Kind of amazing that they're finally working on usability. I did some free usability testing for them years ago and they buried their heads in the sand. Basically "it's fine, how dare you say that it's not intuitive". Very frustrating. I actually got a few private emails from people saying they agreed with me and found it frustrating too but didn't want to speak up on the mailing list.
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 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).
Unfortunately all ECAD fools are quite terrible when it comes to usability, even the commercial ones (Altium, Cadence, Mentor and their ilk). I expect that KiCad’s design is influenced with what’s “standard” in the industry as far the UX of ECAD tools is concerned.
Comments
Kind of amazing that they're finally working on usability. I did some free usability testing for them years ago and they buried their heads in the sand. Basically "it's fine, how dare you say that it's not intuitive". Very frustrating. I actually got a few private emails from people saying they agreed with me and found it frustrating too but didn't want to speak up on the mailing list.
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).
Unfortunately all ECAD fools are quite terrible when it comes to usability, even the commercial ones (Altium, Cadence, Mentor and their ilk). I expect that KiCad’s design is influenced with what’s “standard” in the industry as far the UX of ECAD tools is concerned.
I tested librepcb 1-2 years ago and manufactured a few boards with it.
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.
I can’t say I’ve tried horizon but I might give it a shot. Library management in Kicad certainly was never a joy though functional