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SPECIFICTION
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eCADSTAR vs KiCad

eCADSTAR

ecadstar.com

KiCad

kicad.org

Side by side

FigureeCADSTARKiCad
Price from£89/moFree
Free plan—Yes
Free trialYes—
Open source——
WindowsYesYes
macOS—Yes
Linux—Yes
Self-hosted—Yes
Plans published21
Spec score · Electrical Design Software7.9 (#13)8.1 (#9)
PurposeeCADSTAR is internet-connected software for professional PCB layout, schematic design, and library management.KiCad is an open-source electronic design automation suite for schematic capture and PCB layout.

Plans

eCADSTAR

  • eCADSTAR subscription£89 a month
  • eCADSTAR perpetual bundlesPriced on request

eCADSTAR pricing →

KiCad

  • KiCadFree

KiCad pricing →

In their own words

eCADSTAR

eCADSTAR has no write-up on Specifiction yet; its figures are above.

Visit ecadstar.com

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.

Visit kicad.org