I'll probably transfer over completely for personal projects (I've been doing more and more personal projects in KiCad over time with only PCB->Schematic back annotation holding me back from full transfer-that's fixed in 6.0 with the new file formats). Right now, I'm evaluating KiCad 6.0 for work. I literally picked up KiCad the day after I couldn't extract a symbol from an Altium library and add a couple of missing pins for a new part. They had finally reached the point that they were an alternative to Orcad in commercial engagements, and then they gave it away in order to try to go after subscription revenue. Talk about snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. It was really nice-for about 12-18 months.Īnd then I started getting Altium libraries that I couldn't pull the symbol out of and couldn't use without being logged in.įscking idiots.

To me, the self-own was trying to lock libraries behind subscription.Īltium had just gotten to the point that everybody providing chips was also providing an Altium library footprint and symbol. KiCad will slowly but surely eat everything at the bottom and then start upwards-there's just simply no other decent alternative in the space. This drives me up a tree because it prevents me from sharing a design. That's going to erase Altium for use by small people. PCB software does need features that work.Īltium is infuriating with not killing bugs and introducing new ones every release.ģ) Altium and bunch are basically blocking access to libraries without a subscription fee. Mostly because 'open a VM in the cloud and do all your work there' is becoming really common.Ģ) PCB software, by and large, doesn't need new features.

I would argue that this will, over time, kill anything that isn't. I already split my designs about 50/50 between Altium and KiCad-and that's before KiCad 6.0 which is imminent (6.0RC2 exists right now).ġ) KiCad has one killer feature: it's cross platform. The question becomes: 'Is Altium thousand dollars better than KiCad?' And a lot of the time the answer will now be 'No.' I actually disagree and think Altium will, in fact, be Victim #001 of KiCad.

A365 altium