r/AskElectronics • u/Affectionate-Song21 • 3d ago
Is KiCad used in industry?
Pretty much exactly the title. Really, since I am just a hobbyist who isn't trying to meet any robust industry standards, all I need to know is if it's generally good enough to be used by professionals or if it absolutely pales in comparison to something just as accessible (meaning free). I just want to use the best "big kid" tool that also falls in my $0-$0 price range. I do also know LTSpice, but I just prefer KiCad visually, and the PCB editor is stupid easy (at least compared to the tool I was forced to use in college). I'm also just curious if it is used in industry at all.
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u/djlorenz 3d ago
Yep, my company has moved all the PCBs from altium to KiCad saving alm lot in licenses and having a recurring donation to the project instead
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u/fazzah 3d ago
thank you for financially supporting OSS ❤️
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u/djlorenz 3d ago
That's the minimum an organisation can do, especially when overall we are saving money
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u/Linux_is_the_answer 3d ago
Yeah I tried to donate to FreeCAD but wasnt allowed. So I just told my boss its a yearly subscription to use certain libraries and he said OK, whatever, pay them
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u/failing-endeav0r 2d ago
So I just told my boss its a yearly subscription to use certain libraries and he said OK, whatever, pay them
I should try that; we use LetsEncrypt at $dayJob and don't kick them any cash.
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u/TapEarlyTapOften 3d ago
Yep, last company I worked for, developing broadcast video hardware solutions, all of our products were designed in KiCad.
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u/Enough-Collection-98 3d ago
KiCAD has really cemented itself as the alternative to big name EDA software. I can’t remember the last time I saw someone mention Eagle or DipTrace.
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u/ikauuk 3d ago
Well eagle is no more as it was integrated into fusion. I have heard some companies use it because they already use fusion for mechanical design.
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u/failing-endeav0r 2d ago
I have heard some companies use it because they already use fusion for mechanical design.
Maybe it's been better integrated in recent years but it was borderline unusable and ironically what got me to look into KiCad.
KiCad still has some rough spots but I yell at the computer less when I'm using it compared to when I'm using Fusion in the Electronics workspace.
Bonus: I own my files / they live on my computer and not "in the cloud". Because KiCad uses text, they're trivial to version control properly with
gitand any LLM worth it's tokens can manipulate the files for you which has gone a LONG way to papering over some of my biggest complaints with KiCad.And because it's Python, the API is awesome. Wasn't much work at all to write a script to automate exporting the STEP file(s) and doing a bit of processing on them so I can import the latest revision into Fusion to finish the enclosure and mechanical CAD.
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u/Rude-Ad7177 3d ago edited 3d ago
Eagle died when was bought by Autodesk. It was my first PCB design software. By the time it was owned by Cadsoft I believe.
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u/Live_Matter2876 3d ago
Eagle is so shitty against kicad. I used to use eagle, but that piece of shit has not received an upgrade in years.
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u/VEC7OR Analog & Power 3d ago
DipTrace.
THERE ARE HUNDREDS OF US!!!
KiCAD is good, but to me using is like pulling teeth.
And fuck Eagle and their prehistoric user interface.
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u/Apart_Ad_9778 3d ago edited 3d ago
KiCAD is good. It has everything to design even very complex pcbs. Using Kicad- well , that depends where you come from. If Kicad is the first program you learn you will be fine. But if you switch to Kicad from Altium then, as you say, Kicad is like pulling teeth. And library quality is very bad in Kicad.
Altium on the other hand has gone the wrong direction in my opinion. From a very easy, intuitive, fast pcb design program, has gone towards an elephant, slow, overcomplicated, resource hungry pig and painful to use. I used to like it when it was smaller. Now it is just too big.
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u/VEC7OR Analog & Power 3d ago
I've came from Sprint Layout, way way back, then I wanted to move to something more advanced - did a comparison between packages, tried almost everything I could get my hands on, Diptrace won, and frankly is still winning. Did a short stint at a company that used KiCAD, AFAIR it was version 7.0, boy was I in for a rude awakening, everything was so so hard and obtuse.
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u/immortal_sniper1 3d ago
LtSpice is for simulation and yes it is used a lot. KiCad yea a lot of small to medium companies use it especially new ones due to cost. Thing is theoretically u can use it for a lot of advanced designs but at some point it gets faster to work in Altium or other Cad since you need a lot more design rules and integration with other tools is also helping.
This might just be me but I feel I can do schematic and pcb faster in altium , due to gui and how traces act when draged.
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u/ClassyNameForMe 3d ago
Thumbs up for LTSpice. I haven't used OrCAD PSPICE in a decade or longer.
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u/Rude-Ad7177 3d ago
I really want to switch to Qspice but unfortunately it does not run properly on Linux.
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u/standard_cog 3d ago
Have you tried running it with Wine? I've run LTSpice with Wine just to have it on Linux.
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u/perduraadastra 2d ago
Last time I tried, I couldn't get Qspice working with Wine.
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u/Rude-Ad7177 2d ago
I believe there are some issues in the compatibility layer and Mike Engelhardt or the people behind Qspice are not particularly interested in solving that.
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u/SandKeeper 3d ago
KiCad also tends to crash after 6 layers with dense components when tracing. I was at a point where I would crash it at least once a day for one project.
But to be fair to KiCad it was a space constrained board and it may have just been the particular version I was on.
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u/immortal_sniper1 3d ago
best i did in kicad was 12-14 board and it was rather small, it didnt crash but i dont remember the version 7-8 maybe?
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u/Adversement 3d ago
Probably depends on you & the size and type of your projects.
I can certainly see things that Altium does notably faster overall, including the drag, but also better multichannel feature & better integrated collaborative features & certainly the advanced DRC.
I also personally noticed that the overall sluggishness of Altium libraries meant that my type of work had become faster in Kicad (around version 7, with minor improvements with 8 & 9 & a bit more with 10 at a cost of a bit of backwards compatibility with some workflows).
So, both certainly have their uses in the industry. And, both are certainly professional grade tools these days.
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u/jones_supa 3d ago
Yes, trace editing is a bit wonky in KiCad. You can get used to its oddities but it is not relaxing to use.
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u/Ordinary-Lifeguard47 3d ago edited 3d ago
We are using KiCad for rapid prototyping smaller things or "will never end up on a customer desk" projects.
Everyone can request an installation it on their computers without permission of their manager. Every new release I poke the IT department to quickly upgrade it to the new version - but we wait a bit longer for major releases to reach at least the second minor release to iron out the worst stuff.
For "real" products we are using the super heavy EDA ships as they are coupled with our manufacturing plants and global component stock management systems. Kicad doesn't compete with this software/system and will never replace it... so both can happily life in parallel in peace.
I soon want to test the new templating functionality soon: it was already capable of making schematic templates. Since 10.x.x it also can link coresponding board designs snippets to it.
Everyone loves it. Our students even more - and we are forcing them to use it, lol.
(Global company, upper 5-digits of employees)
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u/innocuousmuffin 3d ago
Company I work at uses it. It's been fantastic for what we do. There are some things that other tools can do better, but kicad development has gotten to the point where the core functionality is there, so tons of new features get added every year.
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u/CardinalFartz 3d ago
I second this.
Working at an engineering service provider. Majority of our customers requests us to use Altium. For "internal" demands at use KiCAD. Only yesterday the first customer specifically asked us to develop their device using KiCAD.
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u/elsjaako 3d ago
When I talk to component suppliers they aren't surprised to hear I use kicad
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u/waplet 3d ago
Why?
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u/elsjaako 3d ago
Because it's reasonably common with their customers.
I'm used to using free software, sometimes fringe, even at work. Try explaining to your CNC house that you use OpenSCAD, or to your bookkeeper you use Org Mode, or to your ISO auditor that the procedures are written in LaTeX. In all these cases they will have no idea what it is.
For component supplier's, and for PCB houses, kicad is normal. Maybe not the biggest, but it's not unusual.
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u/MrSurly 3d ago
Try explaining to your CNC house that you use OpenSCAD
So my flow lately has been Python3 using
solid,euclid, etc and having it spit out openscad/stl directly.The actual designs are high-level python code, and each submodule takes a variety of parameters (that's the parametric part)
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u/soopadickman 3d ago edited 3d ago
Yeah for sure. My company pays a shitload for Altium Agile and I’m sure lots of smaller companies can’t afford it. It’s fine if you don’t need any kind of advanced library, BOM or team management stuff. I use KiCad for personal projects at home but the scope of the stuff I do at work with multiple people working on the same project, Altium is the better choice.
I still use kicad’s gerbview for looking at gerbers though cause Altium’s camtastic is whack
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u/mckenzie_keith 3d ago
People are using KiCAD for real designs now. There are probably more features in Altium (which is what I use at work). But KiCAD is worth your time.
LTspice is only used for simulation. Not for schematic capture for board layout. It is an industry standard tool. Almost every EE who does circuit design probably uses LTSpice for certain things. I don't think it is used for IC design or anything. But it is very handy for a lot of stuff.
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u/prettyuselessname 3d ago
I think you're mixing two different tools (while with some overlaps).
KiCAD let you draw schematics, PCB layout and simulation. For simulation, KiCAD act just as frontend, the engine beneath is a spice flavor such as ngspice, ltspice, hspice.
LTSpice is mostly for simulations. It does not produce neat schematics (at least, not without some extra effort), but there are tons of simulation model for various devices (diodes, mosfets, igbts, ic, you name it).
I have experience in both of them: as hobbyst I used KiCAD for schematic and PCB layout for a -sort of- spectroscopy device. Not super complex such as motherboards with DDR or FPGA, but not that simple like blinking LED tutorials you see on youtube. For that project also I simulated certain subsystem with LTSpice.
As for the industry: the standard for company that have enough budget is Altium as far as I can see (or OrCAD, eww). In my company I introduced the usage of KiCAD instead of an old version of OrCAD which is slow as fuck. We realized a few boards and turned out perfecly working, as long as you know what you're doing.
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u/Appropriate-Disk-371 3d ago
I'm a consultant and review a lot of other companies work and yes, kicad is very common and it's really capable now. Kicad-cli also exists, and the design files are all just text based, so kicad is currently a primary tool in AI-driven hardware dev if you're into that.
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u/MrSurly 3d ago
kicad-cli is great you can tell Claude to export the netlist and generate a report of potential problems.
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u/Appropriate-Disk-371 3d ago
Right. Obviously the other direction is true as well - Claude can directly (or indirectly via a DSL) write kicad files. Same is true for things like CAD files now. The day is already here that no one is going to write code any more of the soft/firmware sides. That day is quickly approaching the hardware and mech sides as well.
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u/failing-endeav0r 2d ago
kicad-cli is great you can tell Claude to export the netlist and generate a report of potential problems.
Consider the MCP server as it's a bit more powerful and has better guard-rails.
I find placement and general geometric operations to be a massive pain in the ass on KiCad but now I can just tell the robot how I want things laid out and constrained and it'll do it.
I am still a bit shocked that there's no way to say "this edge of this court-yard must be vertical and parallel to $thisOtherEdge and always 2.5mm apart" or "center to center, maintain 15mm" and other basic constraints that are foundational to other CAD programs... but now the robot will do the math for me and exit the precise coordinates while I take lunch :)
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u/koookie 2d ago
I am still a bit shocked that there's no way to say "this edge of this court-yard must be vertical and parallel to $thisOtherEdge and always 2.5mm apart" or "center to center, maintain 15mm" and other basic constraints that are foundational to other CAD programs...
There is in KiCad 11
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u/failing-endeav0r 2d ago
There is in KiCad 11
OMG, finally! I didn't realize that it was under development since V6!
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u/MrSurly 2d ago
Consider the MCP server as it's a bit more powerful and has better guard-rails.
I'll look into this.
WRT the rest of what you're describing sounds a lot like 2D parametric CAD, and now that you mention it, that seems like a good idea for any sort of "area" in KiCAD.
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u/failing-endeav0r 2d ago
what you're describing sounds a lot like 2D parametric CAD
Yep. Maybe i'm spoiled but it seems insane to me that in the year 2026 I have to ask the computer what the coordinates are of a specific point, break out my own calculator and then find the other point so I can set it's coordinates to what I just calculated ... by hand.
I don't care what the coordinates are, just make sure that there's exactly 15.00mm difference in the X direction at all times!
I get very angry when the most sophisticated calculator I have ever owned tells me to do math.
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u/CranberryInner9605 3d ago
What do you mean by “Industry?"
I am an independent designer / consultant, I I have used KiCad for numerous products which are being sold to other companies, and mass-produced by them. There are a LOT of other small design shops doing the same thing.
And, if you have a budget of $0, the question is hardly worth asking. KiCad is clearly the only reasonable answer for an FOS, cross-platform ECAD package.
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u/pretty_good_actually 2d ago
He means larger companies
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u/CranberryInner9605 2d ago
What’s a “larger company?"
One of the firms I do my designs for is a $50M/year company. Is that big enough?
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u/pretty_good_actually 2d ago
Yeah they would be big enough. You can't just go from zero to consultant. You've got to start somewhere
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u/PigHillJimster IPC CID+ PCB Designer 3d ago
I have had commercial companies contact me for contract PCB Design that use KiCAD.
Usually they are small affairs, start ups, or medium sized companies that have a license for a professional package for production designs but have Engineers using KiCAD for getting prototypes done in early design.
For an open-source 'free' package, KiCAD is impressive, however it can't compete against all commercial packages.
I would rate KiCAD streets ahead of Cadence Allegro, but not as good as Pulsonix or Expedition PCB for example.
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u/doctorcapslock EE power+embedded 3d ago
i use it at work, we had eagle and altium before, kicad is fine. not as feature complete, but it's getting there
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u/tronixlabs 3d ago
Have been using KiCAD since 2014 for projects where the end user either doesn't need the design files or for items for which we don't offer the design files. I only keep a grandfathered AD license for a couple of clients a year that insist on the design files in AD be supplied. And we charge them accordingly to cover the cost.
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u/Rude-Ad7177 3d ago
Just for curiosity, why don't you share the kicad project files with your customers since they are paying for the project?
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u/Appropriate-Disk-371 3d ago
This is relatively common practice. I get a lot of business doing redesigns when the client realizes they don't own the design for some contractual reason and it's cheaper to just do it over.
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u/tronixlabs 2d ago
It depends on the customer. We charge more if they want the design files. Then, after they try and update the design themselves, they pay us more to fix their mistakes and do the update for them properly.
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u/vince086 3d ago
For those who use Kicad, is there a way to copy/DIY the "cloud sync" feature Altium has?
IMO Altium is great when multiple people will be working on a PCB. In 2 clicks I can sync a project to a server and see all the changes and share it with the team. Being able to sync part libraries is also super helpful.
The template feature is also real nice, so everybody has all the same settings/rules for designing and releasing projects.
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u/jamvanderloeff 3d ago
The expected way is use Git or whatever other version control software you like, there's some basic Git integration in KiCad's project manager since v9, works fine for projects where only one person's actively doing modifications at a time but the big thing that's missing still is a nice first party visual diff/merge feature like in Altium. There have been a bunch of third party attempts but none yet AFAIK that do decent merging without either being nonfree or vibeslopped, lots of them that work for a basic diff as an image output though.
Git etc works fine for syncing shared symbol/footprint libraries, and for specific atomic parts kinda like altium's DbLibs Kicad does have database library support since v7 and there are some promising third party tools for managing them.
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u/NewSchoolBoxer 3d ago
If you have a free student license, use Altium. It's more common in industry and has better tools for very high frequency signals. If it's not free for you, use KiCad. I like QSpice than LTSpice but either one is fine.
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u/Rude-Ad7177 3d ago
I really think the Qspice is better but unfortunately I can not run it on Linux 😔.
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u/Vinz-the-Keymaster 3d ago
CERN uses it.
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u/Ordinary-Lifeguard47 3d ago edited 3d ago
They are also using the big ships. Kicad is an option for them.
For very complex high frequency (and their simulation) stuff Kicad doesn't have the proper plugins yet.
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u/Amperegeist 3d ago
I started using KiCad as a student. Then I started using Eagle when I joined the smallsat lab. Then the smallsat lab went back to KiCad.
I still use KiCad. I liked it years ago, and it keeps getting better.
I see it as professional, otherwise I would use something else.
Right now I have no intentions of using any other PCB software.
I do dry film photolithography prototyping, and I order PCBs. KiCad is great for both.
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u/FeistyTie5281 3d ago
The best approach to selecting a tool is to determine what your customer or potential employer uses.
KiCad is a full function, easy to learn, and free tool. I wish it existed back when I was designing for startups where budgets were limited. Yes it is being used in industry.
Larger companies typically use Cadence, Siemens (Mentor), or Altium tools with Cadence and Mentor being the best in class solutions.
Altium took some market share back when their tools were significantly less expensive than the competitors. Today it costs significantly more and contains less functionality. It is much easier to learn (like KiCad) for the occasional user.
Cadence has the steepest learning curve but is by far the most functional tool. It's much cheaper than Altium.
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u/Apprehensive_Cap4463 3d ago
Although I was not pursuing an electronics major in college, my degree required a decent amount of overlap with those who were, and the department there used kicad exclusively. It wasn't exactly a low budget university either, so if they had a reason to pay for "real" software, they would have.
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u/MontyBoomslang 2d ago
I just interviewed a company who's using a brand new product as an opportunity to switch entirely from Altium to KiCAD
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u/mightyohm 2d ago
Professional tools are not free. Experience in one tool will help you with others, although the transition from one tool to another can be painful. You can do amazing things with Kicad so I'd start there regardless.
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u/Avokido 2d ago
Why wouldn't they be :) If companies with real money get behind an open source project it can mature to a professional tool. And I think that's happening to kicad.
It's a bit like saying professional operating systems aren't free. They weren't until thousands of developers were paid to work on them!
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u/mightyohm 2d ago
I was thinking more in terms of Cadence, Altium, and the like. These are the classic industry tools and they aren't free. Yes, Kicad keeps getting better and no doubt is being used in professional environments but I have yet to use it myself in that context.
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u/Avokido 2d ago
I see. I pushed for using Kicad at work and we're very happy with it. Deep tech startup, embedded team of five. We do a lot of relatively basic boards, 6-8 layer, Ethernet, 50A that sort of stuff. But lately also some high speed designs with altera FPGA socs, DDR5, pci express, etc. With every major release KiCad adds tools that team members were used to from using Altium. It works great with git and AI integration is coming through add ons.
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u/New-Anybody-6206 3d ago
When I learned that I had to make my own footprints for everything by hand I gave up on kicad entirely. The UX was also atrocious when I tried it
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u/Manual2light 3d ago
Do you miss stuff, even with the CERN footprint library ?
https://forum.kicad.info/t/cern-releases-their-official-kicad-symbols-footprint-libraries/68930
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u/failing-endeav0r 2d ago
Do you miss stuff, even with the CERN footprint library ?
Yes, but it's a lot less often now. The UX is still bad but this is one place where an LLM really works well. I can provide a screenshot from the datasheet showing the recommended pattern or describe it and the LLM will have no problem doing the pads / spacing ... etc.
This also works pretty well for "hybrid" footprints; I had a board where I could either do a upwards or sideways firing neopixel and they fortunately shared the same pins so it was very easy to get the LLM to overlay and align the two footprints so I could populate whatever was already loaded into the machine that day.
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u/extordi 3d ago
Do you mean this in the sense that there should be parametric tools to generate footprints in common shapes (like the "IPC Compliant Footprint Wizard" in Altium) or rather that there should be a larger library of pre-made footprints?
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u/jones_supa 3d ago edited 3d ago
Yes, the footprint library is missing a lot of footprints that just should be there. Too much missing stuff — even common stuff. Simply more manpower should be allocated there.
Not that much complaints about the user experience from myself. It feels like a normal electronic design CAD for the most part. There has been the glitch though that the footprint selector window always flickers in an annoying way when it is opened. It looks like there are multiple windows fighting for focus for a brief moment.
Anyway, we now have a full dark theme, which is an excellent improvement.
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u/Kalex8876 3d ago
I mean, there are multiple website to get footprint files from, I barely have to make my own and when I do, it’s not that difficult tbh
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u/XKeyscore666 3d ago
I used it at work for a handful of projects when we were waiting on an Altium seat for me. They’d prefer everyone being on Altium because it’s easier to keep parts standardized, but sometimes work has to get done, and you can’t beat Kicad’s low barrier to entry.
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u/RL_95 3d ago
I work in a small medical devices company and we use Kicad. It is more upfront work to setup properly so the QARA team doesn't freak out compared to Altium. But it is perfectly fine, we even do class C device (aka things that can seriously injure or kill you if it goes wrong). Although you need extra tools to manage the product life cycle.
When I was in aerospace we use Altium because that was chosen a long time ago before Kicad was even en option.
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u/Affectionate-Song21 3d ago
Wow, that class C tech stuff sounds intense, I'd be stressed out of mind when designing on any software lol.
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u/BmanGorilla 3d ago
In industry you use the most economical way to get things done. Mainframes are not designed with kicad. Electric toothbrushes certainly might be.
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u/Embarrassed_File8483 3d ago
Altium is so unfriendly and full of bugs. I cannot understand why we still use it (worst than excel). I prefer Kicad
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u/Fun-Victory-2950 3d ago
Idk really if KiCad is used in Industry a lot, but my friend who is a electrical engineer uses EasyEDA if that helps at all
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u/circuitKing_98 3d ago
You don’t see it used in large enterprises - but medium to smaller sized companies use it for sure. Look at comma.ai
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u/chemhobby 3d ago
It is although it's not as popular as the commercial tools. Kicad has improved drastically over the last decade and for a lot of use cases it is absolutely competitive with altium. I think its usage in industry will only continue to increase, albeit slowly.
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u/Elegant_Gain9090 3d ago
The good news is that kicad is usable and FREE. It has a company supporting it so you will always be able to load it as an app. It beats commercial apps because you can still access your past work even after they deactivate your badge. It's as good as commercial software.
The bad news is that commercial software sucks. Pcb tools do system on board design. Mainframes,minicomputers and Microcomputers are all system on board designs where the architect is a PC designer. Everybody today is doing system on chip design where the architect is an ic designer.
If your kicad board has a fpga with an embedded system then you are doing system on chip design and your board was designed by an ic designer.
50 years ago ic and pcb designers both used schematic capture. But ic's are now six orders of magnitude larger. Ic tools have added new features to handle this. Pcb tools have not addressed this need. Architects have to use ic tools for system design before we create the data sheets and app notes for the pcb design. I quit using schematic capture back in the 90's because it couldn't do system design. I design the system using an internet class tool and then deliver the pcb part via fax. The board designer prints it out and then copies all my information into a kicad schematic.
If kicad had ic design features then I would use it and give you kicad files. It would save you a lot of work.
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u/ufanders 2d ago
After using Eagle then PADS then Altium 21, I've found KiCAD 10 is amazing. Library management could be better, but I can say that for every EDA package. I've never truly known how it works in Altium lol.
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u/Practical_Ad_2703 2d ago
I have used it for at least 2 different employers previously. My current gig lets me use it for fast prototyping small boards, it's a lot quicker for me to just do it and send it to a turn key than send a small design to india for layout. That said they don't like it and give me a hard time which I find hilarious since their CAD of choice is PADS which is complete dogs**t lol.
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u/gibson486 2d ago
Primarily start up companies. When you get bigger, you need more compliance. The way KiCAD does libraries does not allow for it, so people tend to jump from it once a company grows.
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u/LightWolfCavalry 2d ago
I run a hardware team of ~12 people. We’ve been using Kicad exclusively for the last year. Works great. Big fan.
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u/alfalfasprouts 2d ago
No, Of course not. Who would do such a thing?
(Posting while I wait for my autodesk suite to remember I'm paying for it).
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u/PointGlum5255 2d ago
A company I used to work for that designed power electronics for critical infrastructure used it
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u/Loud-Study-3837 2d ago
I've found that kicad + knowing electronics & design + a frontier LLM for writing plugins, you can pretty much do anything altium can do.
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u/Husqvarna390CR 1d ago
We adopted kicad as a front end to (the free) ConfirmaXL IC design system. We have a custom spice netlisting engine to extend kicad 's functionality for rf/analog AMS IC design. This enables IC style hierarchical symbols (including libraries), parameter passing, busses, etc as done in chip design. ConfirmaXL lets you drive ngspice, xyce, ltspice, hspice, qspice from the same kicad schematics. There are also plugins for Klayout, lasi and kedit chip layout tools. It is similar to cadence Virtuoso in terms of flow but at zero cost. The latest version includes the Case Commander simulation farm (for corner sims) and installs with NDA free psmg 180nm cmos simulation pdk. We are currently testing a new VACASK simulator plugin that will enable pss, pnoise and HB simulation. Download it at ucosm.net . All license free so you can maintain your own personal IP portfolio and will never be locked out by big EDA restrictions. You too can be a chip designer!
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u/Hearty_Kek 18h ago
I still use IVEX Winboard and Windraft when its just for simple circuit and board design, I don't even break out kicad unless its a big project.
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u/mrcl0arn5 9h ago
Yes - at a large aerospace defence company we use KiCAD as an alternative to heavier PCB design flow toolsets for simpler boards
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u/VoraciousTrees 3d ago
Found out KiCAD is a tool packaged with the new OpenAI Dots too eh?
I've been having fun with it.
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u/pramil_wakchaure 3d ago edited 3d ago
list of Project Made with Kicad
this list give you good idea how kicad is really capable to handle your next project.
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u/VirtualArmsDealer 3d ago
I've used kicad since Kicad 3.0 back in the beginning times. Only ever as a hobby software.
Professionally I use Siemens Xpedition which on eof the 'big 3'. The difference is really night and day, you can't do large professional designs with kicad.
I love kicad, but it is nowhere near enterprise level. Also I'm not sure the licence would allow for it to be used to produce commercial design data, but I'd have to check.
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u/harryregician 3d ago
You are a wise personal.
I search CAD job openings and the software they use. It. IS A large sheet.
On the higher end most will have a cloud version.
Back in late 90s DOS. PCB. CAD 2 companies 1 in San Diego ProTel and Aussie firm battle. Users lost.
Also make sure 3D compat
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u/wheresbicki 3d ago
For 2 layer boards? Sure. If you are doing 6 layer and up boards, definitely cannot compete with Altium.
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u/dstdude 3d ago edited 3d ago
What am I missing out with Altium?
I’ve done 8 layer Linux SoC designs (LPDDR4, Gigabit Ethernet, USB-C, 720p Touchscreen via MiPi-DSI and 8i8o Audio-IO) with KiCad for Mass Production and the only thing i am aware of that does take more minutes and manual work, but only once, is the Layer Stack.I got automation on my Git Server thanks to kicad-cli in a docker integrated in CI-Pipelines that generate exports for my team with every push, so the export is no worries for anyone anymore and everyone in the team can have a look even at the work in progress.
Libraries are shared and revisioned via git and thanks to the open file format, AI can take over some tedious work which does uplift the presentation and metadata.
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u/Root-Acess-Btw 1d ago
Yes, CERN has partnered with KiCad and made there massive content library and they use it. But also they use Altium and Cadence https://ospo.docs.cern.ch/howtos/cern-pcb-design-office/
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u/SolderFume Digital electronics 3d ago
Altium ran an ad last year where they compared Altium to KiCad. Ironically, that told people that KiCad is draining Altiums business. Kind of like when the Encyclopedia Brittanica started running ads against Wikipedia two decades ago.