On March 20, 2026, version 10.0.0 of the KiCAD computer-aided design system for printed circuit boards was released.
Most, if not all, of the new version's features and usability improvements are described in discussing on the user forum. Some of them are also presented in report at FOSDEM 2026. More detailed and complete list All changes are available on GitLab.
Application area
KiCAD is a free computer-aided design system. printed circuit boards. Currently, one of the most popular programs of this kind on LinuxThere are free alternatives Horizon-EDA и FreePCB.
In numbers
KiCAD 10 includes contributions from hundreds of developers, translators, library contributors, and documentation authors. 7609 unique commits containing code and translation changes made up this new major version.
Version 9 marked the transition to the STEP format for 3D models included in libraries. Starting with version 10, the transition to using only STEP files (previously, the WRML format was still used), significantly reducing the size of 3D models during installation and providing better geometric accuracy and fewer differences between KiCAD visualization and export results. User contributions to the project libraries (schematic and other) amounted to 952 new symbols, 1216 new footprints, and 386 new 3D models. In 2025, the library development team expanded by five new members, assisting with both tooling and code review. After an extensive redesign of the tooling, most of the footprints in the library are now generated—over 78% of footprints are now generated rather than hand-drawn. Several generators have also been added that produce both a 3D model and a footprint from a single description. The median time to close a pull request has dropped from 3 days to 18 hours, despite more pull requests than ever before (2105 new pull requests in 2025, compared to 2010 in 2024).
Other significant changes
New import capabilities from other CAD systems: KiCAD 10 can import designs from Allegro, PADS and gEDA/LeptonPCB.
Customizable toolbars: Added the ability to customize toolbars.
Support for undo and redo actions in dialog boxes: Added the ability to cancel actions in dialog boxes before they are closed.
Lasso Selection: The ability to select objects using the Lasso tool has been added to both the Schematic Editor and the PCB Editor.
Dark theme on Windows: Thanks to a collaboration between the KiCAD developers and the wxWidgets team, the graphical toolkit used by the project, KiCAD now supports dark mode on Windows, and will also automatically follow the system's choice of dark or light theme.
Scheme editor
The options are: Added a feature for PCB design variants: a way to track changes between different versions of a single design that share the same schematic but have different properties (for example, a different list of components).
Hop-over display: Another long-requested feature has been added: intersections of conductors on the schematic diagram that are not connected to each other are now shown as "bridge" arches, rather than as straight lines without a point to indicate the intersection. (Figure 2).
Jumper support: Added the ability to use jumpers, symbol pin sets, and footprints that should be considered internally connected. Jumpers will always share a single net, allowing you to represent components that have electrical connections outside the board.
Grouping support: Now you can group components not only in the PCB editor, but also in the schematic editor.
CSV for pin table: Added support for exporting and importing pin tables from csv files, providing more options for creating and editing complex components.
PCB editor
Time domain parameters: The trace time domain setup system has been completely redesigned, including an algorithm update that improves the alignment between the router and the design rule checker (DRC). Support for specifying time domain constraints, rather than simply trace length constraints, has been added. Support for setup profiles has been added, allowing you to specify signal routing parameters on each PCB layer.
Blocks in the PCB editor: The ability, introduced in version 9, to combine PCB layout parts into reusable blocks in the PCB editor has been expanded. Users can now create and manage PCB layout libraries. Both the schematic editor and the editor have been enhanced with new, convenient features.
Support for in-layer objects in footprints has been added. This means users can now add graphic shapes and cutouts to the in-layer, rather than being limited to the front or back layer as in previous versions.
Replacing pins and logic elements: Implemented pin/pad and logic element/node replacement functionality, supporting forward and backward annotation between schematic and PCB.
Graphical design rules editor: A new rules editor dialog has been developed that allows for graphic rule creation. Rules created with this dialog are fully compatible with the existing rules language, allowing you to begin using the graphical interface and progress to more complex rules as you become more proficient in the program.
In addition to the above, many other useful features have been added, such as barcode support, hatch filling of graphic shapes, precise editing of polygon points, recommended actions for correcting design rule errors, 3D PDF export, and much more!
Source: linux.org.ru
