It seem like KiCAD is growing very fast over the last years, and I’m looking for some numbers to support this claim. Are there any assessments of number of users of KiCAD today and in the past? Any data regarding migration from other CAD packages to KiCAD? Number of downloads?
Thanks
Avishay
Other 2 statistics are the the growth of forum users/topics and the growth of users that report issues in the bug track system.
You may ask the https://kicad.org webmasters.
I know there is some one (it was published once in the dev mailling list) that has statistics from some source of download.
As there are multiple ways of getting KiCad (different mirrors, repositories, source code, etc) its hard to know the exact numbers.
You can also have a look on the commits on the repository, for the perspective of development progress and contributions:
This sounds like a term project for a Business School’s “Marketing” class. Nevertheless . . . . I am very interested in seeing the results, and I believe the information is quite valuable. I wish I had some insight to share. I hope @Avishay_Orpaz uncovers some of this information and comes back to report it here.
Dale
Extra advertising shows how strange the threat to the number of sold licenses really is:
(Don’t Get Stuck Using “Free” Design Software)
Wow, what a page. Sad to see businesses still using that anti-open-source FUD language rather than just marketing their software on merit.
Plus this:
Worse yet, free software can be filled with bugs without any developers working to fix them. When you find a bug, you’re left to post your issue to a forum, all the while hoping that some lonely developer will open the source code and fix it at their leisure. Instead of getting stuck by bugs that arise in segmented design software, you need access to the best PCB design tools in a single program.
As an Altium user and KiCad developer, I find this statement quite ironic given how buggy Altium is and how little they communicate about fixing bugs 
(and for the record, I don’t think we’re that lonely)
So, I guess that means Altium feels threatened by us now 
.
I also wonder if anyone in their marketing group thought through the placement of their “free trial” banner… the entire article is spent lambasting free things and there they are trying to give you something for free (with even more lock-in).
… when you paid licence fees for a bug, you are left to pay more annual maintenance to report it …
A bit off topic, but Altium is rock solid compared to my experiences of mentor graphics software. DXDesigner and QuestaSim are orders of magnitude more expensive and more buggy to boot.
Interested in seeing numbers for KiCad though, I have been using it for nearly 10 years and have just mandated it in my business as the tool of choice. It is far too good to pass on.
Maybe we should write our own page…
Worse yet, paid software can be filled with bugs without any developers working to fix them. When you find a bug, you’re left to post your issue to a faceless company, all the while hoping that some lonely manager in the company decides that your bug is important enough so that some developer will open the source code and fix it at their work time.
The original feels especially false now when @Seth_h has started a business which fixes bugs (and contributes to the whole community) if you pay them.
In fairness, we also fix bugs if you don’t pay us. But paying customers get their specific bugs fixed immediately when reported.
I can vouch for the fact that being a professional programmer seems to have no impact on my relative loneliness or lack thereof.
…and KiCad is the best of free EDA packages, including Altium’s CircuitMaker, because KiCad is the only one mentioned by name (although for some reason only in the header). Maybe they are just fishing for search engine hits. Just look at the URL… it looks suspiciously like something which somebody would type to google search, while not describing the content very well.
Short of asking explicitly to allow the program to collect usage stats with the users permission I don’t know of any other way to accurately track this. Maybe generate a random string that would persist across upgrades and not be traceable to any individual. A small ‘ask’ given the software package in my opinion.
That’s true, sometimes I feel that some of the KiCad developers have been my personal code slaves
But of course I meant their comparison between free vs. paid software which implied that because you pay someone you don’t have to resort to forums and random willingness of random developers but get prompt service because you paid money.
Wow But at least KiCad can support more than 2 GB of RAM
T.
Hmm, Wayne is a full time developer for some time now
WOW! What a bunch of mud slinging, guilt by association, and unsubstantiated claims in that ad!
We all know - and accept - and understand the consequences - that KiCAD doesn’t have all the “features” of expensive, commercial, design programs like Altium. But at least in an ad directed at (supposedly intelligent) design engineers I’d expect them to name at least a few of those shortcomings, rather than repeating the over-generalized, blanket, statement that “KiCAD lacks features”. And what does Altium have to say about bloatware that is so overloaded with seldom-used features, and “features” of questionable value, that few mortals will ever master the program?
The ad mentions “compatibility problems” several times. What a striking example of the pot calling the kettle black! What program, besides Altium, is compatible with Altium? These compatibility problems have plagued the EDA industry for as long as there has been an EDA industry. If anything, KiCAD has done more for compatibility than any other software organization, by publishing its file specifications. Has Altium even bothered to take advantage of that bit of generosity, by including KiCAD file converters in any of its products?
Yeah, after the “30-day free trial” has expired, how many “compatibility problems” will you encounter when you try to finish your design with any program except Altium?
But the line about the “lonely developer” creates the most interesting challenge to display creativity that I have seen in quite a while. It begs for an outpouring of cynical sarcasm.
It is unfortunate that KiCAD’s developers are distributed across four (or perhaps more?) continents. We need a group photo! All the KiCAD developers in one picture . . . . along with their wives, husbands, girlfriends, boyfriends, significant others . . . . plus their offspring. How would you caption it? How about,
Or how about some tee-shirts with slogans? Imagine an attractive, female, girl-person, of the opposite sex wearing a top with the KiCAD logo and the slogan,
Or even something like,
Dale
… I am trying, but I can’t …