest so far ~ 22" x 4.6" (I didn't realize how big it had gotten until a board house replied to a quote request with "we can't make boards that big"). Outgrew the 80x100mm limit a while ago for many designs. I do try to keep things to 100x100mm in general just to keep PCB prices down. And mostly SMD now with so many thru hole parts becoming obsolete. Not interested in moving to a new tool anytime soon.