Top PCB Alternatives for Your Next Electronics Project
PCB is a powerful interactive printed circuit board editor known for its rats nest feature, design rule checking, and industry-standard output capabilities like RS-274-X (Gerber) and NC drill data. It even boasts high-end features such as an autorouter and trace optimizer, significantly reducing layout time. However, for various reasons—cost, specific features, or platform compatibility—you might be looking for a reliable PCB alternative. This article explores some of the best options available today, catering to different needs and skill levels.
Discovering the Best PCB Alternatives
Whether you're a student, hobbyist, or professional, there's a PCB design tool out there that fits your workflow. Let's dive into some excellent alternatives to PCB that offer robust features for schematic capture, PCB layout, and more.
Fritzing
Fritzing is a highly versatile tool for designing circuits and layouts, including PCBs, stripboards, and breadboards. It's a very handy, complex yet simple-to-use option, making it an excellent PCB alternative for those focused on education and prototyping. Fritzing is a commercial, open-source tool available on Mac, Windows, and Linux.
KiCad
KiCad is a powerful open-source software suite for electronic design automation (EDA), ideal for designing schematics and printed circuit boards (PCBs). As a free, open-source PCB alternative, KiCad offers features like 3D rendering and 3D sketching, and it's available across Mac, Windows, and Linux platforms.
Autodesk EAGLE
Autodesk EAGLE is an electronic design automation (EDA) software that enables seamless connection between schematic diagrams and PCB layouts. It's a popular PCB alternative, offering an integrated development environment (IDE) and available as a free personal version, or paid, for Mac, Windows, and Linux.
gEDA Project
The gEDA project is a comprehensive suite of GPL'd Electronic Design Automation tools. This free, open-source PCB alternative is primarily available on Linux, providing essential tools for electrical design without any additional specific features listed.
Proteus PCB design
Proteus PCB design offers a powerful, integrated, and user-friendly suite of tools for professional PCB design, combining schematic capture and ARES PCB layout programs. This commercial PCB alternative is available on Windows.
iCircuit
iCircuit is an intuitive electronic circuit simulator and designer, making it an ideal PCB alternative for students, hobbyists, and engineers. This commercial tool features simulation capabilities and is available on Mac, Windows, iPhone, Windows Phone, and iPad.
Upverter
Upverter provides comprehensive tools for hardware engineering, including ideation, schematic capture, PCB layout, design hosting, and parts library management. This commercial PCB alternative is web-based, making it accessible from anywhere.
NI Circuit Design Suite Power Pro
NI Circuit Design Suite software streamlines the PCB design process by integrating capture, simulation, and layout into a single toolchain with NI Multisim and Ultiboard. This commercial PCB alternative is available on Windows.
DesignSpark PCB
DesignSpark PCB is renowned as one of the world's most powerful free schematic and PCB layout tools. This free PCB alternative is available on Windows, offering robust capabilities without the cost.
OrCAD (All Products)
The Cadence OrCAD product line offers high-performance PCB design tools at an affordable price, designed to boost productivity for smaller design teams and individual PCB designers. This commercial PCB alternative is available on Windows.
The world of PCB design software is rich with options. While PCB offers fantastic features, exploring these alternatives can help you find a tool that perfectly aligns with your budget, operating system, required features, and project complexity. We encourage you to explore the best fit based on your unique needs.