A new online schematic capture, simulation and PCB tool: worth a look?

Hey Andy,

Thanks for the bringing up this interesting tool, I'm definitely going to play around with it and check out the features later this weekend. Have you seen Upverter? [https://upverter.com/] It has quite a few of the features you mentioned above as well, and could be another great option for free EDA tool users!

Regards,

Austin

Hi Austin,

I'm glad you're interested in giving EasyEDA a try. It's still in heavy development and there are various features that need knocking into shape but feedback from people trying it out should help focus development effort into areas that users most want.

I haven't tried Upverter but have kept an eye on it's development. It is undoubtedly a more polished tool that EasyEDA but then it has been around a bit longer. As far as I can tell, Upverter only offers 12 months free usage to students and permanent free usage to Open Hardware projects and I'm not clear what, if any limitations in terms of schematic component, node or PCB layer count limits it places on such users. Their non-free "Non-commercial" account implies that those free accounts are only for non-commercial use and are subject to some other limitations. Once you move out of the "Non-commercial", "Student" or "Open Source" offering, the tool starts to cost fairly serious money per month.

Therein lies the difference with EasyEDA: their monetization plan is very different from most online subscription tools. It is based on delivering a low cost PCB supply service for any projects - commercial or not - developed using their tool. Even so, that does not tie the user into the tool: Gerbers can be produced and downloaded without having to commit to buying them from EasyEDA. In fact users don't even have to be registered to get to that point!

In their "Letter from the EasyEDA Team" the developers set out a plan of how they intend to develop the tool, which in the future will include a subscription option with only a small fee basically to offset the cost of advertising put into the free accounts in later years and to pay for storage of private projects.

This approach may make the tool suite more attractive to open hardware developers, hobbyists and students than professional users to whom the costs are less of an issue but in any case it moves the goal posts a bit: anyone can sketch out an idea, draw up a full schematic, simulate it and then design a PCB, with no size limitations, for free and finally a quick prototype PCB can be banged out for next to nothing.

Something that Upverter offered when first launched, was circuit simulation based on ngspice (the same FOSS simulation package used by EasyEDA) but that seems to have disappeared from their current webpages.

Cheers,

   Andy

Hi Austin,

I'm glad you're interested in giving EasyEDA a try. It's still in heavy development and there are various features that need knocking into shape but feedback from people trying it out should help focus development effort into areas that users most want.

I haven't tried Upverter but have kept an eye on it's development. It is undoubtedly a more polished tool that EasyEDA but then it has been around a bit longer. As far as I can tell, Upverter only offers 12 months free usage to students and permanent free usage to Open Hardware projects and I'm not clear what, if any limitations in terms of schematic component, node or PCB layer count limits it places on such users. Their non-free "Non-commercial" account implies that those free accounts are only for non-commercial use and are subject to some other limitations. Once you move out of the "Non-commercial", "Student" or "Open Source" offering, the tool starts to cost fairly serious money per month.

Therein lies the difference with EasyEDA: their monetization plan is very different from most online subscription tools. It is based on delivering a low cost PCB supply service for any projects - commercial or not - developed using their tool. Even so, that does not tie the user into the tool: Gerbers can be produced and downloaded without having to commit to buying them from EasyEDA. In fact users don't even have to be registered to get to that point!

In their "Letter from the EasyEDA Team" the developers set out a plan of how they intend to develop the tool, which in the future will include a subscription option with only a small fee basically to offset the cost of advertising put into the free accounts in later years and to pay for storage of private projects.

This approach may make the tool suite more attractive to open hardware developers, hobbyists and students than professional users to whom the costs are less of an issue but in any case it moves the goal posts a bit: anyone can sketch out an idea, draw up a full schematic, simulate it and then design a PCB, with no size limitations, for free and finally a quick prototype PCB can be banged out for next to nothing.

Something that Upverter offered when first launched, was circuit simulation based on ngspice (the same FOSS simulation package used by EasyEDA) but that seems to have disappeared from their current webpages.

Cheers,

   Andy

Thanks for Sharing , Will surely give it a try

I have a student account on Upverter and after having chatted with their live support, it seems like there are no design limitations for the account type. Same thing with the open-source and non-commercial accounts. The only caveat seems to be that you cannot create private projects.

@Erica,

Thanks for that background information on Upverter.

Two questions though:

   i) "The only caveat seems to be that you cannot create private projects." but presumably you can't use the Student account for commercial work?

   ii) Does Upverter still provide simulation or have they dropped that?

EasyEDA provides simulation and for the next year, free commercial use.

After that their "letter from the EasyEDA team" says they plan to introduce a maximum $7/month subscription for a VIP account with more private projects but even that can be earned through contributing symbols and other stuff.