9 Free and Open Source Circuit Design Software

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Circuit design software is an essential part of an electronics engineer’s life. We have shared some Golden Rules for Circuit Design to avoid errors.

A good tool allows you to build designs and checks for problems with the design at regular intervals. It is also easy to navigate with sufficient options available for optimum circuit design.

All these and many more features are available in today’s EDA tools, but often these tools cost a lot for engineers. Hence engineers are always looking for alternatives to use.

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If you are an engineer looking for free PCB design software, then you have come to the right place. Here we bring to you 9 helpful circuit design simulator tools which are strong in features and soft on the pocket.

1. CircuitMaker

A free-to-use schematic and PCB design tool for the Open Source Hardware community. CircuitMaker is more than just a free schematic and PCB design tool – it’s a vibrant community of open-source designers, makers, hobbyists, students, and professionals working together to make exciting new products every day.

Download CircuitMaker

2. Open Circuit Design Software

This website is the repository for the suite of open-source EDA (Electronic Design Automation) tools including Magic, IRSIM, Netgen, PCB, and XCircuit. These tools are all provided for free under the GNU Public License (GPL) or similar open-source license.

Download Open Circuit Design

3. KiCad EDA

KiCad is an open-source software suite for Electronic Design Automation (EDA). The programs handle Schematic Capture and PCB Layout with Gerber output. The suite runs on Windows, Linux, and macOS and is licensed under GNU GPL v3.

Download KiCad

4. ADS Circuit Design Software

The ADS It s a process of analysis, permits to extract or to verify the properties of a system analog or digital systems.

Supported OS: Windows

Download ADS

5. nagaEDA Circuit Design Software

naga EDA devotes to providing useful electronic design tools in C++ and, especially, Python. The current release contains naga.Verilog, a Verilog parser.

Supported OS: Windows

Download nagaEDA

6. OpenSce Circuit Design Software

OpenSce is open-source software with an attractive and efficient GUI that allows the design of linear electronic circuits and characterizes existing ones.

Supported OS: Windows

Download OpenSce

7. QSapecNG Circuit Design Software

QSapecNG is a Qt-based symbolic analysis program for linear analog circuits. In fact, it consists of two independent parts: the SapecNG framework engine, and the application gui QsapecNG.

Supported OS: Windows

Download QSapecNG

8. SimulIde

SimulIDE is a simple real-time electronic circuit simulator, intended for hobbyists or students to learn and experiment with simple electronic circuits and microcontrollers, supporting PIC, AVR, and Arduino.

Simplicity and ease of use are the key features of this simulator.

You can create, simulate and interact with your circuits within minutes, just drag components from the list, drop into the circuit, connect them and push the power button to see how it works.

Supported OS: Windows

Download SimulIde

9. gerbv

Gerbv is a viewer for Gerber RS-274X files, Excellon drill files, and CSV pick-and-place files. Gerbv is a native Linux application, and it runs on many common UNIX platforms. A Windows version is also available. Gerbv is free/open-source software.

Download gerbv

Want to learn more about circuit design? Check the below articles-

• EDA Tools for Circuit Design
• Free Ebooks on Circuit Design
• Circuit Design Calculator

Are none of these the right fit for you? Check out other cool stuff.

Note: This article is recently updated on August 2023.