Talk:Comparison of EDA software

Why McCAD tools not part of your tools.??

I see there is no inclusion of the McCAD Series of tools. They very early adopters of Mac OS and now offer for winodws as well. They have been around since 1984 and their tool offerings are very affordable.

Please add isolation milling

Can someone in the know please the add feature "isolation milling" to the table of features? It would be nice to know what software supports this. I know eagle and target 3001! do, but I don't know what else does. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.95.65.244 (talk) 20:44, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

merge

this article and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_Free_EDA_software should merge in one--Efa2 (talk) 07:55, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

They could, but you should still maintain 2 separate data tables or add a new column for price. -- Tomjenkins52 (talk) 03:24, 28 June 2009 (UTC)

+1 for merge; I am not familiar enough with these features myself to do it though :-( --MarmotteiNoZ 04:51, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

I came here looking for Free Software / Open Source EDA tools rather than proprietary ones and found this page useful except for the seeming spam from the one proprietary program listed. I'd prefer to see it continue. -- Bruce Perens (talk) 17:53, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

 the articles have been merged] in december 2010. ---<(kaimartin)>--- (talk) 02:34, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

FLOSS

Is there any FLOSS logic synthesizer? --Abdull (talk) 22:08, 11 February 2010 (UTC)

The Alliance software goes through a series of steps from VHDL source to VLSI poly/metal layout. I'm pretty sure that one of the steps in the middle is the logic synthesizer step. If you find any other FLOSS logic synthesizers, please make sure they are also listed in the comparison of Free EDA software article. --68.0.124.33 (talk) 20:54, 26 March 2010 (UTC)

PROTEUS 7

Why no Proteus 7. It could be the best EDA so far because of its integration with compilers. Othmanskn (talk) 02:16, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

Microcap

I think Spectrum Soft's Microcap deserves to be listed here. I find it very nice and complete (much more than other professional CADs like OrCAD). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 93.150.60.138 (talk) 11:38, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

Tables clean-up

The two separate tables have not reason to eb sepeartaed; It looks to me than the first one could just be deleted, with the scond one amended to include the few extra bits of info contained in the first one.--MarmotteiNoZ 04:55, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

I would agree the tables need improving. In certain ways the first table is actually better of the two, since the architecture column is more flexible, allowing multiple platforms to be listed. The second table assumes things are either Windows or not Windows, which is a vast oversimplification. Platforms these days would include Windows, Unix, Linux (X11, Gnome, KDE), MacOS and Java. There may well be others, but it shows that the table should be ble to support this. Would anyone have any objections to reworking of the tables? --AJ Mas (talk) 21:59, 8 December 2013 (UTC)

Incoming

In resolving an edit dispute over at ODB++, a WP:3O admin suggested we move some info there over here. It would mean adding some rows to one or more of the tables, and adding a note about ODB++ to each row. So my question (and I do have one) is can a wikitable expert here undertake this? Or is there a WYSIWYG table editor that you can point me to? Also, has anyone toyed with the idea of merging table 1 & 2 into table 3? Watching for your reply. Thanks!Woz2 (talk) 14:08, 29 September 2011 (UTC)

inactive development of some EDA

We may add a current development state in the table. QSCad seems to be stopped. It is only a try. See http://www.qs.co.nz/Tcl/QSCad/ — Preceding unsigned comment added by 194.250.203.171 (talk) 09:59, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

Serious extension needed

Current version of the article (September 2011) is highly partial: 'Proprietary Software' section lists only software doing analog design, simulation and PCB - what about digital design, simulation, synthesis, layout, etc.? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jarekk (talk • contribs) 17:23, 30 September 2011 (UTC)

Agreed. I tagged it. Please continue to add.Woz2 (talk) 20:46, 30 September 2011 (UTC)

Reorganize?

Right now this article contains three lists:

1 Free and Open Source Software (FOSS)

2 Proprietary software

3 Comparison of EDA packages

It seems to me that 1 and 2 can be folded into 3, making one unified list. Comments? -Guy Macon (talk) 19:18, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

I agree. I thought about being WP:BOLD and attempting it myself, but the task is a bit daunting. Woz2 (talk) 21:56, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

First part of the unification done, I'll try to find time to merge the FOSS table soon. Geometryofshadows (talk) 20:50, 21 December 2013 (UTC)

Reorganise? Missing great tracts

The first list is FOSS/HDL software, the second proprietry CAD software. No FOSS/CAD, no prop-3d modelling, no prop-HDL software. Where's the spice simulators? Where are the FEA tools? Where are the pipe/electrical/instrumentation tools? Thoglette (talk) 03:40, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

I agree 100%. I think the separation into categories has, over time, discouraged the addition of legitimate EEDA software such as mentioned above. Guy Macon (talk) 07:25, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

It would also help to include the cloud based tools like circuits.io, now 123D Circuits and Circuitlab. One of the metrics tracked should also be whether the tool can pull components from Ocotopart / CircuitHub.NGMWiki (talk) 9 November 2013 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.38.215.55 (talk)

some cloud based tools added Geometryofshadows (talk) 20:50, 21 December 2013 (UTC)

External links

DeepChip link appears to be ad site without any redeeming qualities. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.93.123.82 (talk) 21:02, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

POSIX platform option

Maybe I'm missing something, or maybe it is worded incorrectly but Agilent ADS for one runs on POSIX systems such as Sun or Linux — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.155.182.169 (talk) 05:55, 3 August 2012 (UTC)

Proposal to add an edit notice

This comparison page often attracts good faith but non-notable entries. It would save everyone's time if we were to guard against this by adding an "edit notice" mechanism. If you are not familiar with this mechanism, you can see how it looks by attempting to edit, say, the Getting Things Done article. I proposed the idea here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template_talk:Editnotices/Page/Comparison_of_EDA_software

It requires consensus and an admin to implement it. The admin in question (@Technical 13) is asking if there is a consensus here to do it. Please add your comments below. Thanks! SageGreenRider (talk) 18:15, 26 March 2015 (UTC)

• Couple minor points. The excessively BITEy wording in the request is what would need consensus, I'd be more than happy to make changes or whatnot if the requested text wasn't so IF YOU DON'T PAY ATTENTION TO THIS MESSAGE, ... Second, I'm not an administrator, I'm simply a measly little template editor. I hope this clarifies my objection. — {{U|Technical 13}} (e • t • c) 19:16, 29 March 2015 (UTC)

• I understand, @Technical 13. I added a second attempt to the request.

Upverter Removed

Upverter was removed from this and other Wikipedia pages, including List of EDA companies. Is there a reason for this? Given that Upverter is an orphaned page I don't see why it should have been removed.— Preceding unsigned comment added by Zachaysan (talk • contribs) 31 aug 2015 21:19‎ (UTC)

In March 2015, I removed Upverter and four others that were non-notable at the time, per WP:WRITEITFIRST. However, a few days ago, Upverter was accepted as an article and so it is now considered notable and can be added back. To save typing you can copy-paste the text from this diff or this one SageGreenRider (talk) 11:46, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

pcb-rnd

Please consider listing pcb-rnd (http://repo.hu/projects/pcb-rnd).

It's a GPL'd PCB layout editor.

It's an independet effort, started from a fork of gEDA/PCB in 2013. It diverged a lot from gEDA/PCB in the past years, targeting and covering fields that gEDA/PCB can't or don't want to. pcb-rnd is present in Debian (and Ubuntu). — Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.131.56.146 (talk) 05:53, 20 February 2017 (UTC)

Comparing EDA software by schematics to PCB layout connection mechanism!

The list is completely meaningless if it does not compare the most elementary design function: the ability to create/edit schematics and the PCB layout and components affected accordingly. Also, more advanced would be the ability to do modifications in the PCB layout and these reflected in the schematics.

An example of the former: in EAGLE, you can add components and create nets in the schematics and the changes are immediately reflected in the PCB layout. The latter example is: you can do some changes in the EAGLE layout editor and these will be reflected in the schematics, such as deleting whole components, changing component size/type (such as switchhing a resistor from 0805 to 0402), changing component values and names.

NONE of the above is available in KiCAD, in KiCAD, you are supposed to draw the schematics correctly on the first try, then "annotate", then COMPILE a netlist, then run CvPcb to associate components with 'pads', then read the netlist into Pcbnew and start the layout process. If you had done a teeny tiny little mistake or want a small design change, you are very much doomed to start the process from the beginning. Renaming nets, components? You can forget that.

Some of the mentioned editing features are EXTREMELY vital to a design process. Utter inability of KiCAD to associate the correct pads to components which even have the type of package DEFINED in their name (such as suffix P indicating P-DIP package and D indicating SOIC) very much slows the design process.

My point is: comparing EDA tools without taking this into account is meaningless.

Also, the SPICE simulation needs to be sorted into that one which simulates only the pure, 100% theoretical and ideal netlist from the schematics and that one which does simulation with REAL BOARD LAYOUT. Those two are also extremely different classes.

In other words: Eagle 3.2 for MS-DOS beats KiCAD 4 any day in the schematics and board layout development speed, if you have the necessary components in the library.

Other important editing features:
a)"duplicate components"

b0) any ability to replicate design, most desirably just by copy&paste in schematics editor, with a duplicate of the layout created in the layout editor
b1) design replication allowed only for whole sheets

c0) a good set of schematics and layout editing "hand" tools (such as in Eagle or LTSpice), where the manipulation, reorganizing is rather easy and fast

c1) Editing has more pronounced quirks, such as automatic wire placement library from the times of Windows 3.1, which places broken lines and wire loops needlessly in the schematics

c2) extremely limited ability to edit and manipulate schematics and layout, such as KiCAD, where even dragging connected components causes strain

d0) total library support with 1 million components or more instantly available, with sophisticated search features, with virtually zero need to create your own component ever

d1) pretty good library support with frequent updates (at least 10x a year, at least 5000 components added per year)

d2) some library support, but links are frequently broken, maintainers don't have a plan or consistency, libraries are not authomatically loaded, or you need to make library list cleanups and re-inserting links to libraries (KiCAD 2014-April 2017)

d3) very limited library, with mostly "make-your-own" attitude, or breadboard systems (Fritzing?)

e0) design portability to other computers or platforms is easy and total, you copy the design folder and you can limitlessly edit it on another computer, even different platform (such as Linux/Windows), where all the project data is included in the project folder and nothing will be missing when copied to another computer

e1) portability is good, the project will have a 100% editability if you copy one or two directories or do an automatic web update, portability may be limited by licensing (such as unable to edit due to a different license on another computer)

e2) limited portability, with frequent broken links, hardlinked project files, project files placed in random locations on the computer and not in the project folder. (Still bugfixing in KiCAD as of April 2017, status before that was abysmal, first thing you had to do was to bring special user libraries separately, correct library links from some windows directory to the one on linux)

e3) portability is so severely restricted to the point of unusable or forbidden

f0) user license portability, you can use the software anytime and on any computer you wish

f1) if you move the dongle, you can use the software on any number of computers you desire

f2) you need to relicense or use internet to confirm transfer of software or the software detects hardware changes and limits you (Cadsoft Eagle keys used to be unportable)

f3a) you need an internet connection at least once a while (Autodesk Eagle has a 14-day "heartbeat" after which it will need an internet connection to verify license validity. f3b) you can't use the software if you haven't paid your monthly/yearly ransom, and forget about switching computers, or can't even run the software without a connected online account

p) printing (on paper)

see next point...

s) on-screen rendering

small-print rendering (garbled small text, or just no display of small text)

DLL, Kernel, hardware and OS dependencies for optimal function

Such as Eagle in GDI working lovely on Nvidia cards (5800) and on ATi it was as if you had no GPU. KiCAD has constantly changing hardware acceleration support that is very inconsistent across the platforms.

and so on and so forth.

I hope this gives someone an insight. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.64.22.18 (talk) 04:00, 29 April 2017 (UTC)

Removed comparison table from schematic capture article

The following table was removed from the schematic editor article as it is partially redundant with the larger table here. However, some of the info may be merged into the table or into the corresponding articles, that's why I am copying the table here for comparison: --Matthiaspaul (talk) 16:49, 3 June 2018 (UTC)

Name	URL	License	Environment	Reads	Writes	CAM	Limits
AutoTRAX DEX	http://www.kov.com/	Commercial	Windows	AutoTRAX XML	AutoTRAX XML	Gerber, Excellon	unlimited layers, no PCB size limit.
BSch3V	http://www.suigyodo.com/online/e/	BSD 2-Clause	Windows
DesignSparkPCB	http://www.designspark.com/	Freeware	Windows
EAGLE	http://www.cadsoft.de/	Professional, Standard, Hobbyist, Light	Linux, Mac, Windows	EAGLE, ACCEL (P-CAD, Altium, Protel), ULTIBOARD, Netlists, BMP	EAGLE (XML), Netlists, Images, PDF, Custom (via ULPs)	Gerber, Excellon, Sieb & Meyer, HPGL, PostScript, Custom	999 sheets, 255 layers, 16 layers for auto-router, 4 x 4 m (150 x 150 inches); freeware: 1 sheet; 2 layers, 100 x 80 mm (3.9 x 3.2 inches)
esCAD sch	http://sch.escad.jp/	Freeware	Windows XP/7/8.1	.EscSch, "package file" of Altera and Xilinx	.EscSch, Netlists, Images, PDF		max A0 sheet
FreePCB	http://www.freepcb.com/	GNU	Windows	PADS-PCB Netlists	PADS-PCB Netlists	Gerber	16 layers, 60 x 60 inches
Fritzing	http://fritzing.org/	GNU GPL v3	Linux, Mac, Windows		SVG	Gerber
gEDA	http://www.gpleda.org/	GPL	Linux			Gerber
KiCad	http://www.kicad-pcb.org	GPL	Linux, Windows, MAC
Osmond PCB	http://www.osmondpcb.com/	Freeware Trial	Mac	Gerber	Lue, DXF, PDF	DXF, PostScript	(trial limited to 700 pins)
PCBWeb	http://www.pcbweb.com/	Freeware	Windows				No option for DXF Export
Pulsonix	http://www.pulsonix.com	Commercial, Lite	Windows	Altium, CADSTAR, Eagle, P-CAD, PADS, ORCAD, Gerber, SXF, BMP, WMF, EDIF and more	Custom, DXF, IDF, Images, Netlists, STEP, SPICE	3D, Excellon, Gerber, LPKF, ODB++, STEP	Unlimited Layers, Unlimited Pin Limit.
TARGET 3001!	http://www.ibfriedrich.com/	Freeware, commercial, students, educational institutes	Windows	Eagle, Protel	Eagle	Gerber, Excellon, Sieb & Meyer, HPGL, DXF, STEP, PovRay	Freeware: 250 Pins, 2 layers, schematic size and/or board size 2m x 2m, 100 schematic pages
TinyCAD	https://sourceforge.net/projects/tinycad/	Freeware	Windows
ZenitPCB Layout	http://www.zenitpcb.com/eng/PCB.html	Freeware	Windows	Gerber	DXF, IDF, EAGLE	DXF, IDF	800 pins

Mentor Graphics

Mentor Graphics not even mentioned in the listing???