You are a startup or a developing firm that don't have the budget for expensive software and you are thinking about which CAD / EDA software tools to use for your electronic development.

Or, you are a firm that already have developed electronics by third part and it has been done by a commercial proprietary CAD /  EDA (electronic design automation ) suite, but you have needs for new electronic parts again.

Hereby I would like to point out something that perheps can significantly facilitate your work but also save you a lot of money, which is certainly an extraordinary combination.

I am an engeener that is comming from commercial world of CAD / EDA tools and I have been working with them for years, all from OrCAD, Eagle, Tango, P-CAD, Protel and lately almost exclusively Altium but the latest versions of  KiCad made me want to work with an open source EDA.

I was following KiCad development from its early versions and I was not so impressed with it but KiCad has recently undergone several updates and incredible improvements in the last two versions (now actual ver 7.x) in which gott improved way of working with components, 3D visualization, interactive and differential-pair routing, library management, smarter component multi-selection support and much much more. KiCAD has a range of robust features, that are not worse than in its commercial counterparts, including schematic capture, 3D visualization, bill of materials (BOM)  and manufacturing files generation, improved support for importing and exporting files in popular formats such as STEP, DXF, and IDF, and automatic routing what make it a suitable choice for designing complex PCB layouts.

Besides mentioned, there are a lot advantages of using KiCad like:

• There are no licensing fees to use it which reduces development costs.
• It is cross-platform comaptible which means users can work on different operating systems without any issues. KiCAD is available on Windows, Linux, and macOS.

• It has an extensive community support who are constantly working to improve and enhance its functionality by developing different tools in form of plug-ins which turn KiCad into an EDA software that is much better than its commercial counterparts. Corresponding tools for commercial software are eihter not available or are very expensive as regularly they are sold as add-ons.

• Everything done in KiCad is saved in ASCII fromat that make it ideally for version control systems used for software development. KiCad perfectly fits in git which enables collaboration and facilitates the development of complex software projects.
• As such, it is easy to implement KiCad CI/CD (Continuous Integration / Continuous Deployment)  integration on a git server (e.g. GitLab)  which helps  to automate the PCB design and testing process, making it more efficient and error-free.

Listed above made KiCad my choice number one. I hope you will considering use KiCad too. I am glad if my observations and suggestions helped you to decide which EDA / CAD to use.

Primarily, I use customers' tools if available; otherwise, I design using KiCad. By developing in KiCad, with a little additional effort, I can leave behind an entire GitLab-Git-KiCad (CI/CD) infrastructure on your servers, which will significantly facilitate your future work.

Or, if you just would like to develop the mentioned infrastructure, do not hesitate to contact me.