And when KiCAD gains enough features to make it able to compete in the enterprise space.
Altium still just has a ton of features that people use every day.
Cloud libraries, multi-channel design, flexpcbs, some good high speed tools, output job files, better curved traces for RF (though kicad melting + teardrop is ahead of altium in my opinion, though more clunky).
I have hope for FreeCAD now that Ondsel is on board pushing the community/enterprise split that OnShape does. They are shooting for a 1.0 next year. Though I think it will take until 2.0 to get it professionally usable.
I haven’t dabbled that much in PCB design but I have seen some good things in KiCAD. All my electro engineer homies assure me Altium’s the way to go for now though. Most of them also happen to be big F(L)OSS nerds so I’m curious to see where KiCAD goes in the future.
FreeCAD is an awesome attempt at building a parametric CAD modeler, though it will need a lot of polish to be usable. Especially on the UX side of things the software could do with a lot of improvement. As far as I know the most difficult part to program for parametric modelers is the actual geometry kernel, which is why so many modelers are based on Parasolid, including the recent hybrid modeler Plasticity.
For a F(L)OSS parametric CAD modeler to truly succeed some genius needs to build an open geometry kernel that performs at least close to on par with Parasolid. But that takes a special kind of autistic in order to achieve.
Either that or the engineering world needs to collectively decide this needs to happen.
As much as I hope FreeCAD becomes the open source alternative everyone is looking for, it is trying to be everything at once and that might be too ambitious for the current state of the project. I’m secretly hoping we also get a new project sometime soon with a smaller scope.
And when KiCAD gains enough features to make it able to compete in the enterprise space.
Altium still just has a ton of features that people use every day.
Cloud libraries, multi-channel design, flexpcbs, some good high speed tools, output job files, better curved traces for RF (though kicad melting + teardrop is ahead of altium in my opinion, though more clunky).
I have hope for FreeCAD now that Ondsel is on board pushing the community/enterprise split that OnShape does. They are shooting for a 1.0 next year. Though I think it will take until 2.0 to get it professionally usable.
I haven’t dabbled that much in PCB design but I have seen some good things in KiCAD. All my electro engineer homies assure me Altium’s the way to go for now though. Most of them also happen to be big F(L)OSS nerds so I’m curious to see where KiCAD goes in the future.
FreeCAD is an awesome attempt at building a parametric CAD modeler, though it will need a lot of polish to be usable. Especially on the UX side of things the software could do with a lot of improvement. As far as I know the most difficult part to program for parametric modelers is the actual geometry kernel, which is why so many modelers are based on Parasolid, including the recent hybrid modeler Plasticity. For a F(L)OSS parametric CAD modeler to truly succeed some genius needs to build an open geometry kernel that performs at least close to on par with Parasolid. But that takes a special kind of autistic in order to achieve. Either that or the engineering world needs to collectively decide this needs to happen.
As much as I hope FreeCAD becomes the open source alternative everyone is looking for, it is trying to be everything at once and that might be too ambitious for the current state of the project. I’m secretly hoping we also get a new project sometime soon with a smaller scope.