Electronics > KiCad
From Eagle to KiCad - Is it worth it?
ppTRN:
Hi,
I am an Eagle user, and it seems to me that it is a whidely spread opinion that since it was held to Autodesk it is not receiving the - how can I call it - "necessary attention". I use eagle both for work and for education (I am a teacher), so having a full license is not an issue.
Now the big question. Would you suggest me to INVEST TIME AND ENERGY in switching to KiCad?
I am not asking this question lightely, i know that learning KiCad is going to take time and effort, so i would expect some kind of return in the long term. Speaking of "long term", another reason i am tempted to switch to KiCad is that updates seems to be more frequent and consistent.
Thank you.
ataradov:
You don't really have an option (apart from switching to something else). Eagle is officially dead. The only path forward is the Fusion 360 integrated version, but as they admitted themselves, it is mostly a complete rewrite.
I was a heavy Eagle user and I did the switch around the time KiCad v6 was released. It was not painful at all. It took some time to figure out where the things are. And I would not switch back even if Eagle somehow became relevant again. KiCad is just better.
In education setting Fusion 360 may be a good option too, but it still won't be the old Eagle, so you would have to learn new stuff anyway. And in that case might as well use KiCad.
SiliconWizard:
--- Quote from: ataradov on January 13, 2023, 08:52:37 pm ---You don't really have an option (apart from switching to something else). Eagle is officially dead. The only path forward is the Fusion 360 integrated version, but as they admitted themselves, it is mostly a complete rewrite.
--- End quote ---
Yeah. I remember having claimed that a while ago (maybe one or two years ago?) and got some pretty strong reactions. ;D
But history is showing we were right.
--- Quote from: ataradov on January 13, 2023, 08:52:37 pm ---I was a heavy Eagle user and I did the switch around the time KiCad v6 was released. It was not painful at all. It took some time to figure out where the things are. And I would not switch back even if Eagle somehow became relevant again. KiCad is just better.
In education setting Fusion 360 may be a good option too, but it still won't be the old Eagle, so you would have to learn new stuff anyway. And in that case might as well use KiCad.
--- End quote ---
I never liked Eagle and fortunately haven't had to use it myself in ages - except for just viewing designs.
But I have used Altium and Cadstar extensively, and switched to KiCad 6 a few months ago. I already had some experience with KiCad, but of course there are some quirks you'll learn along the way, as with any other CAD program.
For switching, the most painful part, which is not specific to KiCad, are the libraries. If you are a long-term user of Eagle, you probably have large libraries of parts that you have built and validated over time, and you'll have to more or less start from scratch again. Also, don't trust third-party libraries too much, always check. There's a LOT of dodgy KiCad symbols and footprints out there.
ataradov:
--- Quote from: SiliconWizard on January 13, 2023, 09:08:53 pm ---Yeah. I remember having claimed that a while ago (maybe one or two years ago?) and got some pretty strong reactions. ;D
But history is showing we were right.
--- End quote ---
At this point they explicitly stated that in their forum post. So, this is not a speculation or a guess anymore, it is a fact.
--- Quote from: SiliconWizard on January 13, 2023, 09:08:53 pm ---For switching, the most painful part, which is not specific to KiCad, are the libraries. If you are a long-term user of Eagle, you probably have large libraries of parts that you have built and validated over time, and you'll have to more or less start from scratch again.
--- End quote ---
I only use my own libraries and that was the first thing I did - migrate all my libraries (apart from a few devices that were only useful in a single project long time ago). It took about a week. But it also gave me an opportunity to clean up my graphics and general library structure. And doing that gave me a lot of training to get used to editing features, grid behaviour and stuff like that.
Thankfully both systems use plain text files for the libraries, so the pin assignments and other really critical parts were done in the text editor, where it is much harder to make an error and the process is pretty fast.
ppTRN:
That's it then. So sad to watch such a powerful software just die. But I guess that's the price for progress. Since we're here, any suggestion on where to start? Phil's Lab youtube channel often posts videos of entire boards designed with KiCad. I may start there.
As you said, the main problem is just to learn again how to quickly find commands and, most importantly, learn to design components that are not in any built in library
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