PCB / EDA Popularity.

[Doctorandus_P]

I was curious about the relative popularity / use of the EDA programs in this section so I did a (manual) count by program and year.

Edit: I only listed the programs which have their own section here on EEVBlog (and counted the posts by year in them), so it is wildly incomplete, The List:  https://www.eevblog.com/forum/eda/pcbeda-software-list/ here on EEVBlog has some 200 programs listed...


Year   EGL   DIP      Alt      KiC      Cir
2011   08      05      30      4      0   
2012   29      15      73      17      0   
2013   31      18      95      13      0   
2014   34      17      185      37      0   
2015   42      24      167      49      0   
2016   42      10      180      46      17   
2017   54      14      214      53      98   
2018   28      14      192      48      36   
2019   21      06      147      48      15   
2020   29      07      157      72      14   
2021   14      08      128      46      12   
2022   11      01      053      36      5   (Only first 6 months).


I did not include Geda, usage was so low it's even been removed as a separate forum section.
There is a sharp decline after the Eagle Crashed in 2017.   
It's quite curious Altium also had it's peak in 2017, and it has almost halved since then. 
Diptrace are slowly declining for several years in a row.
KiCad is quite steady or probably slowly growing. 
Circuit maker was apparently a one-off non maintained program and started dying shortly after it's introduction.

Don't be too quick to draw any conclusions from this little table. There are a lot of EEVblog forum users, but the EDA part is relatively small, and each EDA suite has it's own forum with probably a lot more traffic. A high thread count is also not a direct popularity indication, some program may just be vague or have another reason more people ask questions.

[E-Design]

... and this doesnt include professional packages like Mentor Graphics or Cadence... so this is a hobby use popularity only? might want to clarify that.

[eugene]

I would think that the price of Altium means that few hobbyists use it.

In the end, the data is simply collected from this website and reflects what members of this site post about. Taken for what it is, it's interesting. Taken for what it's not will lead to incorrect conclusions.

[eugene]

Because I like graphs better than tables.

[PlainName]

This might not be due to popularity alone but difficulties with the application. After all, hardly anyone posts to say they are having zero problems with their toy - most posts are asking how to do something, or complaining about something, or less often asking if it does something.

[nctnico]

This might not be due to popularity alone but difficulties with the application. After all, hardly anyone posts to say they are having zero problems with their toy - most posts are asking how to do something, or complaining about something, or less often asking if it does something.

True. For example: Even if there was a section for Cadence / Orcad on this forum, you wouldn't find many questions here since Orcad has it's own forum which contains a wealth of information on how to tackle more complicated tasks or how to correct certain error messages.

[Karel]

This might not be due to popularity alone but difficulties with the application. After all, hardly anyone posts to say they are having zero problems with their toy - most posts are asking how to do something, or complaining about something, or less often asking if it does something.

True. For example: Even if there was a section for Cadence / Orcad on this forum, you wouldn't find many questions here since Orcad has it's own forum which contains a wealth of information on how to tackle more complicated tasks or how to correct certain error messages.

I guess the same is true for KiCad. They have their own forum where you find many solutions and howto's.

https://forum.kicad.info/

[free_electron]

I guess the same is true for KiCad.

any CAD software.
I often wonder why people ask tool specific questions on public forums. There are dedicated forums by the tool maker with a lot larger user base and knowledge availability.
Generic PCB design questions i can understand, its an electronics forum.

[PlainName]

Maybe it's more comfortable to ask people you already interact with, and you don't have to join some weirdo support forum (with all that entails - new name, new password, 'security' checks, etc) just to ask one question. Also, some support forums are very busy so your query gets lost in the noise, or the loud forum users are shitheads and you don't like the way they respond to stuff. Finally, many support forums are unsupported by the vendor (they are unofficial user-moderated forums where developers rarely visit).

[NivagSwerdna]

Well I moved from DipTrace to KiCAD... and that's probably reflected in the graph.

EEVBlog Forum has a wide range of contributors from very amateur to very professional so it's probably hard to calculate for a specific population?

[free_electron]

Maybe it's more comfortable to ask people you already interact with,
and you don't have to join some weirdo support forum (with all that entails - new name, new password, 'security' checks, etc) just to ask one question.
Also, some support forums are very busy so your query gets lost in the noise,
 Finally, many support forums are unsupported by the vendor (they are unofficial user-moderated forums where developers rarely visit).

i'm talking official support forums. from the vendor ....
you get access if you have a license... and that may be one of the issues.

[PlainName]

Maybe. I have an Altium license and prefer to ask here

Actually, my first act is to google, then come here. Unless it's an actual bug and then I report it to the buglist or a support chap.

[Karel]

I don't like most of the vendor supported forums which you can access only with credentials.
Often they can't be indexed by DDG and solutions don't show up in the search results.
It's almost like they have something to hide...

Also, this forum is easily readable. The forum software used by some companies or organizations are terrible
(e.g. autodesk/Eagle, KiCad). I guess they think engineers use their cellphones to do their job.

[eugene]

The official support forums often just don't provide the utility that one might hope. I don't know if they massage the threads to suit themselves. Doesn't matter if they do, because coming to a place like this is often just more useful.

Not sure what to say about kicad.info. I've been using KiCad for a few years, and as active as that forum is, I don't usually find what I'm looking for there.

[Bassman59]

Not sure what to say about kicad.info. I've been using KiCad for a few years, and as active as that forum is, I don't usually find what I'm looking for there.

If nobody else has your problem, there won't be any posts about it. You should probably write a post asking for help in whatever it is you're looking for. It will probably be answered, and the next person that has your problem will find your post and the answer.

I think that's how such forums operate. I could be wrong.

[ebclr]

You data shows that people making PCB are going down drastically

[Doctorandus_P]

You data shows that people making PCB are going down drastically

No, it does not.
It only shows that people post less questions about EDA programs on the EEVBlog forum, for all programs with a separate section, except KiCad. Questions for KiCad seems to be steady for quite some years.

[thm_w]

I would think that the price of Altium means that few hobbyists use it.

In the end, the data is simply collected from this website and reflects what members of this site post about. Taken for what it is, it's interesting. Taken for what it's not will lead to incorrect conclusions.

Lots of hobbyists use solidworks and altium, no need to pay for it.

[Warhawk]

I would think that the price of Altium means that few hobbyists use it.

In the end, the data is simply collected from this website and reflects what members of this site post about. Taken for what it is, it's interesting. Taken for what it's not will lead to incorrect conclusions.

Lots of hobbyists use solidworks and altium, no need to pay for it.

How do you get solidworks free of charge?
AFAIK Altium corporate users can have a second installation on their private PC. Or so. depends on the license etc.

PS: I use solidedge community edition.

[Karel]

How do you get solidworks free of charge?

Never heard of cracked versions downloadable from the internet?
I don't encourage it but unfortunately it's what a lot of people do...

[Uky]

I am old-fashioned enough to favor forums that contains more text and less flashy graphics.
I also suspect that users are spread-out over many different discussion platforms and services.

Cadence that I use maintains forums of their own that are open but in order to download updates,
report bugs and check for documentation, a valid support account is needed.
Such an account comes with an annual fee which is quite expenceive.

As I have come to understand it, perpetual licenses for payed software is becoming less common.
Instead, annual subscriptions or "Software as a Service" / In the "cloud" is how marketing
tries to tie up customers today, a business model that I will never buy into/accept.

I have quite few friends in the PCB design community that uses KiCAD for projects that does not require
extenceive signal integrity simulation or specific features found in the high-end tools like
Mentor(Siemens) VX or Cadence Allegro.

[Doctorandus_P]

Both the Diptrace and KiCad forums are (just like the EEVBlog forum) freely viewable and searchable by anyone using a web browser:

https://diptrace.com/forum/
https://forum.kicad.info/

While trying to view the altium forum you just get redirected to some login page:
https://live.altium.com/signin?prmGotoUrl=https%3A%2F%2Fforum.live.altium.com%2F%23%2F

But in the end, when I have a question I can not find an answer to in the manual, then the second choice is to search on internet or directly on the support forum of that program. Quite a big chunk of such forums are the same questions being asked and answered repeatedly, and the dedicated support forum is much more likely to have an answer then  here on EEVBlog.

[nctnico]

I guess the same is true for KiCad.

any CAD software.
I often wonder why people ask tool specific questions on public forums. There are dedicated forums by the tool maker with a lot larger user base and knowledge availability.

There is a good reason: a related public forum is often visited by a crowd of people where vendor forums are more hit & run. So on vendor forums there have to be a couple of people active who are employed by the vendor to answers questions and maybe a couple of die-hard users but other than that the amount of knowledge is limited. On a more generic forum chances are that your question is picked up by somebody that has come across a problem. All in all it makes sense to post the question on several fora.

[thm_w]

How do you get solidworks free of charge?

Never heard of cracked versions downloadable from the internet?
I don't encourage it but unfortunately it's what a lot of people do...

*fortunately

Depending on what you are a user of, if you use the software its good for the community (more support and models available). If you use Kicad/Freecad then, its not good for that community.