Migrate Altium to KiCad — every net, rule and layer accounted for.
A standard Altium → KiCad migration quietly loses nets, design rules and design intent. Crosspad's migration detects every one, repairs what it can prove safe, and flags the rest — so nothing disappears without you knowing.
Converting your files isn’t the same as migrating your design.
The usual way to move an Altium project to KiCad produces a file that opens — and quietly leaves things behind. Each of these can go missing with no warning:
- Net-class memberships
- Design rules
- Bus connectivity
- Channel designators
- Copper fills
A board that opens is not a board that’s correct. Crosspad exists to migrate the whole board and prove it — not just produce a file.
A converted file isn’t a verified migration.
What a standard Altium → KiCad migration quietly leaves behind.
These aren’t hypotheticals — each is documented in KiCad’s public docs and issue tracker. Crosspad detects every one against your source, and repairs or flags it. Four of them here; the full ranked index, with the versions each affects, lives in the issue database.
Net class membership
Rule categories survive, but which nets belong to them can be dropped — so rules constrain nothing.
Multi-channel designators
Channel suffixes get stripped (C33A / C33B → C33), producing duplicate references.
Copper fills & keepouts
Fill relief and keepout areas can change — and a routine refill can silently disconnect copper.
Layers
A layer with no clean equivalent, or an odd name, can be remapped or drop the board outline.
The objects on your printed circuit board, and what happens to each.
A microcontroller board, an analog amplifier front end, a power supply built around a regulator, an FPGA breaking out PCIe lanes to a connector: however you design your boards, to KiCad every electronic circuit board is the same set of objects.
Each integrated circuit, diode and row of transistors is a footprint with pads, and each connection between them is a net. Here is what moves when your PCB layout moves, grouped the way a PCB designer reads a board layout.
What’s electrically connected
- CheckedFootprints & padsSurface-mount and through-hole, from a resistor, capacitor or transistor to ICs, connectors and pin headers, on the top and bottom of the board. Each designator is compared with the source.
- CheckedNets & netlistEvery pin-to-pin connection in the netlist, compared back to your source.
- CheckedRouted interconnectTracks, arcs and vias — the conductive paths your routing laid down, compared as connectivity.
- Checked + repairedCopper poursGround plane and power plane polygons, with their net and clearance. A routine refill can disconnect copper.
- Engineering decisionMulti-channel partsChannel designators such as C33A and C33B, which a standard migration collapses into duplicates.
The intent behind the copper
- TranslatedDesign rulesClearance, width and spacing constraints, mapped onto KiCad’s configurable rules where an equivalent exists.
- Checked + repairedNet classesWhich nets each constraint applies to — the membership a standard migration drops.
- Engineering decisionDifferential pairsThe pairs and the impedance and signal integrity intent behind them, which a KiCad rule can’t prove equivalent.
- Engineering decisionHigh-speed rulesLength, crosstalk, high-frequency and RF design constraints, where no equivalent KiCad rule can be proven.
- CheckedKeepoutsPolygon cutouts that can turn into over-broad keepouts and raise false DRC errors.
What your fabricator reads literally
- CheckedLayer stackCopper and dielectric layers, their order and their count, from a double-sided board to a multilayer one.
- CheckedThicknessesCopper foil and dielectric thickness on each laminated layer.
- Engineering decisionImpedance & materialsImpedance profiles, the substrate specification and its tolerances, which don’t arrive as an enforceable KiCad spec.
- Action requiredLegacy layersA layer with no KiCad role — Eco1, say — or an oddly named one that could drop the outline.
What becomes your fabrication data
- Checked + repairedSolder mask relief & textSolder mask relief on copper fills, and copper or solder mask text that can arrive mispositioned.
- CheckedBoard outlineThe outline your fab mills — the part an oddly named layer can silently drop.
- FlaggedComplex pad stacksCustom pad stacks, plated or not, which a standard migration doesn’t support. The report flags them.
- Accounted for3D modelsA standard migration reads model placement but doesn’t apply it. The report accounts for which models are present and which are missing.
Every component. Every net. Every rule. Accounted for.
- 01ANALYZE SOURCE
Read your Altium board directly — components, nets, net classes, rules, layers, copper.
- 02MIGRATE
Move the whole board to KiCad, using the strongest strategy for that file.
- 03COMPARE
Match the result back to the source, semantically: every net, net class, rule, layer and copper connection.
- 04REPAIR
Correct discrepancies automatically, then re-parse and re-validate. A repair that can’t be proven safe is rolled back and flagged, never silently kept.
- 05EXPLAIN
Produce an evidence report: what’s verified, what was repaired, and what still needs an engineering decision.
If Crosspad can’t verify a critical part of the migration, it doesn’t mark it safe.
Know exactly what changed.
| OBJECT | SOURCE | TARGET | REPORTED AS |
|---|---|---|---|
| Components | every designator read | every designator matched | VerifiedVERIFIED |
| Nets | nets and pin connectivity read | all matched | VerifiedVERIFIED |
| Net classes | membership read | restored, then revalidated | Fixed and re-checkedREPAIRED_AND_REVALIDATED |
| Design rules | rule set read | mapped where a KiCad rule exists | Expressed differently in KiCadTRANSLATED_EQUIVALENTLY |
| Differential pairs | pairs and intent read | intent not provable in the target | Needs your callENGINEERING_DECISION_REQUIRED |
| Copper fills | net, layer, clearance read | restored with net, revalidated | Fixed and re-checkedREPAIRED_AND_REVALIDATED |
| Legacy layer (Eco1) | present | no KiCad equivalent — confirm a mapping | Needs your answerACTION_REQUIRED |
One file, and everything needed to trust it.
- Your board as a .kicad_pcb
- The component and net inventories
- The DRC and import reports
- The full migration report
All of it in one file, crosspad-migration.zip.
The analysis is free. A credit is spent only when you unlock a completed migration — a failed or unsupported job never costs anything.
What the migration does not promise: an identical one-to-one result, manufacturability, or electrical or regulatory correctness. The delivered board can still carry KiCad DRC violations, which the report names. A qualified engineer must review the files before manufacturing — checkout states this again before you pay.
From your KiCad board to fabrication and assembly.
This is where electronics design turns into something physical. Crosspad’s part ends with a checked board in KiCad. The plotting and exporting that PCB manufacturers and assembly houses need happen in KiCad, and PCB fabrication happens at your fab.
- 01ALTIUM DESIGNER
Your .PcbDoc — the board your prototype was built from.
- 02CROSSPAD
Migrated, then checked against the source: every net, rule and layer.
- 03KICAD
Open the .kicad_pcb in the layout editor and run the design rule checker.
- 04PLOT & EXPORT
KiCad’s plotter writes the Gerber and drill files, and exports the pick and place file and a bill of materials.
- 05FAB & ASSEMBLY
Etching, plating and drilling, then milling the outline and every cutout. Solder paste, placement and reflow follow at printed circuit board assembly.
Gerber files
The data files a PCB manufacturer’s CAM software reads for each layer: which copper to etch, where the solder mask opens, where the silkscreen goes. The holes to be drilled travel in separate drill files. KiCad generates both from the migrated board, so for prototyping or a custom PCB run they are only as right as the board is.
Pick and place & bill of materials
Exported for PCB assembly, each as a comma-separated spreadsheet your assembler can quote from: which part, which footprint, where, and on which side.
Stencils & solder paste
The paste layer becomes the stencils that print solder paste for reflow soldering, and through-hole parts are soldered after. Every one of those joints lands on a pad etched into your copper, so the pads have to be the ones you designed.
Crosspad checks the board objects listed above — nets, rules, layers and copper — which those outputs are later generated from. It doesn’t produce your Gerber files and doesn’t certify manufacturability. A qualified engineer must review the files before manufacturing; checkout states this again before you pay.
An unchecked migration can cost a whole iteration: prototypes fabricated, soldered and found wrong. The cheapest point in the design cycle to catch that is before anything is plotted, which also protects your time to market.
How to import Altium into KiCad yourself — and where the tutorials stop.
KiCad ships a free, native Altium importer in its PCB Editor. It’s easy to use, and that’s the catch: the board opens, and it looks finished.
- 1
Import the board
In the PCB Editor, KiCad’s layout editor, choose File → Import → Non-KiCad Board File and pick your .PcbDoc.
- 2
Map the layers
While importing, a dialog proposes how Altium’s layers map onto KiCad’s. Accept it, or adjust it layer by layer.
- 3
Look it over
Zoom around, open the 3D view and rotate the board, then run the design rule checker from the toolbar.
- What was in the source and isn’t on the screen. A board that lost something draws exactly like one that didn’t, and undo can’t restore what was never imported.
- Which of the proposed layer mappings had no real equivalent.
- That an ASCII-format .PcbDoc imported as nothing at all, with no error.
The intuitive reading, that it opened so it worked, is the one a standard migration gets wrong. A DRC run won’t catch it either: it checks the board you have, not the board you had.
Want to look before you import into KiCad? The free PcbDoc viewer is a file viewer that runs in your browser, with nothing uploaded: a graphical render of tracks, pads, vias, fills and silkscreen text, with a layers pane, zoom, measure and both sides of the board.
Why engineers move from Altium Designer to KiCad.
KiCad is a free CAD program for printed circuit board design; Altium Designer is an industry-standard toolset. Leaving one for the other is a real decision about the PCB design software your work lives in. These are the reasons engineers give, from a hobbyist lifting electronic circuits off the breadboard onto a first Arduino shield to a design engineer whose printed circuit boards ship inside electronic products.
Open source, free for any use
KiCad is open-source software under the GPL, not freeware with a non-commercial clause. There is no licence fee, no seat count, no lite edition and no reseller renewal, so the cost reduction is the licence itself.
Cross-platform
KiCad runs the same on Windows, macOS and Linux, so a lone electronic engineer and a whole team work in the same design tools. It is also widely used for open source hardware.
Files you can read and merge
KiCad’s file format is plain text, formatted as S-expressions. It is readable in a text editor, and you can diff it and merge it in a Git repository beside every revision of your firmware.
Scripting and simulation
Python scripting to streamline the repetitive parts of the design process, and a built-in SPICE circuit simulator (ngspice) to check an electronic circuit design before you lay out the board.
3D and mechanical review
A 3D viewer for the assembled board, and import and export for the mechanical side: STEP out for review in a mechanical design tool such as SolidWorks, DXF outlines in from AutoCAD. There is no live ECAD–MCAD co-design loop as in Altium.
Library management you own
Footprint and symbol libraries you manage yourself, whether a part was drawn from its datasheet or downloaded from a distributor such as Digi-Key. Your Altium libraries aren’t migrated at launch.
- OrCAD / PSpice
- Cadence Allegro
- PADS / Xpedition
- Eagle
- Proteus
- Multisim
Crosspad isn’t a general converter between EDA tools or a design tool. Every electronic design automation suite has its own data model, and checking one migration properly is the whole scope: OrCAD and Allegro projects (Cadence Design Systems), PADS and Xpedition (Mentor Graphics, now Siemens EDA), Eagle designs, Proteus and Multisim files are outside it. Where KiCad itself still trails Altium, on advanced HDI (high density interconnect), high-speed constraint modelling and rigid-flex, is weighed on the page about whether it is safe to migrate.
The part of your design you came here about.
What we accept today — and what we don’t pretend to.
At launch the migration service processes one Altium .PcbDoc board file, version 6 or later — on its own, or zipped with exactly one board. .SchDoc, .PrjPcb and libraries are named as unsupported by the free analysis.
- The ASCII text form is converted to the binary form and reconciled against an independent count of your board. Where the two disagree, the board is named unsupported rather than migrated on a conversion we cannot vouch for.
- Pre-Version-6 (Protel) boards are named as unsupported.
- Where target equivalence can’t be proven — high-speed rule intent, for example — Crosspad marks it an engineering decision rather than quietly reducing it to plain connectivity.
- Your schematic design isn’t migrated at launch. The circuit diagram, its hierarchical sheets and the schematic capture behind your netlist stay in Altium; the board is what moves.
- A PCB migration is board-level design, not system design. IC design and silicon, the Verilog in your Xilinx FPGAs and other programmable logic, and the embedded software on your microprocessor are not part of it.
One credit, one board.
The analysis is free on your own .PcbDoc, with no sales call and no reseller. You read the evidence report before you spend anything — a credit is only consumed when you unlock the delivery of a completed migration. 1 credit is $249; packs of 5 and 10 cost less per migration.
See pricingFrequently asked questions.
What does Crosspad do that a standard Altium → KiCad migration doesn’t?
A standard migration produces a file and tells you nothing about what it dropped. Crosspad migrates your board, then independently checks the result against your source — detecting lost nets, rules and intent, repairing what it can prove safe, and flagging the rest with evidence.
Is Crosspad a converter?
No. Converting is the easy part. Crosspad’s value is that it accounts for the whole board — it detects and repairs what a standard migration silently loses, and proves it.
What does a standard Altium → KiCad migration lose?
Commonly: net-class membership, design rules, bus connectivity on KiCad ≤10.0.4 (fixed in 10.0.5), multi-channel designators, project variables, some fills and keepouts — each documented in KiCad’s public tracker. See our tracked failure modes.
What file does Crosspad accept?
At launch you upload one Altium .PcbDoc board file, version 6 or later — either form Altium writes: the binary file, or the ASCII text form, which is converted and checked against an independent count of your board before anything is migrated. .SchDoc schematics, .PrjPcb project files and libraries sent on their own are named as unsupported by the free analysis rather than silently skipped.
Can I upload a zipped Altium project?
A zipped project is accepted, but only as a container for the one board inside it: the .PcbDoc is migrated, and the schematics, the project file and the libraries that came in the archive are not — they are listed in the report, not converted.
What do I get back?
What comes back is crosspad-migration.zip: your board as a .kicad_pcb, the component and net inventories, the DRC and import reports, and the full migration report.
Does Crosspad guarantee nothing is lost?
No one honestly can. What Crosspad guarantees is that nothing is lost in silence: everything is detected, repaired where it can be proven safe, or clearly flagged for a decision.
Can I import Altium into KiCad for free?
Yes. KiCad ships a native Altium importer in its PCB Editor. It works at the primitive level and costs nothing. What it doesn’t do is tell you what it dropped, which is the part of the migration this page is about.
Does Crosspad produce Gerber files?
No. The delivery is your board as a .kicad_pcb, with the evidence report. KiCad then plots the Gerber file set and drill files for PCB manufacturing, and exports the pick and place file and bill of materials for assembly. The check covers the design data those files come from; it doesn’t certify manufacturability, and a qualified engineer reviews the board first.
Does Crosspad check signal integrity or impedance?
It doesn’t simulate anything. It checks that the rules your signal integrity work depends on, such as clearances, widths and net classes, survived the move. Impedance profiles, differential-pair intent and high-speed constraints are marked as an engineering decision in the report rather than passed silently.
Can Crosspad migrate an OrCAD, Allegro, PADS or Eagle design?
No. The scope is one path only: an Altium Designer board to KiCad.
Are my footprints, 3D models and libraries migrated?
The footprints placed on your board travel with it and are checked, surface-mount and through-hole alike. The report accounts for which 3D models are present and which are missing. Your Altium libraries (.PcbLib, .SchLib, .IntLib) are not migrated at launch. If you’re wondering how to create a KiCad library from them, the Altium libraries to KiCad page covers what that involves.
Does my SPICE simulation setup come across?
No. Simulation models are attached to the schematic diagram, and schematics aren’t migrated at launch. KiCad has SPICE simulation built in (ngspice), so the circuit simulation can be set up again there.
Is KiCad free for commercial use?
Yes. KiCad is open-source CAD software under the GPL: no licence fee and no non-commercial restriction, on Windows, macOS and Linux. Using it commercially costs nothing; a credit is what a checked migration into it costs.
Is it safe to migrate from Altium to KiCad?
Often yes — but “the file opened” isn’t proof. See our decision guide for what to check first.
See everything Crosspad accounts for — before you commit.
Upload one .PcbDoc board file and read the evidence of what a KiCad migration keeps, repairs, and flags for you. You decide about the delivery afterwards.
Free analysis on one Altium .PcbDoc — one board file, not a project. Files are processed as described in our Security policy.
Failure modes reflect a standard Altium → KiCad migration as of KiCad 10.0.6 (2026-08-29). Behaviour changes most releases; every reference above is scoped to the versions it affects, and this page is updated per release.