Autodesk, on the other hand, has shown signs of crippling Eagle after they bought it, such that I have my doubts about Eagle being viable in 5 years.
If you already know Eagle, it's a tougher call, but if you have just begun learning, I think you're better off with KiCAD.
I definitely recommend putting it into OpenGL mode as you get extra features like nice autorouting and a smoother framerate. Not sure why design features are tied to the rendering engine but that's just how it is for now.
I made all my parts/footprints myself in their editor. The library management is a little convoluted but all it takes is some time on Youtube tutorial videos to get the hang of things.
I like that all the kicad files are text and easily version-controlled so I can have my entire parts library and board designs in git and can easily roll back to previous iterations if needed.
My life has changed since I discovered DipTrace. It is free for non-commercial use and extremely cheap for commercial use - About $100 would get you enough to build small-medium sized projects. And it is just so well engineered. Kudos!
Also, no subscription business. Just good ol' perpetual licenses. DipTrace developers are just amazing people - if you ask nicely, they'll give you a discount if you're a startup.
From a software engineering standpoint, I realize this feels crazy, but its pretty much par for the course. Every organization develops their own libraries for parts and processes their vendors may use, and while there are standard size parts, there is enough variance that it doesn't really make sense.
"Re-implementing" the standard library is sadly par for the course.
If you've ever had a run in with a piece of software called Ultra Librarian you'd probably think highly of KiCad :)
I was planning to design my own ergonomic keyboard. I downloaded some library files for switches, etc, but it was just so painful to even find those switches in the library, I had no idea how to do anything.
I might give it a go again sometime, but it really was so bad I just gave up and let it go, hoping it would improve somewhat in future versions.
I consider it somewhat similar to vim or CLI programs in general in that regard... It violates all conventions you are used to, but internally it is very consistent and well made.
They understand PCB design, but they do not understand software design at all.
I wish Altium had a more accessible license for hobbyists because it's amazing. I'll have to check out DipTrace.
Unfortunately there is no good open source EDA software. Sorry but it's true. Also Eagle is the biggest pile of crap I've ever used. Worse than Eclipse. If you don't believe me, download it and then try to work out how to copy and paste something.
The best free, closed source software is DesignSpark PCB. It's still a little weird (e.g. zooming warps the cursor) but it at least is fairly logical to use. You can work it out without extensive tutorials. And there aren't any limits on part numbers of PCB sizes unlike Eagle or MultiSim Blue.
Let me say it again - if you are a beginner DO NOT USE EAGLE! DO NOT USE KiCAD! Either pirate Altium, or use DesignSpark PCB.
Trust me, the difference is like "oh wow designing PCBs sure is complicated! I'm going to need to read a book and watch some tutorials or something" vs "huh this is much easier than I always thought it would be - it's basically MS Paint".
I've been an Eagle user for years. After Autodesk bought it, the program has been hugely improved and new functionality is added several times a year. I have rarely see a mature software package develop this fast...
It's a subscription model,which I know some people don't like. But for a professional cad program it's not expensive. In the same ballpark as Photoshop. Competitors charge several orders of magnitude more.
Case in point they've drastically improved the horrible CAM export process in previous versions. And push and shove routing is a god send.
Agreed. KiCAD has had for 3+ years as well, though.
There are other options which may be of interest. Altium have one, I think it's called circuit maker, and digi-key have schemeit.
Its hard to try new things when you have access to a professional package and library. I'd really like to try something free but the motivation has been a challenge.
I didn't like my first install as it required me to be on the internet for library parts. On a later install I found the option to have them locally and that works better for doing layouts on airplane trips.
I tried Eagle a few years ago enough to make a couple designs, but never got proficient at it, just "passable". I found KiCAD easier than Eagle, but it was also several years later and my second such package, so I'm sure just being deeper in the hobby was a big part of that ease.
Yes, KiCAD, for some reason, has a GUI for library management which is both nonstandard and confusing. The schematic symbol library manager and footprint library manager have similar GUIs but behave quite differently.
Schematic editing isn't bad, although it has the worst approach to wire junctions ever seen in a schematic editor. The dot where wires connect is an entity separate from the wires, and can be omitted or moved, with negative effects on the netlist.
Layout is OK, but, as mentioned, the footprint library isn't very good. Expect to spend time looking at manufacturer data sheets and drawing footprints to match.
There's an autorouter, but due to some political problem you have to download it from another site and rename it. The autorouter and the design rule checker don't quite agree on some tight clearances, which can be a problem.
It's open source, and widely used, so you know it's not going away.
Just to expand on this, KiCad is an abomination stitched together from the corpses of about six different programs. There are four different graphical editors (schematic part, schematic, pcb footprint, pcb layout) which look somewhat similar but have notably different user interface conventions for selecting, moving, copying and deleting objects, making it frustrating to switch between them. To make it even better, the PCB layout program has three different options for the "canvas" (ie. the layout area) which again have different interface conventions, and additionally some features are only available in some canvases and will simply fail to work if another canvas is selected.
These programs communicate via export/import functions instead of being properly integrated so the process to add a component to a circuit board involves five different programs and four export steps. You also can't back-annotate any changes at the PCB level back to the schematic (or at least, it's a royal pain to do so.)
Once you get your workflow going and you've pushed past the worst of the confusion, it works just well enough that it's easier to put up with the pain for now and allow your resentment to simmer than it is to figure out how to build the damn thing so you can fix it yourself.
(For comparison, I used EAGLE back in 2004 or so, and I thought it was pretty good. I'm not sure what they've done to it since then to garner such animosity.)
Last time I checked, Scheme-it was basic web-based schematic capture, not layout.
They're backed by CERN [1] (who fund actual people working on the project) and, as I'm happy to realize now, my own University of Grenoble :)
So the project is here to stay, and I really enjoyed learning how to use it.
To me, that's a deal breaker for what amounts to a code/IP editor, especially if you haven't yet invested the time to become proficient. If you have, you face perhaps a tougher choice.