KiCad 6.0.0 Release Announcement(kicad.org) |
KiCad 6.0.0 Release Announcement(kicad.org) |
Anyway fortunately I found that someone else has made an alternative PCB designer using the Kicad core engine (which is good) but with a sane UI. Well mostly sane. There are a few rough edges but it's waaaaaay easier to use than Kicad.
I recommend trying it: https://github.com/horizon-eda/horizon
I still haven't tried LibrePCB but Horizon is better than the other free options: Eagle (awful), GEDA (bad), Kicad (powerful but badly designed) and DesignSparkPCB (surprisingly decent).
It's extremely simple, but it works. Some parts work really well, such as component creation which is sort of kickads big weakness.
Overall, I liked it and prefer it to kicad for simpler designs.
It isn't so much about Altium features being that gating element. Given what was coming in KiCAD 6.0 I made the decision to make the transition with that version. Altium has turned into a complete mess. Bugs keep piling up. They release hot fixes and create new bugs. The company seems to have focused on attempting to migrate the user base to a cloud-based subscription model and, in my opinion, made a complete mess. They may have been targeting acquisition by Autodesk too, which never happened.
At $2000 per year per license, it is very hard to justify Altium Designer except for the very low percentage of boards that might require specialized features. KiCAD is good for probably somewhere in the range of 90% to 95% of the boards anyone makes. Let's put it this way: I've created multilayer gigahertz-range controlled-impedance boards with far worse tools than KiCAD...not sure what the $2K per year/per license gets me in the case of Altium Designer any more.
And the best part of this is that KiCAD will get better and better over time. We plan on contributing both financially and with development of either plugins and more. We all win.
I see this as the GIMP vs. Photoshop case. At some moment in time GIMP became good enough. After that it became better and better. For most users I think I can say that they would not feel like GIMP lacks anything important these days when compared to Photoshop. KiCAD is definitely headed in that direction.
I have been mulling about creating a startup for helping EE teams transition from Altium to KiCad.
In essence, it would remove the friction points around maintaining both Altium and KiCad in the engineering teams. A small number of Altium seats would be used for the few boards that need specialized features, and everything else would be KiCad. Tons of $$$ would be saved.
Would love to chat about whether you think a service like above would make sense from your standpoint. My contact info is in the about field.
Thank you!