alt Hacker NewsKiCad is frustrating because it’s actually good enough to make a lot of models but it’s just unfriendly enough to make it take way too long to do… but it’s also still way easier than learning how to do it in a full-featured cad program.
I would kill for something like KiCad with more refined controls.
Replies
imtringued • yesterday at 8:34 AM
There's HorizonEDA. Just be prepared to spend a ridiculous amount of time setting parts up.
IshKebab • yesterday at 9:03 AM
I can second Horizon EDA. It's not perfect, but it has the good KiCAD kernel without the abysmal UX.
FreeCAD may also be good - it's the only other one I haven't tried.
On the other hand if you're convincing EAGLE users to move they'll probably be happy with KiCAD because they're already used to an even worse UX, as if such a thing were possible.
I wish KiCad had a constraint solver built-in for defining footprints and placing some key parts of a PCB. A better library management system would also be nice. That aside, I think their interactive router is pretty great, and a huge improvement over older versions. I first tried KiCad in 2016 or 2017 and routing traces was pretty dire, especially if you had to redo them for whatever reason.
Got any specific pain points for KiCad?