Engineering · paid tool
Altium alternatives
PCB design software for schematic capture and board layout.
Free alternatives
Highest score first. The score weighs licence openness, repository activity, traction, feature coverage, and cost; factors without data are left out and the rest are reweighted.
KiCad
Ranking score 87.4/100
Schematic capture and PCB layout for electronic designs.
- Licence
- GPL-3.0
- Platforms
- macos, windows, linux
- Self-hostable
- No
- Repo activity
- Last release October 16, 2026
- GitHub stars
- 3,076
- Last verified
- October 24, 2026
Why this rank
Score breakdown for KiCad Factor Points Weight Licence opennessGPL-3.0 licence (open); not self-hostable 17.5 25% Repository activityLast activity 0 day(s) before 2026-10-26 25 25% Popularity3076 GitHub stars 14.9 20% Feature coverage6 of 6 curated capability tags covered 20 20% Costfree pricing model 10 10% Points add up to the score. Factors without data are left out and the remaining weights are renormalised.
LibrePCB
Ranking score 84/100
PCB design suite with a clean workflow and library management.
- Licence
- GPL-3.0
- Platforms
- macos, windows, linux
- Self-hostable
- No
- Repo activity
- Last release June 12, 2026
- GitHub stars
- 3,033
- Last verified
- October 24, 2026
Why this rank
Score breakdown for LibrePCB Factor Points Weight Licence opennessGPL-3.0 licence (open); not self-hostable 17.5 25% Repository activityLast activity 2 day(s) before 2026-10-26 25 25% Popularity3033 GitHub stars 14.8 20% Feature coverage5 of 6 curated capability tags covered 16.7 20% Costfree pricing model 10 10% Points add up to the score. Factors without data are left out and the remaining weights are renormalised.
Horizon EDA
Ranking score 82.5/100
Electronic design automation suite for schematics and boards.
- Licence
- GPL-3.0
- Platforms
- macos, windows, linux
- Self-hostable
- No
- Repo activity
- Last release December 5, 2025
- GitHub stars
- 1,325
- Last verified
- October 24, 2026
Why this rank
Score breakdown for Horizon EDA Factor Points Weight Licence opennessGPL-3.0 licence (open); not self-hostable 17.5 25% Repository activityLast activity 21 day(s) before 2026-10-26 25 25% Popularity1325 GitHub stars 13.3 20% Feature coverage5 of 6 curated capability tags covered 16.7 20% Costfree pricing model 10 10% Points add up to the score. Factors without data are left out and the remaining weights are renormalised.