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Business & incomeExperience excerpt · English

I'm not so sure about that

… I'm not so sure about that. A while ago I was really excited about Altium introducing CircuitStudio (the first iteration, I think they have a new product with the same name that's completely different). CircuitStudio was pitched as Altium-lite. I paid, I believe, $3000 for it (with some kind of maintenance license?) and absolutely loved it. A year or so later they reached out to me to let me know that they were changing their licensing costs to $900/year or something like that and that they wanted to reward me as an early adopter by giving me a lifetime license. But... the product didn't, as far as I can tell, ever get enough traction to actually become a long-term-viable product. Eagle, at the time, was I think $1000 for a professional license (way before Autodesk bought Eagle). CircuitStudio was, to me, a dramatically better product than Eagle. But where I've ended up with this... I have a perpetual license for a product that stopped getting updates years ago. No one I work with has software that's compatible with it and they can't just buy a license. …

Original discussionJITX – The Fastest Way to Design Circuit Boards96 source comments · at import
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KR

> I don't think the market crowding here is great for anybody. In the end, the users will win from this crowding, I suppose.

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MI

As the PCB manufacturing industry becomes more accessible to hobbyists and junior engineers through services like JLCPCB and PCBWay, KiCad, despite its limitations compared to professional tools, is gaining popularity. While experienced PCB designers may not prefer KiCad over their professional-grade software, the growing adoption of KiCad by hobbyists and entry-level engineers could lead to its increased presence in the professional sphere as these users progress in their careers and bring their tool preferences with them.

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SV

> New designs? They're in KiCAD now. While I really don't love KiCAD, no one's going to pull the rug out from under me. I took a different path, but we have arrived in the same place. I have a coupe kicad gripes, but there is no doubt it is getting better all the time…. And for free.

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