PicKit3 still suck?

[LordNobady]

...MikroElektonika stuff... technically reasonable solutions... heavily locked into them...

...Mikroelektronika's walled garden...behind Microchip...doesn't support any ...some quite nice hardware ...not rule out using their boards with a MPLAB supported toolchain.

You both are surely right about everything you say, but how does their mikroPROG compare to PicKit3/ICD3? Speed, settings,...

The mikroPROG is faster then the PicKit3 and slower than the ICD2 and ICD3
It mostly works as just an other programmer, and works well as a debugger with the software. note that the pinout of the mikroPROG is differed.
the PicKit3 can with an external power supply ( usb ) work as an stand alone programmer.

all have about the same functionality.

Does the mikroPROG work as a debugger with MPLAB or is it only compatible with MikroElektronika toolchains?

The pinout also looks substantially different to the ICD/ICSP standard too.

the mikroPROG works only with the MikroElektronika software. no support for MPLAB or the PicKit3/ICD3.

[KL27x]

If you want a PK3 clone, I suggest you stay away from the Sure Electronics version. I bought one recently, and it's a heap. Didn't work out of the box due to VDD error. Even after tweaking some resistors to get it to work, it's still buggy. Even after upgrading the firmware suite, still buggy.

"kit3" clone appears to be pretty solid, but I like the "W" clone the best. Even beter than the genuine PK3. (Certain bug with the genuine that is slightly less problematic with the W clone in P2G mode).

PK2 still comes in handy due to fast software and reliability. If you are interested in any supported devices, I would suggest to anyone to have a PK2 or PK2 clone (most all the PK2 clones appear to be fine; it's a much simpler and cheaper BOM and schematic), in addition to w/e other programmer/debuggers, particularly if you want to use any of the features of the PK3 with the IPE software (this software appears to be one of the buggier parts of the equation.) Easy and fast software and everything works as expected. With the PK3 you are almost guaranteed to have an hour of screwing around, downloading new firmware (if you can even find it), to make it 95% functional. Even the first time you try a new PK3 with IPE, the programmer may curiously fail to connect the first 3-4 times you use it, but each time with a new error, like it's automatically being reconfigured to a different broken configuration each time. A programmer that just works can save you some time of troubleshooting your circuit if you run into issue with the PK3.

You will need another programmer if you want to update the PK3 firmware, proper, or to recover it in case of corruption. Then there are also JAR files with the firmware suite version, which you have to install with MPLAB (if you can find them; this is not the same as the automatic firmware change between families of devices.) The documentation/support with PK3 is a total mess. I think they had too many people working on this project without enough communication, and they ended up with a lot of broken code and hardware/config conflicts. It looks like they focused debugging on the newer 32 bit devices and MPLAB X, so if this is what you're using, then you will probably have smooth sailing.

The hardware looks pretty much identical,

Only on the outside. The hardware is completely different. The PK3 has 3-4x as much circuitry to it. I think they needed more speed and memory to implement debugging and programming of the 32 bit PICs. They also went for a completely cross platform (JAVA) design on the software side.