Best Free PCB Design Softwares
Top 13 PCB Design Softwares
PCB is one of the most important and integral part in all the electronic gadgets we are using today.
It has changed the way the devices are built as the size of a device/gadget heavily depends upon its size. Even flexible PCB’s are making their way into the market today.
So it is important to develop PCB designing skill to bring our design into reality.
But many of the hobbyists and enthusiasts couldn’t afford to buy a designing software and really need something that is free of cost. In this article, we will list some top free PCB design software which might help to design a professional electronic circuit by your own.
1. EasyEDA
EasyEDA is a free, zero-install, Web and cloud-based EDA tool suite, integrating powerful schematic capture, mixed-mode circuit simulation and PCB layout in a seamless cross-platform browser environment, for electronic engineers, educators, students, and hobbyists.
2. DesignSpark PCB
DesignSpark PCB is one of the world’s most popular and easily accessible electronics design software platforms.
Easy to learn and easy to use. It has a broad range of users from students to professional EDEs. It is free and can create 3D views so you can to visualize your design in real time.
It is designed to significantly reduce your concept-to-production time. At the core of this unique approach is a powerful software engine that enables you to capture Schematics, design PCB boards and layouts.
It’s constantly updated to improve its intuitiveness in order to better assist the designer in bringing his / her concept to production. Easily capture schematics, design PCB boards, improve layouts, and more, all with this one program.
3. Fritzing
Fritzing software is an interesting open-source initiative to support designers, artists, researchers and hobbyists to work creatively with interactive electronics and develop electronic projects.
It is meant to be a creative platform that’s easy to use and has similarities to Processing and Arduino. Useful for new designers or students.
4. gEDA
This Software runs across multiple platforms such as Unix, Linux, Windows as well as Mac systems.
This Tool is widely used for electronic as well as electrical circuit design that comes with schematic capture, simulation, prototyping, and production.
Currently, the gEDA project offers a mature suite of free software applications for electronics design, including schematic capture, attribute management, bill of materials (BOM) generation, netlisting into over 20 netlist formats, analog and digital simulation, and printed circuit board (PCB) design layout.
This makes this Software suitable for manufacturing and production purposes.
5. Kicad
This is an open source software suite containing programs for Schematic Capture, PCB Layout and Gerber file output.
It has more horsepower than a basic schematic capture tool and it is specifically designed for multiple tasks needed in Electronic Design Automation.
It can handle PCB layouts up to 32 layers and even includes a 3D viewer so you can review your design with rotate and pan inspection capabilities. This is the most used and well regarded free PCB design tools.
6. ExpressPCB
Express PCB software is easy to learn and can be used even by the beginners in PCB designing.
It’s a very simple design platform, both in terms of learning how the in’s and out’s of the system, as well as actually using it on a daily basis.
Some features are a bit dated, and the library isn’t that big, so it’s not the best of the best, but it is good enough to use for personal projects, and those just getting started in this field. User friendly interface with drag and drop feature makes it lot easier and faster to complete the design of a board.
7. BSch3V
This is a schematic capture tool for use on Windows. The name “BSch” is an abbreviation of “Basic Schematic”. It’s the third generation of Suigyodo’s schematic capture software. It’s a basic schematic editor and can’t handle complex tasks. There are better free schematic editors available.
8. Osmond PCB
Osmond PCB is a free software which runs in MAC PC’s.
It is a flexible tool for designing printed circuit boards. Its many features such as; virtually unlimited board sizes, number of board layers, number of parts, support for both through-hole and surface mount parts and more.
It has an excellent spatial resolution of 10 nanometers. You can now design boards of any size and shape and with as many layers as you want. It’s easy to use in metric or imperial units. And its editing tools make it easy to design and tweak your circuits.
9. TinyCAD
TinyCAD is a program that helps you to draw circuit diagrams. It also comes with a simple symbol library which helps the user to get started quickly. It also allows users to publish the designs as image files for documentary purpose.
What’s nice about this tool is that you can use it as front end to other PCB layout tools. It also has the ability to check for design circuit flaws. This is an open source software project.
10. ZenitPCB
ZenitPCB is an excellent schematic capture and PCB layout design software tool to create professional printed circuit board ( PCB ).
It is a flexible and easy to use CAD program, which allow you to realize your projects in a short time. With ZenitPCB Layout it is possible to create the project starting both from the schematic capture or by the layout itself.
This software is aimed at students and hobbyists who do not need the most advanced features and not wish to pay for more expensive software.
It does not have a built-in autorouter. A schematic editor ZenitCapture is also available for a full circuit design solution. Designs are limited to 1000 pins.
11. PCBWeb Designer
PCBWeb is a free CAD application for designing and manufacturing electronics hardware.
It’s easy to install, use, and learn. You can design multi-sheet schematics with its fast and easy-to-use wiring tool and route multi-layer boards with support for copper pours and DRC checking.
The components library is fairly robust, and the user interface intuitive.
Also worth noting – the program includes an integrated Digi-Key parts catalog with bill of materials manager, to make purchasing the necessary components seamless.
12. Eagle
Eagle CAD comes with schematic capture and PCB layout design.
It provides the option of converting the designed schematic into PCB board with ease.
Vast libraries and the ability to runs across variety of platforms such as Windows, Linux and Mac makes it a good choice for designing.
It also offers Paid versions with extensive features but the free version is remarkably competent.
13. FreePCB
Free PCB is an open source PCB design editor for Windows. While its source code is copyrighted, FreePCB was released under the GNU General Public License (version 2 or later).
This software was designed in such a way that learning and designing is lot easier than in other free PCB software. Also, it can be used to develop some quality professional electronic layout and printed boards.
It does not have a built-in autorouter, but it can use the FreeRoute web-based autorouter.
16 copper layers, board dimensions of 60×60, imports and exports of netlists and much more makes this the best choice among the free PCB software.
You can check out PCBWay.com for Project Sponsorship, as they have some good offers out there. In fact, you can even make some commissions if you share your open source projects.
