Altium Designer vs KiCad
Altium Designer
altium.comKiCad
kicad.orgSide by side
| Figure | Altium Designer | KiCad |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | $460/mo | Free |
| Free plan | — | Yes |
| Free trial | Yes | — |
| Open source | — | — |
| Web | Yes | — |
| Windows | Yes | Yes |
| macOS | — | Yes |
| Linux | — | Yes |
| Self-hosted | — | Yes |
| Plans published | 1 | 1 |
| Spec score · Electrical Design Software | 8.4 (#4) | 8.1 (#9) |
| Spec score · Engineering Design Software | 8.3 (#6) | 8.0 (#11) |
| Spec score · Engineering CAD Software | 8.3 (#8) | 8.0 (#13) |
| Purpose | Altium Designer is an integrated electronics design tool covering schematic capture, PCB layout, simulation, and analysis. | KiCad is an open-source electronic design automation suite for schematic capture and PCB layout. |
Plans
In their own words
Altium Designer
Altium Designer has no write-up on Specifiction yet; its figures are above.
KiCad
KiCad is a free, open-source electronic design automation suite for schematic capture and PCB layout. Its electrical rules checker flags schematic connection issues such as output-pin conflicts, missing drivers, and unconnected pins. For board routing, the PCB editor offers collision-highlight, shove, and walkaround modes that respect design rules. An integrated 3D viewer displays board designs with a library of 3D models and supports ray tracing. Schematic netlists can be exported as Pspice, Cadstar, PcbNew, or generic XML. KiCad can import schematic work from Altium tools, CADSTAR, EAGLE, EasyEDA, and LTSpice, as well as PCB designs from a wider range that includes Allegro, Fabmaster, P-CAD 200x ASCII, and SolidWorks. The project aims to serve professional designers while staying approachable to new users. Downloads are listed for Windows, macOS, and Linux, plus Docker; the stable Linux release is an x86-64 AppImage. Most source code uses GNU GPL version 3 or greater, and libraries use CC-BY-SA 4.0. KiCad was first released in 1992 and is managed by the KiCad Development Team.