I may be wrong but it seems to me that history repeats itself as with version 6ā¦ Where the same bugs are fixed with the advent of a minimum of new functionsā¦
Of course!
Any software that has been around for over 30 years with countless additions and subtractions by who knows how many contributors is bound to have the occasional problem. 
As a FOS project, a heavy reliance is placed on users reporting problems every release. The more users, the more testing, the more reporting, the more repairing, the better the, one day, final result.
What is the significant difference between 6.11 and 7.0.2? Bugs are repeated by global differences, but the earth of the format of libraries and files has added problemsā¦ Here even the question is in another why break what worked well?))
7.0.2 is a bugfix release (as was 7.0.1). For the new features of the 7.0 series compared to 6.0 you will need to look at the release notes of 7.0.0:
What is the significant difference between 6.11 and 7.0.2?
- 6.11:
- last stable version from v6-development line
- very few bugs
- no new bugfixes will be released
- no development anymore
- v7.0.2:
- current stable branch
- more features as in v6 (if you need/want these features: depends on you). The feature-list (this list is not complete, there are more unmentioned things) was linked by @hmk
- some more bugs than v6.11 (because itās still at the first quarter of the v7-life-cycle)
- bugfixes and support until december 2023
- no new features will be added to v7 (as measure against introducing new bugs into a stable release branch)
So if you want the stability of v6 in the v7 branch you have to wait for december 2023 and than install the v7.10 (or similar) release. That would be the the best v7-version with fewest bugs, but requires patience on your side.
But if all users would do this, than no intermediate versions (v7.0.0 ā¦ v7.0.1 ā¦ v7.0.10) with the intermediate bugfixes would be possible as the bugfixes rely on the user-bugreports. So delaying the install of v7-version is a solution for some users, but not for all.
Actually V7 bug fixing has found several V6 bugs, but they wonāt get back ported unless something really nasty gets found
Unfortunately, in 6ā¦ 7ā¦ 8 significant new functions are not observed, for example, such as the gerber editorā¦ Or for example, the section for the preparation of fails of production bom, etcā¦ But what negatively affects is the change in the format of biblical texts and the projects themselves from veneration to versionā¦ The developers have already been approached, but the answer is always one of these very difficultā¦ In the near future you will have to sit on altium
The new features you want maybe are not included but features others wanted are 
features donāt grow on trees. kicad still has a very limited developers team compared to subscription software solutions like altium and therefore only a few features at a time can be implemented. donāt we all wish kicad would bolster all functiums altium has (at least the useful ones)? but the real world problem is, as long as no one pays a lot more money then currently to support faster development, this development will take time and we all have to wait.
This kind of ranting without any contribution to solve any problem comes up from time to time.
I have been using Kicad for 18 years for professional work (I mean, with products in the market). Every not supported feature was replaced by either a workaround or extra time. No need to make any comparison with altium or any other tool. And I have never asked my money back.
We have bought Protel 3 in 1997. It was our most expensive investment in any tool ever. And distributor didnāt said a word that if we will wait 3 months the next version will come having the feature of pushing other tracks while routing. Protel 3 had no that. Practically the best solution to push 10 tracks running in parallel was to delete them all and route them from scratch once more. When we said that they are ānot fairā, only what they offered us was 20% discount for the next version. Spending in total 180% of price to have it, was certainly too much for us.
So during next 20 years what we were doing most often was deleting a set of tracks and routing them once more. And our decision was to never ever buy anything from that firm.
In 2016 or 2017 I found the KiCad demo videos showing that when you route track the others are pushed. It was enough argument for me to switch from Protel to KiCad. Those time it was KiCad 4.0.6 but I have read that 4.0.7 will be soon so I decided to wait a moment reading in the meantime all documentations I can find.
In my opinion there are lot improvements between versions. The most important for me:
4->5 - via stitching without need to route track through all vias,
5->6 - I can color connection lines and I can hide GND lines (very helpful in placement if my designs have all bottom GND),
6->7 - I installed it recently and had no time yet to look through all its possibilities.
My favourite new feature was the addition of undo-redo (although its lack helped me to develope the skill of laying the tracks at the first attempt).
In second place, the possibility of moving individual corner and create new corners in a zone. Before, all that could be done was to delete it and make the zone again.
thatās why:
if you canāt deal with that, itās your problem, not kicads.
and btw, your claim that there are no new features in v7 is simply not true. just alone the database library feature is a very significant addition for professional use of this tool, as it makes collaborative synchronized work a lot easier.
Why canāt you compare with altium?
The word was āno need to compareā. You always can compare things, but not every comparison is reasonable:
- simple comparison of features, GUI concept, ā¦: ok
- comparison like āAltium has feature xyz, so itās easy to implement and I want it tomorrow in Kicadā: not reasonable. This ignores the background of both projects: Altium as multimillion dollar company and Kicad as an opensource project with mostly free time developers and a end of year funding budget of 100000. Obviously Altium has no chance in this comparison, so Kicad must have more and better features. And if you find a point where Kicad lacks behind altium than that is worth all possible criticism.
- it also ignores that the audience is not the same for both CAD-packages audience - so obviously there are different demands and therefore different features in both packages
Iām not talking about exotic functionsā¦
At least some of your demands is exotic - the requirement for a gerber editor is exotic. Most other users are fine with a gerber viewer and use an external gerber editor if needed. The wish for an XLSX-file: also not that common (most people are fine with csv).
On the other hand the majority of reactions to the v6ā>v7 development (about the added new features) was positive - maybe itās time to review your point of view?
Including all
Yes, I think you
This is the identity of comparing freecad and solid and simple things can be done but more complex noā¦ Now, even at the level of importing a project from altium to kicad, there are big problems they had 2-3 years ago
Now, even at the level of importing a project from altium to kicad, there are big problems they had 2-3 years ago
Judging the amount of merge-operations on the source-code (which are targeting the Altiumā>Kicad importer) there must be huge improvements on these import-process. So I think this overall statement is not correct. Some import-problems may be the same - but the import-process as a whole has certainly improved.
Note also: I donāt need and use this importer (also not the eagle importer for my ~200 eagle designs), but you will not find a post where I rant about the developers dedicating the time to that importer-work. Itās there free time - so they decide.
If you really want to get something:
- write a good bugreport / feature request
- for feature requests:
- write a good motivation for that feature
- write a fair description - with expected advantages, but also with disadvantages
- hope for other users to upvote the feature request
- hope for some developers to dedicate their free time for your demand
- say thanks
- but simply ranting or comparing CAD-packages without taking different backgrounds into account: please no
notice: like in many of my answers some sentences in this long post are exaggerated - so donāt take it completely literally
There is one other VERY MINOR 
detail @m852 has failed to realize:
Kicad is open source, so Altium may view the Kicad code anytime they wish, so they SHOULD WITHOUT ANY EFFORT manage to create a kicad to Altium importer.
On the other hand, Altium has a closed code that is NOT available to anyone outside their own PAID developers, so for Kicad to create an importer is extremely difficult and requires much guesswork and user feedback.
Using KiCad I learned to use strategy of correcting already routed tracks by dragging segments. I donāt use undo-redo.
You use KiCad much longer then me so I didnāt noticed lack of it. In V5 it was certainly possible. In V4 I designed one PCB with zone bigger then PCB so even didnāt tried to add/remove corners.
At RFID readers I have zones having may be even 100 corners.
This is Kicad: https://www.kicad.org/
Please read and digest.
This forum is for discussing the use of Kicad, it is not a forum for comparing Kicad with other EDA programs.
I really think it is time to close this thread if EDA comparisons are all that is on offer.
Why does this forum tend to often be defensive and seem offended if someone complains that KiCad lacks some functionality?
Just be honest and up front about it and let people say what they think and possibly learn something from it.
KiCad is a good piece of software that does what many people need, especially those who do not have multi-million dollar bugdets for some reason or other, but it does not replace Altium for everyone - at least yet - especially not those who have multi-million dollar bugets.
And KiCad is improving over time, to hopefully match the needs of more people than before.
There is nothing shameful about that.
And like I said, perhaps there is an idea or two to be found even among those who complainā¦
Now it is time to close this thread.