KiCad vs LibrePCB

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.

LibrePCB is free, open-source electronic design automation software for drawing schematics and designing printed circuit boards. It runs as a desktop application on Linux, macOS, and Windows, and works fully offline without an online account. The schematic editor supports multi-page designs, live electrical rule checking, and automatic forward annotation to the board editor. Board tools include design-rule checking, a live 3D viewer, and multi-layer layouts with blind and buried vias. EAGLE projects and DXF files can be imported, while output jobs include Gerber, Excellon, CSV BOM, STEP, PDF, and SVG. An integrated library manager handles official libraries; users may also use their own. Projects and libraries use human-readable canonical text files, and projects carry their needed library items and settings. Users can order boards through LibrePCB Fab or export production data. GPLv3 licensing covers the source.