09-07, 13:35–14:15 (Europe/Berlin), Main Stage
KiCAD-Prism is an open-source, self-hosted collaboration platform designed to bridge the gap for teams moving off Altium 365, OrCAD, or other closed source ECAD stacks who want KiCad’s freedom without losing quality of life features and library discipline. Initially developed to support satellite electronics development workflows at Pixxel, Prism keeps KiCad as the desktop editor and Git as the single source of truth.
In this talk, we demonstrate how teams can import KiCad projects from any Git host (GitHub, GitLab, or self-hosted) to review and collaborate on schematics, PCBs, 3D renders, and BOMs directly in the browser. We will walk through comparing commits with visual diffs, cross-probing between views, and governing component libraries with submit-verify-release workflows using the Remote Symbol Provider.
This talk is tailored for hardware engineers, team leads, and organization leaders evaluating open alternatives to commercial ECAD services. Attendees will see live demos of project review, library governance, and workflow automation, leaving with a clear understanding of KiCAD-Prism’s capabilities, differences from commercial tools, and how to deploy it on their own infrastructure.
This talk follows Pixxel's move from Altium/OrCAD to KiCad for satellite avionics hardware, the workflow gaps that showed up after the editor switch, and how KiCAD-Prism was developed and adopted to bring back review, library governance, and release discipline on an open-source, Git-native stack.
KiCAD-Prism is an open-source, self-hosted platform that keeps KiCad as the editor and Git as the source of truth. On top of your existing Git based project repositories, Prism provides:
- Browser review of schematics, PCBs, 3D views, and BOMs with cross-probe and comment tracking
- Commit history and visual diffs
- Library Manager with submit, verify, and release workflows
- Remote Symbol Provider for placing approved parts in desktop KiCad
- KiCad jobset based workflows and an Assets portal for fabrication outputs and renders
- Self-hosted deployment with OIDC SSO and role-based access
Talk outline (~40 min)
- Introduction and context (~5 min)
- Workflow gaps and why Prism exists (~5 min)
- Live Guided Demo: (~20 min)
- Project import & Git integration
- Interactive schematic/PCB review & visual diffs
- Library Manager: Submit, verify, and release workflows
- Placing approved remote symbols directly in desktop KiCad
- Future roadmap and Q&A (~10 min)
Prerequisites
Basic familiarity with KiCad and Git. Experience using commercial ECAD collaboration platforms (e.g., Altium 365) is helpful context, but not required.
Links
Project links Repository: https://github.com/krishna-swaroop/KiCAD-Prism
License: Apache Software License 2.0
Acknowledgements: ecad-viewer, KiCanvas, kicad-monkey, Interactive HTML BOM
I work as the Lead Electronics Engineer at Pixxel Space Pvt. Ltd., an Earth Observation Company based out of Bangalore, India.
I primarily design reliable, high-performance electronics for use in satellites as my day job and tinker around with consumer electronics as a hobby!
I'm an independent embedded developer and designer working on mechatronics and industrial applications, from first prototype through to production and project management. KiCad has been my main ECAD tool for years, to the point that I've built an entirely KiCad-based workflow, and I help other teams move away from proprietary software. When I'm not busy breaking things, you'll find me soldering something small and 3D printing something useless.