KiCAD will be the main PCB layout software package in future?

[Faringdon]

Hi,
Ever been  to some company and there arent enough seats for the PCB layout program?
Ever been to a company and people cant work on the PCBs at home because the dongle has to stay at work?
Ever been to a company and you cant find out how to delete some blemish on a footprint?
Cant find out how to copy paste layout subcircuits multiple times into the same PCB?
You use Altium, but your new co have used Altium but used different layers for different things than you did?...your parts are thus all messed up.
Ever gone somewhere and they use an old version of "xxxx" Layout...and its not possible to even start to use it till someone handholds you for several hours?

This will all change
Ever spent $10 on a CD or record album?
Not any more....you just go to youtube and download  music  for free.

This will be the same with PCB layout....KiCAD will be free....it will be the best one...and the one that everyone uses.
Its just the way things go.

Do you agree?

[SiliconWizard]

Ever been  to some company and there arent enough seats for the PCB layout program?

Sure. Not that I particularly cared though, as in most companies I've worked for, there were people dedicated to PCB layout, so not having access to it for others would not matter one bit.
And those were not necessarily all big companies either. This setup works well even in small ones.
Just because you can design a circuit doesn't mean you can layout it properly, so I don't mind dedicated people specialized in that. Just a thought.
Point is, related to your question, sometimes not having access to something is actually better.

Ever been to a company and people cant work on the PCBs at home because the dongle has to stay at work?

Yep, actually never been in one that allowed people working on design stuff at home except for paperwork.
Whether this was dongle-based or with a network license, you just couldn't use it outside of the company's building. A few rare exceptions for those having a VPN.
Of course this has slightly changed ever since the infamous 2020, at which point I was independent anyway. So YMMV.

Ever been to a company and you cant find out how to delete some blemish on a footprint?

Not sure what you mean by that exactly, but if this is about modifying parts and footprints in libraries, then, again that depends on the company's policy.
Letting everyone modify shared libraries is rarely a good idea. So not per se a problem of software.

Cant find out how to copy paste layout subcircuits multiple times into the same PCB?

Certainly. This is more or less well supported depending on the software package you use. Often less than more.

You use Altium, but your new co have used Altium but used different layers for different things than you did?...your parts are thus all messed up.
Ever gone somewhere and they use an old version of "xxxx" Layout...and its not possible to even start to use it till someone handholds you for several hours?

More or less.

This will all change

Will it?

Ever spent $10 on a CD or record album?
Not any more....you just go to youtube and download  music  for free.

This will be the same with PCB layout....KiCAD will be free....it will be the best one...and the one that everyone uses.
Its just the way things go.

Apart from the licensing issues and cost, most of the points you made above can also be said with KiCad. For your last point, just look at what happens when people update major versions of KiCad. It can be a lot of fun too.

Not completely sure what your point was then.

Sure KiCad has become a decent alternative and I have actually finally switched to it for most projects unless not allowed.
But is it the "future" and will it replace every commercial EDA on the planet? I doubt it.

And while open-source and free is great, would it even be desirable that it became the only model used in the future? I'm not so positive about that.
When things become free on a large scale, then you become the product. Anyway.

[LazyJack]

I don't agree fully. Being free (talking about business use) is only a part of the equation. If a non free the tool generates more revenue than what the free tool would, taking the price difference in account, then a business decision would be to go for the non free.
Of course it is not that easy to calculate all this, when you factor in the lower (or higher for that matter) risk, the possibility to being able to develop the tool according to our needs, the use of unlimited licenses, etc.
It will all boil down to wheter KiCad is/will be able to satisfy the needs of intensive commercial use.

[woofy]

I'm not convinced.
Linux has been around in a usable form for a quarter century, but windows still has a 70% market share on the desktop.
But yeah, it will certainly become more popular as it grows in capability.

[langwadt]

Ever been to a company and people cant work on the PCBs at home because the dongle has to stay at work?

Yep, actually never been in one that allowed people working on design stuff at home except for paperwork.
Whether this was dongle-based or with a network license, you just couldn't use it outside of the company's building. A few rare exceptions for those having a VPN.
Of course this has slightly changed ever since the infamous 2020, at which point I was independent anyway. So YMMV.

I seem to remember licenses for some  really expensive tools banning use more than a mile from the company, to avoid people time sharing licenses between continents

[SiliconWizard]

Ever been to a company and people cant work on the PCBs at home because the dongle has to stay at work?

Yep, actually never been in one that allowed people working on design stuff at home except for paperwork.
Whether this was dongle-based or with a network license, you just couldn't use it outside of the company's building. A few rare exceptions for those having a VPN.
Of course this has slightly changed ever since the infamous 2020, at which point I was independent anyway. So YMMV.

I seem to remember licenses for some  really expensive tools banning use more than a mile from the company, to avoid people time sharing licenses between continents

Yup, beyond companies' policies, some licensing schemes would themselves ban the 'remote' use of network licenses.

[eugene]

Ever been to a company and people cant work on the PCBs at home because the dongle has to stay at work?

Well, Rip Van Winkle, while you were sleeping everyone stopped using dongles. Assuming you use a laptop computer at work (and who doesn't? We need to take it to meetings, and home...) then an internet connection replaces the crusty old dongle.

In all seriousness, after leaving the world of a full-time salaried employee in favor of being an independent consultant, I have happily been using KiCad and would recommend it to anyone in my situation*. But, I don't understand the purpose of this thread. The basic premise has been discussed enough times to make me puke. Why bring it up again?

*FYI, when I contract with a company that has standardized on something other than KiCad (i.e. Altium), I require them to provide me with a computer with all of the required software installed and ready to go. When I'm done with the project I return the computer. It's a system that works just fine; no dongles required.

[johnboxall]

Do you agree?

No. Depends on the company and the money. The time saved by using (for example) AD vs KiCAD just in dealing with footprints alone will pay for itself after a day or two a month in engineer time. AU$600-odd a month (before tax deductions) for an AD seat is nothing when you're paying $100++/hour for engineering team members.

[nigelwright7557]

At the end of the day people will assess pcbcad packages and buy or not buy what they feel fits their needs.

I side stepped the pcbcad software buying in 1985 when I wrote my own.
If I want a new function I write it and make it work for my needs.
Full control is a wonderful thing.

[Analog]

Software companies that are having problems with real innovation and providing value to customers seem to go deep into marketing and recurring revenue models. They may have reached market share saturation, have too much overhead, have too much investor ROI demands, or are just lazy. KiCAD doesn't have these issues. IMO, they will be around for a long time while other PCB companies rip themselves apart in an effort to achieve growth. Once you are bitten by SaaS you are unlikely to give it another try at any price. Again advantage KiCAD for the long view. 

[hpw]

Software companies that are having problems with real innovation and providing value to customers seem to go deep into marketing and recurring revenue models. They may have reached market share saturation, have too much overhead, have too much investor ROI demands, or are just lazy. KiCAD doesn't have these issues. IMO, they will be around for a long time while other PCB companies rip themselves apart in an effort to achieve growth. Once you are bitten by SaaS you are unlikely to give it another try at any price. Again advantage KiCAD for the long view.

Someone have to do the SW work even on long term... currently as 7.0.3 not released and 7.0.4 to fix bugs let you fishing for a long time. Take it or leave it 

[Feynman]

KiCad has its place for sure. But it will never replace professional tools on a large scale.

[onsenwombat]

Not too long ago the large scale software development was done pretty much solely (correct me if I talk bs here) on proprietary tools, the version control systems to boot. Look at the field today. Although not extinct by any means, but the "KiCad" alternatives of the SW devs have caught up big time, and depending on your projects, could be all you need/want/get to play with.
How well does this translate in to PCB design, unqualified to say much. Gut feeling says that a bit slower change, and at lower magnitude perhaps as well, but whether it's KiCad or some other OS alternative, I'd be surprised if they won't get noticeable shares in the coming years.

[ebastler]

Not too long ago the large scale software development was done pretty much solely (correct me if I talk bs here) on proprietary tools, the version control systems to boot.

What is your definition of "not too long ago"? The GNU C compiler came out in 1987, the Revision Control System in 1982. Both were serious tools, and were seen and used as such.

[Doctorandus_P]

KiCad had been getting "more professional" quite rapidly for the last few years, and both development and donations are increasing.

I won't be surprised if at some time in the near future some company realizes that in the long term it will be cheaper for them to hire a full time KiCad developer to implement the features missing for them, compared to paying perpetual licenses for (maybe 10+ seats) of some other PCB program that does not even listen to their customers.

[SiliconWizard]

I won't be surprised if at some time in the near future some company realizes that in the long term it will be cheaper for them to hire a full time KiCad developer to implement the features missing for them, compared to paying perpetual licenses for (maybe 10+ seats) of some other PCB program that does not even listen to their customers.

I highly doubt that.

[johnboxall]

KiCad had been getting "more professional" quite rapidly for the last few years, and both development and donations are increasing.

I won't be surprised if at some time in the near future some company realizes that in the long term it will be cheaper for them to hire a full time KiCad developer to implement the features missing for them, compared to paying perpetual licenses for (maybe 10+ seats) of some other PCB program that does not even listen to their customers.

These guys do that type of thing > https://www.kipro-pcb.com/

[nctnico]

I won't be surprised if at some time in the near future some company realizes that in the long term it will be cheaper for them to hire a full time KiCad developer to implement the features missing for them, compared to paying perpetual licenses for (maybe 10+ seats) of some other PCB program that does not even listen to their customers.

I highly doubt that.

I agree. A couple of years ago I actually contemplated on doing just that: pay somebody to implement a database driven component system into Kicad. Problem is that the longer term support also needs to come from somewhere and there is always the chance that the main developers abandon the idea completely leaving you with an unsupported fork. At that time there was also a lot of push-back against having such a feature in Kicad. All in all it made more sense for me to buy a perpetual license for a package that can do what I need out of the box.

[hpw]

KiCad had been getting "more professional" quite rapidly for the last few years, and both development and donations are increasing.

I won't be surprised if at some time in the near future some company realizes that in the long term it will be cheaper for them to hire a full time KiCad developer to implement the features missing for them, compared to paying perpetual licenses for (maybe 10+ seats) of some other PCB program that does not even listen to their customers.

These guys do that type of thing > https://www.kipro-pcb.com/

as on price list: Support for KiCad 5.1-6.0...

So only on no any longer supported SW. This is in questions.

[Karel]

Watch carefully the video on this page:

https://eda.sw.siemens.com/en-US/pcb/digitally-integrated-and-optimized/

Now, ask yourself again if KiCad will ever be at that level... 

[nctnico]

Watch carefully the video on this page:

https://eda.sw.siemens.com/en-US/pcb/digitally-integrated-and-optimized/

Now, ask yourself again if KiCad will ever be at that level... 

Does it have to be at that level? IMHO it doesn't. Judging from various threads Kicad needs a few improvements in the UI + component database support to make it more productive. I'm quite sure Kicad will gain more traction for less complex PCBs and likely eat into other low end packages and Altium's market share as well in a couple of years.

[Karel]

Watch carefully the video on this page:

https://eda.sw.siemens.com/en-US/pcb/digitally-integrated-and-optimized/

Now, ask yourself again if KiCad will ever be at that level... 

Does it have to be at that level? IMHO it doesn't. Judging from various threads Kicad needs a few improvements in the UI + component database support to make it more productive. I'm quite sure Kicad will gain more traction for less complex PCBs and likely eat into other low end packages and Altium's market share as well in a couple of years.

Yeah, I was exaggerating a bit. But ODB++ export is a must nowadays and it's still not in the pipeline.

[nctnico]

From my experience ODB++ is hardly used nowadays. A decade ago some assemblers liked to use ODB++ but the use of ODB++ seems to have faded since then.

[SiliconWizard]

ODB++ is 'next level'? Siemens' tools regularly spit out bizarre and erroneous errors when running Gerber DFMs - rendering pads and footprints with completely distorted aspect ratios, leading to delayed footprint reviews, fixed with a re-run of the DFM. Nothing is perfect. I trust auditable and maintainable OSS a lot more than I trust the spaghetti is behind closed-source tools.

From my experience ODB++ is hardly used nowadays. A decade ago some assemblers liked to use ODB++ but the use of ODB++ seems to have faded since then.

Every one of the ~6 PCBA houses I've interacted with in the last 5 years has demanded ODB++. Some have outright refused to even proceed with production without them -- lost business for them.

IME the demand has dropped a bit, but yes, many assembly houses ask for ODB++ files and some will charge extra if you can't provide that. (Reasons being that it usually takes more manual processing depending on which formats you provide your data in.) That seems to be more common with european manufacturers though. I don't remember of any asian one that asked for ODB++.

And, of course, YMMV. But certainly it's still in use.

[SiliconWizard]

Note that Gerber X3 now includes assembly data. It's going to take a while before it's widely accepted though, but since KiCad supports X2, it'll probably support X3 in the future.
I don't know if it's on their to-do list yet or not.

[SiliconWizard]

I hadn't even heard of X3 yet!

Now you have.
And the official specs are free to download.

[onsenwombat]

Not too long ago the large scale software development was done pretty much solely (correct me if I talk bs here) on proprietary tools, the version control systems to boot.

What is your definition of "not too long ago"? The GNU C compiler came out in 1987, the Revision Control System in 1982. Both were serious tools, and were seen and used as such.

Well yes, but was gcc the workhorse of commercial SW development since 1987? There's been such beasts however such as Borland/Watcom stuff, MSVC, wasn't TI's CCS also for quite some time paid stuff if you didn't want a severely stripped down version, and whatnots. Heck, some companies even used proprietary code editors, Yea, editors, not any compilers, debuggers or somewhat thoroughbred IDEs. And before the git marched victorious, there was stuff like PVCS, which I reckon wasn't free either.

[nigelwright7557]

Software companies that are having problems with real innovation and providing value to customers seem to go deep into marketing and recurring revenue models. They may have reached market share saturation, have too much overhead, have too much investor ROI demands, or are just lazy. KiCAD doesn't have these issues. IMO, they will be around for a long time while other PCB companies rip themselves apart in an effort to achieve growth. Once you are bitten by SaaS you are unlikely to give it another try at any price. Again advantage KiCAD for the long view.

The pcbcad market has been saturated for a long time.
I suspect what will happen will be Kicad forcing competitors out of business.
Its difficult to compete with a competitor who gives the product away.

Of course you can make your software better than Kicad but there comes a point where there is nothing left to add and Kicad catches up.

[Faringdon]

The pcbcad market has been saturated for a long time.
I suspect what will happen will be Kicad forcing competitors out of business.
Its difficult to compete with a competitor who gives the product away.

Of course you can make your software better than Kicad but there comes a point where there is nothing left to add and Kicad catches up.

..Thanks, this is precisely the reason i am not buying Altium...even though the world and his wife seems to be using it now.......because i think KICAD will knock it out... eventually.

[voltsandjolts]

Note that Gerber X3 now includes assembly data. It's going to take a while before it's widely accepted though, but since KiCad supports X2, it'll probably support X3 in the future.
I don't know if it's on their to-do list yet or not.

KiCAD actually had some involvement in the early stages of X3...

https://www.ucamco.com/en/gerber/gerber-x3

[Faringdon]

KICAD  can allow you to name nets on the schem, and then call in a DRC which can allow you to have different clearances for the different net to nets. Eagle cant do this.
Its these kind of things that KICAD does just as well as Altium.
Though KICAD doesnt have a "pusher", but Altium does

[langwadt]

KICAD  can allow you to name nets on the schem, and then call in a DRC which can allow you to have different clearances for the different net to nets. Eagle cant do this.
Its these kind of things that KICAD does just as well as Altium.
Though KICAD doesnt have a "pusher", but Altium does

pusher?

[Karel]

Cadsoft Eagle used a stable and human readable xml format to store schematics and layouts.
KiCad hasn't. It's not even stable (the format).

[nctnico]

Cadsoft Eagle used a stable and human readable xml format to store schematics and layouts.
KiCad hasn't. It's not even stable (the format).

And why is that a problem? It is quite rare that software has a fully backward compatible file format across versions because new features likely require to store new elements that didn't exist in the old version. How is an older version going to deal with that? Delete all data that is used by new features?

[MarkL]

KICAD  can allow you to name nets on the schem, and then call in a DRC which can allow you to have different clearances for the different net to nets. Eagle cant do this.
Its these kind of things that KICAD does just as well as Altium.
Though KICAD doesnt have a "pusher", but Altium does

Actually, Eagle can do both named net classes and different clearances between classes.  The nets are assigned to classes in the schematic editor and the DRC is run from the layout editor.

But Eagle is dead, and has been, and I'm not advocating for it.

[SiliconWizard]

Cadsoft Eagle used a stable and human readable xml format to store schematics and layouts.
KiCad hasn't. It's not even stable (the format).

Define exactly what you mean by "stable", Eagle also introduced new features over the years that obviously made some newer files not fully usable with earlier versions of Eagle.
Now obviously, since Eagle is basically dead and hasn't evolved in years, you can consider the current format fully stable. Sure.

As to the format, KiCad chose S-Expressions rather than XML. Whether you find that less readable is debatable. I'm not a huge fan of this lispy syntax, but that's much easier and faster to parse.
When was the last time you read Eagle schematics and layout XML files and could figure out more things than you would reading a S-Expr KiCad file?

Now having written a library to read Eagle XML files, I can agree that the format (beyond being XML, which was all the rage at the time, a lot less so these days) was well thought-out.

[Karel]

To me it matters when I do a "git diff" after having done some modifications.
With Eagle V7 I understood the output of git diff. With KiCad not so much...

[SiliconWizard]

If that helps: https://dev-docs.kicad.org/en/file-formats/sexpr-schematic/

[DarkMode]

ah Linux, I tried it ONCE 

Not a fan of Windows, but I get licence keys and I pay 1/10th of what the retail box says and I'm fine with that.

Those on Hard Mode love this stuff, me, I'm looking for the Windows installer, sorry Github 

[DarkMode]

This is the exact same debate with other Free software aka Blender