What is KiCad?

Kicad is an open-source and libre software for Electronic Design Automation (EDA). In lay terms, KiCad is used to draft electronics schematics and Printed Circuit Board layouts (PCB's). These PCB layouts can easily be exported to a format that is universally in use for PCB manufacturing.

KiCad History

KiCad saw the light in 1992. During the early days, KiCad was a collection of programs that each supported a different aspect of electronics, and that were meant to be used in conjunction.

After 2000, it gradually became easier for anyone to create professional-grade printed circuit boards, both in terms of cost and also in terms of growing support by companies and software for individual DIY production, and consequently, hobbyist electronic design became especially popular. KiCad evolved along this trend, and more and more people began using it for their designs.

In 2013 the CERN BE-CO-HT, the computer engineering section of the European Organization for Nuclear Research began contributing to the project to help it to get KiCad to a respectable professional level, competitive with commercial Electronic Design Automation software. KiCad 4 was the first release to incorporate the additions developed by the CERN-sponsored developers.

In 2019 KiCad joined the Linux Foundation, and two lead developers of the project formed a service corporation to garner extra funds for ongoing development of the software.

By 2025, KiCad has evolved into a full-fledged productivity tool for professional EDA design.

KiCad Features

Over the years KiCad features have expanded significantly and have made KiCad a complete production tool.

  • schematic capture
  • PCB layout
  • Gerber file generation/visualization
  • library editing
  • manufacturing file viewing
  • ngspice-provided SPICE simulation
  • engineering calculation
  • cross-platform: runs on FreeBSD, Linux, MS Windows and Mac OS X
  • availability of large component libraries
  • availability of third-party libraries
  • custom components can be added
  • import of components from other EDA applications
  • board file, schematics, libraries and project files written in the S-expression format
  • configuration files written in plain text

KiCad Licensing

KiCad is licensed under GNU GPL v3. The KiCad libraries are licensed under the Creative Commons CC-BY-SA 4.0 License.

License Main Points

  • free use for non-commercial projects
  • free use for commercial projects
  • no need to share creations
  • redistributed libraries must be shared under the same GNU GPL v3 license and they must retain attribution info