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Best AI PCB design tools in 2026: an honest guide

, Founding Engineer5 min read

We make siliXon, so we're not neutral. To keep this guide fair, every fact about another tool comes from our side-by-side comparison pages, the tool's own website, a public review site or our own test, and the links are at the end.

The question that matters most is simple: how long from an idea to a real board you can order, and how much of the work is still yours?

From a sentence to a finished board

  • siliXon. Describe a device in plain English and get a routed 2- or 4-layer board with a schematic, checked automatically before you download it, plus Gerbers, drill files and a BOM priced across LCSC, DigiKey and Mouser. Time: 4 to 6 minutes per board in our test. Free: one end-to-end project every two weeks, no card. Paid: £14.99 a month.
  • Flux. A browser ECAD with an AI agent that plans, wires, places and routes with you. Time: hours to days for a first board, by our estimate; Flux says simple two-layer boards route in minutes, but its model isn't designed to fully autoroute every class of board without your input. Paid: from $100 a month, after a 7-day trial.

General chat assistants

  • ChatGPT. In our test its chat app didn't produce any of the three boards we asked for. It gave plans and draft files, and advised against ordering them.
  • Claude. In our test its chat app produced full fab packages for two of the three ideas, in 35 and 37 minutes, after one or two nudges to continue. The third had no files after 45 minutes.

You bring the schematic or the code

  • Quilter. AI placement and routing from your finished schematic and board file. Time: Quilter says typical jobs return a routed candidate in about 4 hours, and complex boards can take up to 24 hours, once your schematic is done. Free: for non-commercial use and eligible very small businesses. Paid: per project, by the pins left to route.
  • atopile. Design in code, with an agent that writes code and picks parts; layout is manual in KiCad. Time: hours to days, by our estimate.
  • tscircuit. An open-source framework for PCBs in TypeScript, with placement in code and automatic routing. Time: hours to days, by our estimate.

Tools that stop before the PCB

  • CELUS turns requirements into a block diagram, schematic and BOM. You lay out the board in your EDA tool.
  • SnapMagic is an AI copilot inside Altium that suggests circuits and parts. You lay out the board in Altium.
  • Schematik turns a prompt into Arduino, ESP32 and Pico projects: code, wiring and a parts list, with no custom PCB.
  • Blueprint.io writes AI build plans with parts, wiring and assembly steps. Fab files aren't available yet.

A service, and the classic tools

  • Diode is a design service: AI drafts and Diode's engineers review and lay out every board. Time: days to weeks, by our estimate.
  • KiCad (free and open source) and Altium Designer (professional) give you full manual control. Time: days to weeks by hand, by our estimate.

What users say about the wait

On Trustpilot, Flux scores 1.9 out of 5 from 138 reviews (30 October 2026). Alongside billing complaints, reviewers describe:

  • a simple ESP32 board still not designed after two hours;
  • a simple board that wasn't done after two days;
  • AI tasks that ran for 10 minutes to hours and then timed out;
  • one reviewer still without a finished PCB after $600.

Our test

On 29 and 30 October 2026 we gave siliXon, ChatGPT and Claude the same three ideas:

  • an ESP32 temperature logger with an SD card;
  • a garden sensor that texts you;
  • a bike light that gets brighter when you brake.

When a chat asked a question we answered "pick sensible defaults", told it to continue at most three times, and stopped at 45 minutes. siliXon went from a sentence to a routed, checked board with a schematic for every idea, in 4 to 6 minutes each. That was one run per idea per tool, so treat it as a snapshot, not a benchmark.

Is there a free AI PCB design tool?

Yes. siliXon's Free plan gives you one end-to-end project every two weeks, AI included, with public projects. KiCad is free but has no AI built in. Quilter is free for non-commercial use and eligible very small businesses, once you have a schematic. atopile and tscircuit are open source, and you bring the agent and the layout time. Flux offers a trial rather than a free plan.

Can ChatGPT design a PCB?

Not on its own, in our test. ChatGPT's chat app suggested parts and wrote firmware, but none of its three attempts was the board we asked for. Claude's chat app got further and produced two orderable-looking boards, in 35 and 37 minutes. siliXon took 4 to 6 minutes per board.

Sources

If something here is out of date, tell us and we'll fix it.