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Electronic CAD - Which is the best value?

dougw

To get an idea of best value, you need to convert your CAD time to money and add the cost of the product to get total cost. Then divide your output by the total cost.

Altium Circuit Studio $688
Cadence OrCad $530
Autodesk Eagle $645
Siemens Mentor PADS $499
Easy-PC $360
KiCad $0

Other - there are lots of others to consider.

It would seem that CAD is not in the Technologies list on this forum.

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  • On that list alone, you'd have to say Kicad surely!  I suppose if, say, Altium had a needed feature not present in KiCad with no work around, then Altium is the best value.  I'm probably biased in any case as I've only ever used KiCad which, frankly, has been perfect for my needs and seems to have a lot of advanced features I wouldn't use.  I'm always puzzled by the loyalty to Altium Circuit Studio given the consistent and continuing problems with zero support or updated versions.  Even the new software that replaces it seems to have been in Beta for over a year.

  • in reply to Andrew J

    I think Eagle comes with Fusion 360 mechanical CAD, so that is part of their value proposition. The reason I started the discussion was I just noticed the price of OrCad seemed like a new value point for the Cadence offering. I have not used a recent version of KiCad so I can't evaluate it properly. The last time I used KiCad, it was too cumbersome and the productivity was too low for me to continue with it. I assume it is better now, but I don't know how much better. For me productivity is a crucial factor in the value equation. 

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  • in reply to Andrew J

    I think Eagle comes with Fusion 360 mechanical CAD, so that is part of their value proposition. The reason I started the discussion was I just noticed the price of OrCad seemed like a new value point for the Cadence offering. I have not used a recent version of KiCad so I can't evaluate it properly. The last time I used KiCad, it was too cumbersome and the productivity was too low for me to continue with it. I assume it is better now, but I don't know how much better. For me productivity is a crucial factor in the value equation. 

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