orcad vs. eagle
Hi
I am both using Orcad and Eagle in my daily work. At "work work" i am using Orcad, but for my home made projects I am using Eagle i.e. "home work", thus I am familiar with both. So wath do i prefer? no doubt - its Eagle.
Yes, I do feel that while using Orcad I have somewath a more professional tool among my fingers, but that is wath it is too, a feeling. Orcad is a professional tool and price is rated thereafter. It is the graphical user interface that gives the professional look, and it has been discussed som times in the eagle usergroups if Cadsoft shouldnt give eagle a face lift but after using eagle for a while, I cant say it bother me much. The only thing I realy dont like aboute Eagle is the double-key keyboard commands used in stead of single-key keyboard commands as used by Orcad, but this has to do with the autocad-similar command line feature that eagle has which orcad doesn't have and which I miss in Orcad.
Note! there is some other +'es with Eagle
1* Eagle has a better and more easy way to create your own libs than Orcad
2* Cadsoft offer an free non commersial version of Eagle with all features enabled, but limited to 2 layers and 10*8 boards.
3* Price is better
4* Support is muho better. (I do not think Orcad even know wath the word support means)
5* Eagle has an very active news group / user chat group that solves any problems you have within short time
6* Inside cadsoft website you will find lots of user libs and scripts
7* Eagle supports scripting (very usefull)
8* more powerfull commands
9* lower entrance threshold for new users
My sugestion is, Go for eagle