KiCad Blog

I'm a tinkerer and software dev, so my use is very basic. https://www.kicad.org/ is free and open-source It is mature and useful, has a vibrant active community, and is progressing at a healthy pace. It competes with the paid options, but might have rough edges comparatively speaking. I recommend starting here. I've only ever used this. There is also Eagle PCB which is now an Autodesk product. It requires a Fusion360 subscription but I don't know if the free version qualifies. It's a professional tool. Those are the only two I really hear about from the communities I lurk. But I know there are about a dozen or so currently that range from simple to professional.

https://www.kicad.org - It seems to be pretty popular for doing this kind of design. As for learning resources, maybe someone else can answer. I studied CMPE 20 years ago before switching to CS, I'm sure there are better resources out there now for learning (and, in particular, for self-study) than what I could possibly recommend (even if I could remember book titles).

If fritzing gets #1 spot on HN I would like to wholeheartedly recommend https://www.kicad.org/ as well. IMHO much saner workflow and good UX in the latest version.I did a simple PCB and got it manufactured on https://jlcpcb.com/ for a couple bucks. Quite a rewarding experience. I would also suggest that anyone who cares about computers gets to know basic electronics. How do transistors work, what is a bus (e.g I2C or SPI) and how is it all connected? (Drumroll ... a PCB of course). There is a ton of tutorials on youtube that do it end to end. E.g Phils Lab https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rLDqQ2L_mUQ for a PCB design. Or Ben Eaters excellent beginner tutorial "Hello World from Scratch" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LnzuMJLZRdU

You can sketch out your board in KiCad [0] and export it as a gerber that you can send to a printing service. CERN uses it now, so it's worth learning, as it'll only improve over time. As for PCB shops, I'd start with comparing [1] [2] and [3], and seeing which has the best price for your needs. Generally, just searching reddit for "PCB prototype manufacturer" will get you a couple decent options. It really depends on how complicated your design is and how big of a run you need. [0] https://www.kicad.org/ [1] https://www.pcbway.com/ [2] https://jlcpcb.com/ [3] https://oshpark.com/

In 2021, I would not recommend using proprietary EDA software and locking yourself into a single board house. For most purposes, you can use the free KiCad EDA package ( https://kicad.org/ ) combined with a standard PCB vendor like OSH Park ( https://oshpark.com/#services ) or JLCPCB ( https://jlcpcb.com/ ) If you need boards urgently, OSH Park offers a quick turn 2-layer service, JLCPCB offers expedited service and shipping, or you can check a service like PCBShopper to view multiple PCB providers: https://pcbshopper.com/ It's not a good idea to lock yourself and your designs into proprietary systems when the alternatives are cheaper and, in the case of KiCAD, almost certainly superior. It's always good to have more options, but I'd want to see Patchr.io become more transparent (please show pricing without forcing me to create an account first). I'm also highly skeptical of any proprietary EDA software that advertises a 30-day free trial in the era of KiCAD. KiCAD isn't at the level of professional EDA tools yet, but it's more than capable for most designs.

Given "AI" is over 50% of all content now, even if you flip a coin chances are pretty good some article contains slop. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vrTrOCQZoQE The Ubuntu repositories curate both the legacy and more modern logisim fork: sudo apt-get install logisim sudo snap install logisim-evolution Microcap 12 is also still available from the archive.org web cache, was made free, and runs in Wine64 just fine: https://web.archive.org/web/20230214034946/http://www.spectrum-soft.co… Microcap will handle both Analog and Digital simulations. KiCad now also supports Spice, and reports it should import the free LTSpice libraries. I have yet to find a use case for the kicad sim option... so YMMV. https://www.kicad.org/discover/spice/ Best of luck, =3

I downloaded the new Kicad[0] today and stumbled upon a donation messages/banner/header/badge saying 'Far Field Exploits' would match my donation. Intrigued by the name I clicked the name only to be presented by some, seemingly military imagery. In combination with the name of this sponsor it threw me off (far field exploits sounded like a fun engineering exercise at first...). I have no good questions at the time, but anyone have thoughts on this? [0] https://www.kicad.org/

If you want to learn about the mechanics of designing PCBs, install KiCad (https://www.kicad.org/) and go through these tutorials: https://docs.kicad.org/

A feature comparison against KiCAD and Horizon would be helpful? https://www.kicad.org/ https://horizon-eda.org/

Autodesk bought EAGLE in 2016, so just about ten years between acquisition and discontinuation. EAGLE is the first PCB design app I learned (and had a harder onramp than React) so this is sad, but it is important to note that most hobbyists have already switched over to KiCad: https://www.kicad.org/

A few years ago I switched to KiCad https://www.kicad.org/ It's worked well for me, and can use libraries from Digikey and open source contributors.

> What are some professional alternatives to KiCad? I've seen Altium (which already appears leagues ahead of KiCad, but the license fee is really high...) but none others. Kicad is on a good track to become as capable as Altium, if we judge over the last 3-4 years of the progress. I made it a habit to give them money annually via the Donate button on their front page: https://www.kicad.org.

Where is KiCad? CERN pumps quite a lot of money into KiCad. https://www.kicad.org/

Ben Valleck has an ultra-approachable video on building your own keyboard [0]. PCBs are incredibly cheap to print (<$25 shipped for me to print at https://jlcpcb.com, IIRC), and he shows you how to do some mods to the schematic using KiCad [1]. BV also has some crazier minimal keyboard designs like this 18-key split one with lots of layers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yNOGEtqn85o [0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JqpBKuEVinw [1]: https://www.kicad.org/

A Cross Platform and Open Source Electronics Design Automation Suite https://www.kicad.org/

Not sure if you meant only in wxPython or wxWidgets as well, but a big one that is mainly in C++ but also provides Python scripting is KiCad: http://kicad.org

KiCad - https://www.kicad.org/

KiCad EDA - https://kicad.org KiCad is a popular open-source EDA tool used by engineers and designers across the globe. We're always open to contributions from experienced C++ developers, especially those who are also familiar with the world of electrical engineering / PCB design. Check out our developer landing page[1] to find the developers email list and contribution guides. We accept merge requests on GitLab[2] and try to keep a number of lower-scope issues tagged starter [3] for new developers to take on. We're currently in our annual feature freeze as we focus on stabilizing features added in the past year and squashing bugs ahead of our planned 9.0 release at the end of January. Any help testing the nightly builds and surfacing bugs to fix is appreciated as well as actual bug-fixing! [1] https://dev-docs.kicad.org/en/getting-started/index.html [2] https://gitlab.com/kicad [3] https://gitlab.com/kicad/code/kicad/-/issues/?label_name[]=starter

Speedrun KiCad[0] is an open source tool for electronics CAD/EDA [1]. You will use it to create a schematic in the schematics editor, assign a "footprint" [2a] to each component (that's the size and shape of a components) and then import it into the PCB editor to lay these components out. The board outline goes onto the Edge.Cuts layer, the traces [2b] onto the copper layers, e.g. F.Cu for the front layer and B.Cu for the backside layer. You will also place your components on these outer layers (You won't need inner layers for a while). You can switch your traces between layers using a "via" [3]. Generate Gerber and drill files then using the "Plot" dialog, zip them and upload them to a service like JLCPCB [4] (very cheap!), OSHPark [5], PCBWay [6], e.g. Aisler [7] if your based in Europe. I'd choose leadfree HASL [8] as surface finish. It's cheaper then ENIG and perfectly fine for the beginning. If you are fine with soldering, then source the parts from e.g. Mouser [9] or Digikey [10] and solder them yourself. That will save you the trouble of having to generate a list of which parts go where for the manufacturer. Make sure you order the parts with exactly the footprint that you put on the PCB. Start small, ideally with a circuits that you already know that it works. This way you can concentrate on getting the details of the PCB manufacturing process right. [0] https://www.kicad.org/ [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_design_automation [2a]…

If you're building with KiCad then I've found the folks on the KiCad discord[1] very willing to take a look over a design and provide feedback. There's also a subreddit[2] for PCB design posting and review, but I haven't personally used it. [1] https://www.kicad.org/community/chat/ [2] https://www.reddit.com/r/PrintedCircuitBoard/

So you can easily get it to work in the browser, but the dozens of core developers can't get it to work properly on Wayland[1]? Something smells fishy... [1] https://www.kicad.org/blog/2025/06/KiCad-and-Wayland-Support/

This page linked in the bottom explains a lot: https://www.kicad.org/blog/2025/06/KiCad-and-Wayland-Support/

We keep meaning to provide a page equivalent to this one. Our position is more or less identical: https://www.kicad.org/blog/2025/06/KiCad-and-Wayland-Support/ We have user reports that XWayland causes error when running many plugins (primarily those written use JUCE); we also have reports that using XNest tends to be more successful.

Funnily enough, Wayland doesn't support KiCad very well. https://www.kicad.org/blog/2025/06/KiCad-and-Wayland-Support/

Hm. Just a few months back, the KiCad team posted about their woes with Wayland: https://www.kicad.org/blog/2025/06/KiCad-and-Wayland-Support/

Glad to see they have a good amount of sponsors: https://www.kicad.org/sponsors/sponsors/

Powerful permissions are needed for powerful apps. I don't know about this particular issue, but for example, KiCAD has multiple issues with wayland being overly protective: [0]. For example KiCAD needs the ability to move cursor to provide good user experience. KiCAD needs the ability to move and place windows wherever it likes. KiCAD needs to control focus. KiCAD needs to prevent OpenGL throttling on inactive windows. These issues led KiCAD developers to reduce support for Wayland configurations to a bare minimum. So it's a delicate balance for operating systems to both allow powerful apps to implement complicated UI and to prevent badly written apps to do inconvenient things. [0]: https://www.kicad.org/blog/2025/06/KiCad-and-Wayland-Support/

Maybe your use of Linux is limited to those things that happen to work. As far as I understand, Wayland is deliberately incomplete and a number of problems people have stem from design decisions. Kicad, e.g., reports problems related to this. To quote https://www.kicad.org/blog/2025/06/KiCad-and-Wayland-Support/ > These problems exist because Wayland’s design omits basic functionality that desktop applications for X11, Windows and macOS have relied on for decades—things like being able to position windows or warp the mouse cursor. This functionality was omitted by design, not oversight. Wayland might work for your or my personal selection of work cases, and currently my stance is "when it's done it's done, let's wait and see". But it might also end Linux support for entire classes of software and use cases.

I think that's hyperbolic. There are several designs advertised as being designed in KiCAD that have DDR which means there are way more not being advertised. https://www.kicad.org/made-with-kicad/categories/Single-board-Computer…

Install the .deb from https://www.kicad.org/download/details/ubuntu/