


The fact that it is OSS means there are no restrictions on board size, number of layers (they go to 16), or pin count. Helped by a team at CERN who not only started using it, but also assigned staff members to actively develop it, it has grown out of being a difficult to use, obtuse and frustrating tool into something that more and more designers are switching to. While there have been a few attempts at open-source EDA software over the years, KiCAD is the first to have some widespread adoption. The most common ones you’ll find are Altium Designer (super $$$), Eagle (reasonably cheap), Mentor Graphics PADS, Cadence Allegro/OrCAD (also $$$), and now, to a degree, KiCAD. It’s fairly rare that I come even anywhere close to that, but with some projects I start to get worried that I’ll run out.ĭipTrace, while professionally made and with a decent user base, is not one of the top CAD programs used in the EE industry. While this doesn’t limit layers, it does limit the number of pins to 500. The prices for the full version are reasonable, but I use the free non-profit version. I’ve used it for a few years now, and I am so familiar with its inner workings that I can be very efficient while using it.
