Comparison
What the word "free" actually covers in each PCB design tool — open source, free tier, metered AI credits, or free until you export. Compared without invented prices.
Last updated
"Free" means at least four different things in this category, and the difference matters more than the headline. It can mean open source with no company involved at all. It can mean a free tier of a commercial product. It can mean the editor is free but the AI is metered. It can mean free until you try to export or go commercial.
This page sorts the tools by which kind of free they are. It does not quote prices for any of them — those change, and a stale number is worse than none. It describes the model instead, which is stable.
The same six questions asked of every tool. Unverified cells say so.
| Dimension | KiCad | EasyEDA | SchemaOurs | Flux | ProtoFlow |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Licence / distribution | Free and open source, under the GNU GPL. No licence cost, no seat count, no vendor. | Proprietary and free to use, operated alongside the LCSC / JLCPCB supply chain. | Proprietary desktop app. Free plan including a monthly allowance of agent credits; further credits sold in packs. | Proprietary, browser-delivered, with a free tier.Vendor's claim | Free to start.Vendor's claim |
| Where it runs | Desktop — Linux, Windows and macOS. | Browser, with an optional desktop client. | Desktop — macOS on Apple Silicon, and Windows and Linux on x86-64 and arm64. | Browser — nothing to install, works from any OS. | Desktop — macOS, Windows and Linux.Vendor's claim |
| Agent command surface | A Python API for the board editor. It is an automation interface for scripts rather than a uniform verb set spanning both editors. | An extension API for the editor, rather than a command vocabulary intended for an autonomous agent. | 74 documented commands across the schematic and PCB editors, identical for you and for the agent. | Not verified | Not verified |
| AI assistance | None built in. AI assistance comes from third-party tools that read or write KiCad files. | Not verified | A natural-language agent that drives the editor through those same commands, then checks its own work with DRC and ERC. | An in-app AI assistant for design help and part selection.Vendor's claim | Turns plain-English prompts into editable schematics using catalogue parts, and runs DRC and ERC.Vendor's claim |
| Reads KiCad libraries | Yes — KiCad libraries are its native format. | Import paths exist for external libraries; LCSC parts are the native path.Vendor's claim | Yes — reads KiCad symbol and footprint libraries, and Altium schematic libraries. | Not verified | Exports a KiCad project.Vendor's claim |
| Fabrication output | Gerber RS-274X, Excellon drill, IPC-2581 and ODB++. | Gerber export, with a direct hand-off into JLCPCB fabrication. | Gerber RS-274X and Excellon drill, including plated and non-plated splits. | Gerber export.Vendor's claim | Not verified |
Genuinely free, with no company that can change the terms
Free and open source under the GPL. Not a trial, not a tier, not metered — there is no account, no seat count and no vendor who can alter the deal later. If "free" is your hard requirement rather than a preference, this is the honest answer, and it is the answer even though we sell a competing tool. What you give up is a built-in design agent; there is none.
Free, in exchange for supply-chain gravity
Free to use, funded by the LCSC and JLCPCB business around it. Nothing is metered, and for a hobby board it is hard to beat. The cost is not money — it is that the flow assumes you buy parts and boards from that supply chain.
Free plan with a monthly agent allowance
Drawing schematics, laying out boards, routing, running checks and exporting Gerbers are not metered. What is metered is the AI agent: the free plan includes a monthly credit allowance, and further credits are sold in packs. So the editor is free to use indefinitely, and the agent is free within the monthly allowance. This is our product, and that is the honest shape of it.
Free tier of a hosted commercial tool
A free tier exists on top of a commercial browser-based product. As with any hosted tool, check what the free tier does about private projects and export before you rely on it.
Free to start
Described by its makers as free to start. We have not verified where the limits of the free entry point sit, so treat the boundary as something to check rather than something we are asserting.
The questions that actually decide it, rather than the feature checklist.
Open source under a copyleft licence cannot be taken away from you. A free tier can be changed by whoever owns it. Both are legitimate; they are just different risks, and worth being deliberate about if you are starting something long-lived.
In tools where AI is the paid part, the editor is usually free and the agent is metered. That is a much better deal than it sounds if you mostly draw by hand and want help occasionally — and a worse one if you want the agent doing the bulk of the work.
The most expensive kind of free is the kind you cannot leave. Check for Gerber and drill export, and check whether your libraries and schematics can be read by anything else, before you invest a project in a tool.
Hobby-free and commercially-free are not the same. If you intend to sell the board, read the licence or terms rather than the pricing page headline.
Schema publishes its entire agent surface. Here are some of the 74 commands — the same ones you issue and the agent issues — so you can judge the claim rather than take it.
We make one of the tools on this page, so here is exactly what we did and did not check.
Last reviewed . Corrections: corrections@getschema.dev
KiCad, for most people. It is free and open source under the GPL, mature, and the format the rest of the industry interoperates with — there is no tier, no metering and no vendor who can change the terms. We say this as the makers of a competing tool. KiCad has no built-in AI agent, which is the trade-off.
There are free entry points rather than unlimited free AI. The pattern across the category is that the editor is free and the AI is metered, because running the models has a real per-use cost. In Schema, schematic capture, layout, routing, checking and Gerber export are unmetered; the agent runs on a monthly credit allowance on the free plan, with extra credits sold in packs.
There is a free plan and no time limit on it. Using the editor by hand — capture, layout, routing, DRC, ERC, Gerber and Excellon export — is not metered. The AI agent is: the free plan includes a monthly credit allowance, and you can buy more credits if you run out. See the pricing page for the current detail.
KiCad, yes — the GPL covers the software, not the boards you design with it. For the others, check the terms of the specific tier you are on rather than assuming, since free tiers of commercial products sometimes restrict commercial use.
Free to start on macOS, Windows and Linux. Reads your existing KiCad and Altium libraries, so trying it does not mean rebuilding your parts.
