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I tried KiCAD, but having used Altium for 26 years, I’m sticking with Altium. KiCAD could not do simple things like assign nets to arbitrary polygons, which is

I tried KiCAD, but having used Altium for 26 years, I’m sticking with Altium. KiCAD could not do simple things like assign nets to arbitrary polygons, which is critical for RF layouts. The DRC was really lacking too. Of course it’s probably great for an open source project, but I don’t know anyone using it professionally. We have 20 Altium license at work, and I have one at home for my consulting business. Even at $2k/year maintenance, that’s cheap compared to the other RF software I use. The whole problem with free CAD software is you’ll never get the cross discipline skills needed to develop it without paying someone. For example you need an expert at electromagnetics AND scientific programming AND UI design, etc. That’s a full time job, not a hobby. There is a ton of domain specific knowledge.

Ccecil 6y ago
Yeah...I suspect in certain use cases (especially RF and such) this is a huge difference. I feel some OS projects though do have the required skillsets and contributors who donate the time to make software worthwhile without payment and I have witnessed people put everything into it as if it was a job...but I do agree it is very easy to put off doing a suggested modification or "trivial to function of the software" type of work when you are not being paid to do so. Kicad and Freecad have come a very long way in the last couple years from what I see...even with the shortcomings they might still have. I certainly see them as a Fusion360/Eagle competitor.