The Natural Philosopher  wrote:
> On 12/07/17 10:32, Theo Markettos wrote:
> > The Natural Philosopher  wrote:
> >> My eagle aint cloudified. Downloaded it 6 months ago
> >
> > I should clarify: not 'cloudified' in the sense of Google Docs, but in the
> > sense of Adobe Creative Cloud.
> >
> > In other words, it's a normal desktop app but you have to create an account
> > and login to make it work, and you pay a monthly subscription.
>
> No. you dont. Its free to hobbyists.

As I said, there's a free tier but with limitation.
In particular board capabilities, and no commercial use.
AIUI you still need an account and let it phone home occasionally to use the
free
tier.

> In Eagle's
> > case this mostly affects the pay-tiers (there's a free tier, but it's quite
> > restricted: 2 layers, 80cm2 of board).
>
> Think its more than 2 layers.

They reduced it as part of the Autodesk purchase.
It's "2 schematic sheets, 2 signal layers, and 80 cm2 board area."
https://www.autodesk.com/products/eagle/free-download
- it used to be 160x100mm, ie 160cm2.

The trouble with a limitation like that is that many designs can be
physically small, but as the complexity rises (tiny SMD parts, high-speed
etc) you need more layers.  Which aren't that expensive to manufacture these
days.  Or you can stay 2-layer, but the boards are larger because of routing
limitations.

TL;DR: Kicad has come a long way recently.  What extra does Eagle give me
that makes it worth my while jumping through these hoops?

Theo

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