Choosing a new PCB design package, or even your first one, can be a difficult and daunting prospect. There are numerous packages in many different price brackets on the market and understanding the differences is not always easy. Although it may be tempting to think that the one with the most features must be the best this is now always the case, many other factors can come into play and should be considered.
A good start is understanding your own priorities and constraints. Some examples of what you should be thinking about (in no particular order):
- Types of board you design (single/double sided, complex multi-layer, high density BGA microvias etc)
- Maximum size of PCB and number of layers (signal, power, mechanical)
- Nature of organisation (maker, hobbyist, small company, large engineering department)
- Budget constraints
- Rent or buy purchasing options
- Version and revision control requirements
- Is 3D modelling necessary or desirable
- Prior experience with CAD packages
- Is compatibility with existing CAD systems required
- Your supply chain (fabricators, assemblers, bill of materials)
- Availability of technical support, user forums and online help
- Stability and longevity of supplier
There is no such thing as the perfect PCB design package, there are always trade-offs and compromises to be made. Often your budget will constrain the packages that can be considered, for others it may be compatibility with existing software (ability to import or export designs) or the requirements to use a specific package to interact directly with partner organisations or sub-contractors. For any budget there will be something to choose, ranging from free (e.g. Circuit Maker, KiCad), a few hundred pounds/dollars (e.g. Circuit Studio, Eagle) to many thousands of £/$ (e.g. Altium Designer, Cadence Allegro).
The nature of the organisation can dictate certain requirements for any selected package. For a large company it may be necessary to have floating licenses to support a large and diverse engineering team, direct access to telephone technical support to ensure the productivity of the design engineers, a financially stable and audited supplier to purchase from. For the maker or hobbyist their focus may be on the availability of community support, online documentation, ease of use of the software as they will not be designing boards day-in and day-out, ability to swap designs with other makers.
I would highly recommend to always evaluate the software yourself, don't just rely on reviews, online videos, demonstrations by a sales person or sales & marketing literature. Using the software gives you a feel for how it works for you, can you understand the design environment, does the software perform fast enough, is there sufficient help to get started, are all the features you require present, will you be able to use the software to design the type of boards you need. A new software package can be a challenge faced with unfamiliarity and a steep learning curve. For casual users a modern intuitive UI with easy access to all features may be more productive than a user interface full of shortcut key presses and a cluttered toolbar full of tiny icons that all look similar. For those with multi-monitor setups, quite common for CAD users, how well does the software make use of your monitors.
A key requirements of any PCB design package is to ensure it has the features you need. By this I don't mean every feature under the sun but those that you actually need as well as ones you consider nice to have as they will get occasional use. Just because a package can handle 32 power places does not make it better than one that can handle 4 planes especially if your designs are all single sided boards. In addition to the number of features make sure you are happy with how easy those features are to access, i.e. consider ease of use and not just pure functionality. Output formats need to be considered, you will need to pass on design data to have boards fabricated and assembled and then there are the documentation requirements for a project although perhaps not so much if just for your personal use. Everyone makes mistakes when designing a board so also consider if there is an undo/redo feature and, for bigger mistakes, is it possible to roll back a design to an earlier state (i.e. saved history). The last feature can be a life saver if you've seriously messed up. Although unlikely to be needed for hobbyists and makers, support for variants can be important for mass produced boards.
Different CAD packages have different licensing arrangements, some are sold outright, some have optional update & maintenance support, some are simply rented as is becoming the modern trend with computer software. Sometimes a package will be node locked to a single PC, some have the option of floating licenses to allow any number of workstations to have the software but only so many running it concurrently, others are licensed to the user allowing use on both a work's computer and home PC. If you have chosen a CAD package based on other reasons then you may be stuck with their licensing scheme, however if deciding between competing products then it is worth considering which scheme will work best for you.
Do you need documentation and support or are you happy to just figure it out? For hobbyists it may not be worth paying for support whereas for commercial design teams having access to support can be justified in terms of lost productivity or receiving assistance with software issues. Some packages will charge an annual maintenance contract, others will include complementary support whilst others are purely user based forums and best effort. Other combinations also exist, for example paid for support to receive software updates but freely available technical support regardless of contract. One point not often considered until it is too late, if you purchase and wait a couple of years before updating to the latest version will the supplier insist on you paying back maintenance or purchasing a more expensive upgrade option.
Now for the hard sell! Only kidding, but do feel free to try out and evaluate CircuitStudio which offers a great blend of features, ease of use and value for money. I wish CircuitStudio had been an option in the 1980's when I used to have to struggle with P-CAD and its serial port dongles on DOS based PCs. And don't mention HP pen plotters and fab houses with vector photo-plotters...