Altium Develop vs. KiCad EDA

Altium Develop

73 Reviews and Ratings

KiCad EDA

5 Reviews and Ratings

Overview
Product	Rating	Most Used By	Product Summary	Starting Price
Altium Develop	Score9.1 out of 10	N/A	Altium Develop is a platform that unifies multidisciplinary teams across engineering, sourcing, and manufacturing to support seamless co-creation. It provides real-time visibility into designs, requirements, and supply chain data, enabling contributors to work together concurrently rather than in silos.	$995 per year per seat
KiCad EDA	Score7.8 out of 10	N/A	KiCad EDA is a Cross Platform and Open Source Electronics Design Automation Suite. KiCad's PCB Editor is built to be approachable enough to make the first PCB design easy, and powerful enough for complex modern designs. Its interactive router and improved visualization and selection tools make layout tasks easier.	N/A

Pricing

Altium Develop

KiCad EDA

No answers on this topic

No answers on this topic

Pricing Offerings
Altium Develop	KiCad EDA
Free Trial
Yes	No
Free/Freemium Version
No	No
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
No	No

No setup fee

No setup fee

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Community Pulse
Key User Insights
	Altium Develop	KiCad EDA
Considered Both Products	Altium Verified User Chose Altium Develop The advantage of KiCAD and EasyEDA versus Altium Designer is that KiCAD and EasyEDA are free. Even so, Altium Designer is more powerful than competitors in terms of integrability, easy of use and powerful tools. For example, in Siemens EDA software there is no tool for … Incentivized Helpful? Raphael Buitendag Electronic designer in Engineering at Alten (Electrical & Electronic Manufacturing, 10,001+ employees) Chose Altium Develop Other tools are open source and free to use, which often means its easier to use but has limited abilities. With using Altium Designer compared to the other tools I have found the review process a lot better and its workspace environment a big plus because I can find … Incentivized Helpful? Verified User Chose Altium Develop Altium Designer is a more mature, feature complete product. However, in 2025 it has become EXTERMELY expensive. KiCAD is quickly catching up and focusing on the core PCB design tools. We are likely to switch over in 2-3 years if things progress like they have. Incentivized Helpful? Sebastian de Leon Senior Electronics Engineer in Engineering at Boostinc (Design, 11-50 employees) Chose Altium Develop I always thought of Altium Designer as a more intuitive tool. Also makes PCB design more fun. Don't know why, it just happens. Incentivized Helpful? Abdul Sami Mughal Electronics Manager in Engineering at Infinitesima Ltd (Semiconductors, 51-200 employees) Chose Altium Develop Altium offers much better features and usability over Proteus. Proteus also has certain limitations in what it can achieve, so that leaves it behind. Same with KiCad, while it is easier to use, and quite an amazing software for a freeware, it lacks certain features which makes … Incentivized Helpful? Verified User Chose Altium Develop The opensource nature of the library system works better than Altium. The libraries being text based means that version control with github is a natural fit. I don't see Altium having an advantage here even if it has tied into external api's like Octopart. Incentivized Helpful? Verified User Chose Altium Develop KiCad is easier to learn and the performance is fine, but BOMs, Footpring-Management, all that had to be done manually With Altium and 365 everything is just built-in Incentivized Helpful? Samer Kilani Electronics Engineer in Engineering at Metrasens (Electrical & Electronic Manufacturing, 51-200 employees) Chose Altium Develop Altium Designer is without a doubt the best PCB design tool I have used. Incentivized Helpful? Verified User Chose Altium Develop It's the first and only choice. Incentivized Helpful? Verified User Chose Altium Develop Altium is too expensive... Incentivized Helpful? Verified User Chose Altium Develop Overall Altium Designer is in another league compared to KiCad, especially the older versions. The whole design process works better in Altium Designer. The only thing I miss from KiCad is the disjointedness between symbols and footprints. Whilst less appropriate for … Incentivized Helpful? Verified User Chose Altium Develop Altium Designer is overly complex, particularly for smaller organizations that don't have a dedicated library, schematic, and layout personnel. KiCAD is simple to use and free. Incentivized Helpful? Verified User Chose Altium Develop It is certainly easier to get designs up and running with great support and constant software updates. The ability to work with or without the cloud is a great feature. The only downside to Altium Designer is that it does have a cost to it that is not cheap. Overall I think it … Incentivized Helpful? Verified User Chose Altium Develop Altium Designer is the industry standard for a reason. While KiCad can be used for complex and capable designs the software will fight you along the way. Further, the constantly breaking backward compatibility makes KiCad hard to maintain current versions and up to date with. Incentivized Helpful?	Open Source Verified User Chose KiCad EDA I use nowadays mainly ALTIUM because of its advanced features for complex projects. Altium has many more benefits but on the other hand it depends on the complexity. For simple project I recommend KiCad because its open-source, easy to learn and work with. Therefore I would … Incentivized Helpful?
	Would buy again
	No answers on this topic	No answers on this topic
	Delivers good value for the price
	No answers on this topic	No answers on this topic
	Happy with the feature set
	No answers on this topic	No answers on this topic
	Lived up to sales and marketing promises
	No answers on this topic	No answers on this topic
	Implementation went as expected
No answers on this topic	No answers on this topic

User Ratings
	Altium Develop	KiCad EDA
Likelihood to Recommend	8.0 (27 ratings)	8.0 (1 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew	8.4 (3 ratings)	- (0 ratings)
Usability	7.4 (25 ratings)	6.0 (1 ratings)
Availability	6.4 (1 ratings)	- (0 ratings)
Performance	7.3 (1 ratings)	- (0 ratings)
Support Rating	7.6 (2 ratings)	- (0 ratings)
Online Training	9.1 (1 ratings)	- (0 ratings)
Implementation Rating	2.7 (1 ratings)	- (0 ratings)
Product Scalability	2.7 (1 ratings)	- (0 ratings)