KiCad as alternative to Altium and other paid software

[maui]

@Naib

The same design imported via KiCadStepUp, as well as import copper (workaround the custom pad issue) would then export as 70Meg. Pass that through @Seth_h stepreduce and its 24meg … however NX would still take ages to import

Please consider that also StepUp has implemented .stpZ step (and .wrz) format compression

KiCad StepUp WB: few enhancements

Both ‘.stpz’ (step compressed) and ‘.wrz’ (vrml compressed) formats can now be exported & imported using FreeCAD >=0.18 and StepUp. Vrml compressed would be useful only when wrz support will be implemented in kicad (v6 cycle); STEP compressed instead can be already used because StepUp will build the board assembling using the stpz counterpart of the wrl model, allowing a smaller library set. Here the StepUp preferences dialog: [stpz-wrz-settings]

Check your settings:

In fact FreeCAD has implemented this before KiCAD followed it;
I implemented in FreeCAD the compressed extension in 2018 and following I included that in StepUp.