Open Source KiCad AlternativesTop Electronic Design Automation Tools & Circuit Simulators like KiCad

The best open source alternative to KiCad is Fritzing. It's not free, so if you're looking for a free alternative, you could try Velxio or LibrePCB. If that doesn't suit you, our users have ranked more than 50 alternatives to KiCad and 16 is open source so hopefully you can find a suitable replacement. Other interesting open source alternatives to KiCad are eSim, Horizon EDA, MeowCAD and atopile.

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Most KiCad alternatives are Circuit Simulators, but you can also narrow the list to Electronic Design Automation Tools or Circuit Designers. Other popular filters are Android, Mac, iPad and Open Source.
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Alternatives
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Alternatives list

  1. Fritzing icon
     114 likes

    Open-source initiative aiding designers, artists, and researchers in transforming prototypes to actual products, documenting circuits, sharing, teaching, and PCB manufacturing.

    59 Fritzing alternatives

    Cost / License

    • Paid
    • Open Source

    Application type

    Platforms

    • Mac
    • Windows
    • Linux
    • AppImageHub
    • Flathub
    • Haiku
    Good alternative?
     
  2. Velxio icon
     15 likes

    Emulate Arduino, ESP32 & Raspberry Pi. in your browser. Write code, compile, and run on 19 real boards — Arduino Uno, ESP32, ESP32-C3, Raspberry Pi Pico, Raspberry Pi 3, and more. No hardware, no cloud, no limits.

    5 Velxio alternatives

    Cost / License

    • Freemium
    • Open Source

    Platforms

    • Online
    • Self-Hosted
    Good alternative?
     
  3. LibrePCB icon
     23 likes

    LibrePCB is a free EDA software to develop printed circuit boards. It’s currently under heavy development to bring out first stable releases as soon as possible.

    Cost / License

    Application type

    Platforms

    • Mac
    • Windows
    • Linux
    • Flathub
    Good alternative?
     
  4. eSim icon
     4 likes

    eSim (previously known as Oscad / FreeEDA) is an open source EDA tool for circuit design, simulation, analysis and PCB design.

    Cost / License

    Application type

    Platforms

    • Windows
    • Linux
    Good alternative?
     
  5. Horizon EDA icon
     3 likes

    Horizon is a free EDA package. Contribute to carrotIndustries/horizon development by creating an account on GitHub.

    Cost / License

    • Free
    • Open Source

    Platforms

    • Windows
    • Linux
    Good alternative?
     
  6. MeowCAD icon
     3 likes

    MeowCAD is an online free and open source electronic design application tool. Its focus is on schematic and PCB design for electronic circuits.

    Cost / License

    • Free
    • Open Source

    Platforms

    • Online
    Good alternative?
     
  7. atopile icon
     1 like

    atopile is a language and toolchain to describe electronic circuit boards with code. By replacing the point and click schematic interface with code, we introduce software development workflows like reuse, validation and automation to the world of electronics.

    Cost / License

    • Free
    • Open Source (MIT)

    Platforms

    • Mac
    • Linux
    • Windows
    • BSD
    • Python
    Good alternative?
     
  8. gEDA Project icon
     26 likes

    The gEDA project has produced and continues working on a full GPL'd suite and toolkit of Electronic Design Automation tools. These tools are used for electrical circuit design, schematic capture, simulation, prototyping, and production.

    56 gEDA Project alternatives

    Cost / License

    • Free
    • Open Source

    Application type

    Alerts

    • Discontinued

    Platforms

    • Mac
    • Linux
    Good alternative?
     
  9. Circuit Diagram is a free application for making electronic circuit diagrams and exporting them as images. Design circuits online in your browser or using the desktop application.

    Cost / License

    Platforms

    • Windows
    • Online
    Good alternative?
     
  10. PCB Elegance icon
     1 like

    PCB Elegance is a suite of circuit board design tools for Windows. Including schematic capture, board layout, and manufacturing file generation. First released in 1998, it was proprietary software until 2012, when it was released as open source software under the GPL.

    Cost / License

    • Free
    • Open Source

    Platforms

    • Windows
    Good alternative?
     
  11. pcb-rnd icon
     1 like

    pcb-rnd is a free/open source, flexible, modular Printed Circuit Board editor for design of professional and hobby boards. It has a strong UNIX mind set.

    Cost / License

    • Free
    • Open Source

    Platforms

    • Mac
    • Windows
    • Linux
    • FreeBSD
    • NetBSD
    • OpenBSD
    Good alternative?
     
  12. tscircuit icon
     8 likes

    tscircuit is a framework for designing real electronics with Typescript and React. Your tscircuit code compiles into real-time previews for PCBs, schematics, 3D models and can be exported to fabrication files for manufacturing.

    Cost / License

    • Free
    • Open Source (MIT)

    Application type

    Platforms

    • Online
    Good alternative?
     
12 of 16 KiCad alternatives