I’m clapping for you, space boy. Since 1984 I use software to design PCBs like: ORCAD for DOS, Tango, Proteus, Protel, PCAD, Circuit Studio, and, of course, ALTIUM, so thus, I knew Kicad, It was love at first sight!! It is friendly, speed, simple and sophisticate, free (!!!) and your plugins, solve our problems!!! He is, without a doubt, the best. I love free sw (god save the Kicad) and free HW (Arduino and around). As Mr. Spok would say, “Long live and prosper to kicad”! 
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Altium is quite evolved and powerful software, and quite expensive, and its a shame there is no maker/hobbyist level pricing… so in terms of price-performance I think KiCad has a pretty good standing 
But just talking about features, there is one thing missing in KiCad that really hurts (IMHO):
Panelization
Panelizing your designs well has a very direct impact on the cost, especially so for FPC designs where each separate assembly incurs additional charges for fixtures. While some fabrication services will panellise for you, it’s not really in their self-interest to reduce your costs, and communicating complex panelisation requirements is a pain.
KiCad doesn’t support it, and none of the solutions currently offered work really well in all cases.
Altium, on the other hand has this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=klt9IsnREwU
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What about the add-ons that help you panelize PCBs
Have you looked at this plug-in? It’s not built in but it’s a very capable panellizer. It doesn’t have all the bells and whistles of the Altium package but it is functional.
Often things that were written as plugins eventually make it into the KiCad code base.
Altium is free for many and not only it, let’s be realistic) It is not true that everyone buys it or, so to speak, uses it legally. As for the Kicad, I constantly hear and see that the mistakes of 4-5 years ago are not being solved, they are known and open, while I hear that there are not enough developers and testers are absent as a class. What is the problem with hiring? If there are not enough funds, then why not increase the amount of donations? If there are not enough programmers, then why not hire more?
For me, Altium has a good fabrication tool, outjobs. You can customize and automate the fabrication output process. In an industrial setting this is necessary. Maybe you could write a KiCad script to do a similar function.
Another thing is good Altium support for repeated sheets in the schematic editor.
Another is making a panel with the pcb to send to the board house. KiKit can be used in KiCad but it isn’t as easy as in Altium.
All that being said, KiCad has come a long way in the last few years like:
Database support is great. I setup a database for the company that I work for, who uses Altium. I set it up so KiCad uses the same database and all the part, symbol & footprint, names are the same for both platforms, just the location where they are stored is different.
It may seem trivial but to click on a KiCad ground symbol and change the name is a big help.
I’m looking forward to KiCad V9.
craftyjons reply is spot on
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V9 seems to have outjobs (called jobsets)
Spaceboy, I saw that but haven’t seen much detail yet. I don’t install the nightlies. I’ll wait till V9 is out.
Thanks
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Compared to proper CAM tools the panalization ‘function’ in Altium is a joke. You still have to define the pannel manually and not parametrically. Mouse bites, v-scoding and coupons are also not integral part of Altium and have to be inserted manually. When we are talking about big companies, it’s way smarter to invest in proper CAM tool. Especially if you have internal assembly line, EMS or at least people who are responsible for PCBAs.
Based on a couple responses to my question I guess open discussion works better for the open source community than it does for the closed source? Well, I guess this is truly a ‘from whose perspective’?
How many times have we seen a company refuse to admit there even is a bug until they have a fix for it. Until then the only bug they recognize is ‘crickets’. 
Altium is “free” in a small number of countries where piracy is a way of life and is not frowned upon. However, big businesses pay for their tools and don’t have issues with it. One group of people who gets Altium is, however, students. A lot of universities give EE students licenses to Altium, and that’s how they get hooked.
Regarding hiring more people. Development of an open-source and free tool is most likely not that profitable. Getting more developers wouldn’t improve things as you’ll need people to plan development and strategy, which will slow down feature releases, and Kicad will end up as Altium.
I disagree. Large corporations contributing to Linux is what made it what it is. It made ‘business sense’.
In most countries, Altium and other paid products have gained their popularity precisely because of piracy, this has been going on since the days of pcad. And the more expensive your Altium is, the more it will be pirated. If you don’t fix old errors for years, the software will not become a full-fledged tool or, as they say, a free analogue…
Linux and other operating systems are just a shell that is not suitable without programs, unfortunately, and the presence of increasingly complex electronics requires new tools and improvements to the old ones. You can probably find a computer with XP in the trash, install DOS on it and design something. The question is why? To suffer or to say this is Linux or Win…
This is about the development model, not the product. Companies found it cheaper to pitch in and develop Linux instead of paying Microsoft. Altium is pushing their user base in the same direction as one poster pointed out earlier.
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Many middle income countries in SE Asia used to widely pirate OrCad and Protel, but a clamp down by the governments ~10 years ago to placate the USA and ISO9001 approvals made these vanish.
Meanwhile these countries don’t get the student teaser licences either.
An Altium seat now costs several months technicians salary, as a result KiCad use has soared
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Yeah, while especially KiKit is a cool plugin, it’s very complicated to install and unfortunately still quite buggy with many edge cases not covered. If you want to make a panel out of different boards, for example, you can’t use the GUI but have to resort to quite complex python scripting. And even then there are cases with irregular board outlines where it just doesn’t work as expected.
Its still a long way from KiKit to the Altium panelisation.
And the other solutions basically all have severe shortcomings, like not supporting irregular board outlines, not producing fabrication outputs…
@trancecat which CAM tool would you suggest for use with KiCad, and that is free? I don’t believe there is any…
so at least while Altium Panelizer isn’t the bee’s knees, its included in the (high) price of Altium, and better than not having anything.
I want something that is included in the (low) price of KiCad, is easy to use, does a decent job on arbitrary PCB shapes, and also can combine multiple designs… I think that would cover 99% of people’s needs.
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I’m curious how many custom panels per year (and in what technology - e.g. IPC class, number of layers, special features like backdrill/buried vias), one would have to manufacture to justify spending ~$10k on a tool with builtin panelization as opposed to letting the PCB manufacturer do the panelization job.
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Thanks, yes of course I know KiKit - its a great effort, but:
a) its horribly complicated to install, requiring you to run custom scripts that modify KiCad itself, and then re-sign the binaries.
b) its UI plugin is ok, the GUI is a bit primitive, but it gets the job done for basic panels. A “proper” integration would be nicer.
c) advanced use-cases aren’t covered by the GUI. That’s basically anything more advanced than putting the same design in a grid arrangement. So to make a panel out of different designs, or to rotate and place designs in any kind of complex way requires you to write your panelisation job as python code. While I have done this many times by now, it’s absolutely not the way I want to work.
d) many cases just fail. Either the board outline is too complicated, or it can’t find a good way to place the tabs and mousebites, or it gets confused about what parts are inside and what parts are outside… each time I try to make a new complex panel, its a new adventure what will not work this time.
So basically, having KiKit is better than not having it, and the developer of KiKit has put in a lot of work to get it where it is, for which I am very grateful, but I think he would also admit that the current state is a still a far way from a “real” solution that people can easily use in the general case.
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