KiCAD must be moving up in the world if people are using it for 6-layer boards. Or Altium, at US$5,500/year, is now too expensive even for pros.
I'd thought of KiCAD as a hobbyist tool. It didn't have the intensive library support of a pro tool. Footprints and 3D models were user submissions and not well curated or tested.
Footprints might need some manual tweaking.
With a pro tool, you're paying for a small army of people doing data entry on part info. Has KiCAD improved in that area?
KiCAD must be moving up in the world if people are using it for 6-layer boards.
With every release of KiCad, the difference between KiCad and Altium gets smaller and smaller.
With a pro tool, you're paying for a small army of people doing data entry on part info.
That has never been my experience using any PCB tool (even the truly big boys like Expedition or Allegro). Any libraries managed by an entity external to the people designing PCB boards have always been a disaster. If you haven't personally put something on a board, it is, practically by definition, broken.
Anyone using a "pro" tool (Expedition or Allegro) has their own army of people managing their library.
I could rant yet again about how Altium screwed themselves by encrypting libraries so that you had to subscribe to them, but I'm tired of that rant.
In Altium's stead, KiCad has been eating up the bottom end more and more. There are still some missing features (copper on inner footprint layers, flex board stackups), but they get fewer and fewer with each release. And Autodesk's moves with Eagle have hastened even more people onto KiCad.
People 100% use KiCad for 6+ layers. My most recent design has 6 and KiCad didn't break a sweat. There's a 12-layer CERN design that ships with KiCad as a demo, even.
No tool has libraries that never need tweaking for a design. 99% of KiCad library parts will never need touching in a usual "simple" design, but no one library part can cover all eventualities. Any tool that promises a library that doesn't ever need to be touched is lying or naive. You should also always check footprints wherever they come from, even if you paid for them.
KiCad has a new library team, and the parts in the library are revolutionarily better then they were say, 5 years ago.
Comments
KiCAD must be moving up in the world if people are using it for 6-layer boards. Or Altium, at US$5,500/year, is now too expensive even for pros.
I'd thought of KiCAD as a hobbyist tool. It didn't have the intensive library support of a pro tool. Footprints and 3D models were user submissions and not well curated or tested. Footprints might need some manual tweaking. With a pro tool, you're paying for a small army of people doing data entry on part info. Has KiCAD improved in that area?
With every release of KiCad, the difference between KiCad and Altium gets smaller and smaller.
That has never been my experience using any PCB tool (even the truly big boys like Expedition or Allegro). Any libraries managed by an entity external to the people designing PCB boards have always been a disaster. If you haven't personally put something on a board, it is, practically by definition, broken.
Anyone using a "pro" tool (Expedition or Allegro) has their own army of people managing their library.
I could rant yet again about how Altium screwed themselves by encrypting libraries so that you had to subscribe to them, but I'm tired of that rant.
In Altium's stead, KiCad has been eating up the bottom end more and more. There are still some missing features (copper on inner footprint layers, flex board stackups), but they get fewer and fewer with each release. And Autodesk's moves with Eagle have hastened even more people onto KiCad.
People 100% use KiCad for 6+ layers. My most recent design has 6 and KiCad didn't break a sweat. There's a 12-layer CERN design that ships with KiCad as a demo, even.
No tool has libraries that never need tweaking for a design. 99% of KiCad library parts will never need touching in a usual "simple" design, but no one library part can cover all eventualities. Any tool that promises a library that doesn't ever need to be touched is lying or naive. You should also always check footprints wherever they come from, even if you paid for them.
KiCad has a new library team, and the parts in the library are revolutionarily better then they were say, 5 years ago.