Asking about an alternative to KiCAD these days is like asking for an open-source alternative to the Linux kernel
Absolutely, I don't know how it's even a contest at this point. KiCad trades blows with multi thousand dollar paid packages like Altium and is constantly improving, and tons of people use it which makes finding tutorials and solutions easy.
Well, while that is true, I don't think asking for alternatives is a bad idea in general. Even if open-source, more options is always better.
There are certainly open-source alternatives to the Linux kernel, btw.
Fully seconded; and I use Tux the Linux Penguin as a mascot.
In particular, I personally am
very happy that
FreeBSD and
OpenBSD exist and are alive. I would not want to live in a world where Linux was the only open source fully-featured OS kernel, at all. (I also would not want to live in a world where all Linux distributions used the same configuration, even though that would make software distribution much easier for some. My reasoning for these is solid, for both end user and even proprietary development, even though some disagree; so let's leave that flamewar for a separate thread, and not derail this one.)
I am now slowly shifting to KiCAD 7, but have done most of my designs in
EasyEDA online, because of how easy it makes everything (the huge component library with official footprints from the component vendor, LCSC, and board and board assembly vendor JLCPCB), and especially because
all my designs are in Public Domain, and EasyEDA can directly publish OSHW projects at oshwlab.com. Of course, I am only a hobbyist with no "real" design experience.
(Some of
my projects are so old they date back to when EasyEDA published projects on the same site. In the transfer, the images of the schematic and board didn't transfer properly, so I should go through them and fix. When opened in EasyEDA, the projects are in their correct state, however; no information has been lost, only the published page lacks the proper project image description.)
Right now, I'd really love to design a
Teensy 4.1 derivative, with a 50mm×50mm/2"×2" square board having 1.27mm pitch single row of pins on the outer edge except at corners, double-sided load, on a JLCPCB-assembled 6-layer board. JLCPCB does have a small number of suitable NXP i.MX RT1062 processors in 10x10mm BGA-196 package available for assembly, with really cheap 6-layer manufacturing options, but bugger me if I can route such a board myself. For the assembly, soldering the BGA, and the tiny passives in sub-0603 packages, would suffice; the rest I could handle. (PJRC does sell the pre-programmed bootloader IC, which would make it easily programmed in Teensyduino, or even bare metal, and that has to be soldered separately anyway.)
Idea would be to either route a hole for the board in any carrier, or use SIL 1.27mm pitch SMT headers (like Harwin M50-3142045R) that have pads in alternating sides, centered on each edge, leaving corners free for perhaps M2.5 mounting holes or (3D-printed) slotted corner stands/holders.