--- title: PADS Professional Reviews meta_title: 'PADS Professional Reviews 2026: Details, Pricing, & Features | G2' meta_description: Filter 65 reviews by the users' company size, role or industry to find out how PADS Professional works for a business like yours. aggregate_rating: rating_value: 4.1 review_count: 65 scale: '5' date_modified: '2026-06-29' parent_category: name: CAD url: https://www.g2.com/categories/cad --- # PADS Professional Reviews **Vendor:** Siemens Digital Industries Software **Category:** [PCB Design Software](https://www.g2.com/categories/pcb-design) **Average Rating:** 4.1/5.0 **Total Reviews:** 65 ## About PADS Professional PADS Professional PCB software is a comprehensive electronic design automation (EDA) software suite developed by Siemens Digital Industries Software, formerly Mentor Graphics. It provides advanced tools for designing, simulating, verifying, and manufacturing printed circuit boards (PCBs) and electronic systems. ## PADS Professional Pros & Cons **What users like:** - Users value the **advanced automation and simulation features** of PADS Professional, enhancing design accuracy and efficiency. (6 reviews) - Users value the **advanced simulation tools** in PADS Professional, enhancing design accuracy and saving significant development time. (5 reviews) - Users value the **comprehensive PCB design tools** in PADS Professional, enhancing efficiency and collaboration for engineers and teams. (4 reviews) - Users value the **high accuracy** of PADS Professional, enabling early issue detection and reducing errors in designs. (3 reviews) - Users commend the **comprehensive PCB design tools** in PADS Professional, appreciating its seamless integration and user-friendly interface. (2 reviews) - Collaboration (2 reviews) - Users find PADS Professional to be **user-friendly** , with an intuitive GUI that enhances their design experience. (2 reviews) - 3D Visualization (1 reviews) - Automation (1 reviews) - Cloud Storage (1 reviews) **What users dislike:** - Users find the **complex interface** of PADS Professional challenging, leading to a steep learning curve and reduced productivity. (2 reviews) - Users find the **difficult learning process** challenging, especially during the overwhelming initial setup and fragmented workflows. (2 reviews) - Users find PADS Professional has a **steep learning curve** , making it challenging for beginners to navigate effectively. (2 reviews) - Users find the **complex design process** of PADS Professional slow and lacking essential features for advanced PCB layouts. (1 reviews) - Users report persistent **issues with component management** , including back-annotation problems and errors in the Decal Editor. (1 reviews) - Error Messages (1 reviews) - Users find PADS Professional to be **too expensive** , especially considering its outdated interface and prevalent bugs. (1 reviews) - Not Intuitive (1 reviews) - Outdated Software (1 reviews) - Poor Navigation (1 reviews) ## PADS Professional Reviews ### 1. I can't recommend it now. **Rating:** 2.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** HAEUK L. | manager, Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** March 10, 2024 **What do you like best about PADS Professional?** Intuitive and easy to use by using the interface of PADS Standard. Powerful features of Expedition are available **What do you dislike about PADS Professional?** There are some advantages of pads and Expedition, but they are not enough to be designed with just one tool. Above all, it is difficult to seek advice because there is still a lack of manuals or reference materials in my field of work. Although the place of purchase explains in detail, it is difficult to inquire about everything, and there were some items that were difficult to change the existing method in a short time even if the method was told. And I thought it would be great if it was compatible with pads, but I understand that they don't support it yet. **What problems is PADS Professional solving and how is that benefiting you?** It was used for data conversion and extraction. It was confirmed that it has a powerful routing function. ### 2. Very Handy to design PCB **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Mohit J. | Engineer, Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** September 27, 2023 **What do you like best about PADS Professional?** It provides advanced routing automation, rigid-flex design capabilities, and multi-point signal integrity simulation to streamline hardware development. Also its new AI features helped me to save my lot of time **What do you dislike about PADS Professional?** PADS team should look over the back-annotation problems, errors in the Decal Editor, and constraints management type of issues. **What problems is PADS Professional solving and how is that benefiting you?** It helps me to design PCB more clear and cost efficient. Benifits me to identify and resolve the minor details in PCB. **Official Response from Yolanda Dong:** > Thank you for your feedback, Mohit! We're delighted to hear that you find PADS Professional user-friendly, user-centric, and advanced in PCB design. The cloud connectivity adding flexibility is a great point. Your insights are valuable, and we appreciate you taking the time to share your positive experience! ### 3. A Mixed Experience Overall—Still a Solid Tool **Rating:** 3.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Airlines/Aviation | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** June 02, 2026 **What do you like best about PADS Professional?** This is a testThis is a testThis is a testThis is a testThis is a test **What do you dislike about PADS Professional?** This is a testThis is a testThis is a testThis is a test **What problems is PADS Professional solving and how is that benefiting you?** This is a testThis is a testThis is a testThis is a testThis is a test ### 4. What I Appreciate About PADS Professional **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Chandra Prakash V. | Senior Software Engineer, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** October 06, 2023 **What do you like best about PADS Professional?** The built-in simulation and constraint-driven design capabilities help catch issues early, improving design accuracy and reducing errors later in the workflow **What do you dislike about PADS Professional?** The interface and workflow are not very intuitive for new users. It takes significant time to understand the navigation, settings, and advanced features compared to some modern PCB tools. **What problems is PADS Professional solving and how is that benefiting you?** Nothing **Official Response from Yolanda Dong:** > Thank you for sharing your experience with PADS Professional, Chandra! We're pleased to hear that it assists in maintaining both time and skills. Your feedback is valuable to us, and we appreciate your support! ### 5. PADS Professional Review and Thoughts **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** aditya k. | Country Manager Europe, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** June 25, 2025 **What do you like best about PADS Professional?** Pads professional is a broad PCB design platform that stands for its spontaneous interfaces and powerful features, making it ideal for individual engineers and small teams. One of its most notable features is the sketch routing capacity, which combines the speed of auto-routing with accuracy of manual routing, allowing efficient and high quality PCB layout. The software also provides cloud-capable support, enables teams to work together regardless of the location. Additionally, pads professional provides real-time component sourcing, which provides up-to-date information to designers about component availability and pricing, which helps in making informed decisions as soon as possible in the design process. **What do you dislike about PADS Professional?** A common dislike about pads professionals is its old and unexpected user interface, which can slow down productivity. Users often report a vertical learning state with a fragmented workflow between planned and layout environment. **What problems is PADS Professional solving and how is that benefiting you?** The pads resolve many major challenges in PCB design by streamlining the pad professional complex workflows, improving cooperation and increasing the design accuracy. This sketch addresses the requirement of high speed and high-gradation board design with features such as real-time DRC and integrated signal and thermal analysis. These capabilities help reduce design errors quickly, save time and cost prototypes and manufacturing. Additionally, its real -time components source and cloud collaboration tools improve decision making and team productivity. For users, this means faster project completion, high design reliability, and better alignment with market deadline. ### 6. Excellent PCB Design and Simulation Tool with Comprehensive Features **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Airlines/Aviation | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** November 04, 2025 **What do you like best about PADS Professional?** It is excellent for PCB design, simulation, analysis, and offers a wide range of useful tools. **What do you dislike about PADS Professional?** So far, I haven't found anything to dislike about it. **What problems is PADS Professional solving and how is that benefiting you?** The software provides useful features for DFM analysis, as well as BOM management and cost estimation. These tools help streamline the design process and make it easier to manage project expenses. ### 7. AI features have not been released in the UK yet, so looking forward to trying them out but **Rating:** 3.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Shrouk E. | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** June 30, 2025 **What do you like best about PADS Professional?** cautiously optimistic about the new AI features, can't figure out how the smart data sheets will work and how many vendors will support them, also the predictive commands sound great on paper but not sure if it will be Microsoft word's clippy style annoying? **What do you dislike about PADS Professional?** I guess that it is not as capable as Xpedition, but the price reflects that **What problems is PADS Professional solving and how is that benefiting you?** Easy entry into PCB design with an attractive price ### 8. PADS Professional **Rating:** 2.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Mohammad U. | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** June 04, 2025 **What do you like best about PADS Professional?** It is a legacy tool. It helps make design changes for all legacy products in my company **What do you dislike about PADS Professional?** It is slow and does not have features for complex PCB designs **What problems is PADS Professional solving and how is that benefiting you?** Redesign and modification of legacy products ### 9. PADS pro is great tool to design PCBs **Rating:** 3.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Ayman S. | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** June 03, 2025 **What do you like best about PADS Professional?** That it has the layout tool and the schematic tool built right into one app. **What do you dislike about PADS Professional?** It should be better able to tell you what you did wrong in your design. **What problems is PADS Professional solving and how is that benefiting you?** Familiarize myself with designing PCBs ### 10. The PADS Professional **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Himanshu J. | Frontend Web Developer, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** February 02, 2025 **What do you like best about PADS Professional?** I personally suggest this software, one of the best software known for its comprehensive PCB design tools, especially for high-speed designs. **What do you dislike about PADS Professional?** I do not found any dislike till yet, but one common critique of PADS Professional is its steep learning curve, especially for beginners. **What problems is PADS Professional solving and how is that benefiting you?** There are multiple problems solved by PADS Professional software like design complexity, single integrity and simulation, automation. These features ultimately benefit users by reducing time-to-market, improving design accuracy, and enabling faster prototyping and testing ### 11. A more powerful and Reliable PCB Design Tool in the market. **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Rohit G. | Trainee - Software Testing, Computer Software, Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** January 19, 2025 **What do you like best about PADS Professional?** Personally I more likes it comprehensiveness set of design tools, seamless integration with simulation features, and the ability to handle complex PCB layouts make PADS Professional a standout choice for engineers. Its user-friendly interface with an excellent documentation simplify the learning curve. **What do you dislike about PADS Professional?** The worst part is the initial setup can be overwhelming for beginners due to its extensive features. **What problems is PADS Professional solving and how is that benefiting you?** It helps me in streamlining the entire PCB design process, from schematic capture to layout and simulation. ### 12. Analyzing complex circuit boards. **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Mohd Z. | Salesforce Developer, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** January 22, 2025 **What do you like best about PADS Professional?** Advanced layout tools for high-density designs. Interactive and auto-routing options. 3D layout visualization for accurate component placement and design validation. **What do you dislike about PADS Professional?** A robust toolset covering the entire PCB design lifecycle, from schematics to manufacturing. **What problems is PADS Professional solving and how is that benefiting you?** As electronic products become more sophisticated, PCB designs must handle high-speed signals, dense layouts, and multilayer boards. PADS Professional provides advanced tools for high-speed design, multilayer routing, and signal integrity analysis, enabling users to manage complex designs effectively. ### 13. PADS designer **Rating:** 3.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Mohammad S. | Senior Power Electronics Engineer, Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** February 03, 2025 **What do you like best about PADS Professional?** it is a aser friendly PCB software but it needs a lot of improvement **What do you dislike about PADS Professional?** the nets, labels, traces cannot be tracked easily **What problems is PADS Professional solving and how is that benefiting you?** It has been used for schematic and PCB design of electronic circuit boards ### 14. Great Tool for PCB design with strong connection to simulation tools **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Oleksandr S. | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** March 11, 2024 **What do you like best about PADS Professional?** Strength of the tool started forom Library creation with Database conection, LP wizard and fully customizable componnets cna be created for your needs. Schematic part with different rotation view for most frequent componntes allow me to create readble schematic circuit without extra after design adjustments. Once it done in the library - you get it for ever. Still allow you to adjust for special needs. Variants manager with differnet text layers for variants allow you to properly document changes between varinats. Footprints and pads can be made custom designed for the needs of your project or for the capability of your PCB manufacturer and assembly. Link to HyperLynx for SI or PI simulation. Pre- and post layout simulation allow you to see weak points before manufacturing, save time and money for respin, reduce EMI level etc. Thermal simulation insode HyperLynx is simple version of more powerfull tool but still show you weak point and allow you to check fast solution. For FPGA design connection with IO Designer is the must. Helps you to unravel FPGA signals and optimize it between FPGA HDL design and PCB layout. PCB layout tools with constarin manager, a lot of helping features for routing and preplacment, output generators for GERBER and ODB++, mask and silkscreen generators, PADS Fablink etc. 3D viewer helps you to see weak points of placement wich can be obverlooked in 2D. Great tool for 3D model and footprint alighnment wich can be saved in liabrary database. **What do you dislike about PADS Professional?** Learning curve is to hard for newcamers. Some tools have bugs and you need to know workarounds or how to prevent it. PartQuest is a mess of nice made components and crap. At the end it is useless as it is easier to make componnet from scratch through the wizadrs than try to understand and fix existing in PartQuest. First version of PADS connect cloud service was not ideal. Cloud service require access only on prescribed licenses even for view purpose only. This one make it hard to share designs between different teams other then schematic and PCB design e.g firmware, software developers, managers etc. **What problems is PADS Professional solving and how is that benefiting you?** All in one toool from library, through design and simulation to manfacturing outputs. **Official Response from Jim Martens:** > Oleksandr - thank you for your review! Just like any new tool, there is a learning curve. We make that easier for our new customers with a QuickStart Guide and free, comprehensive on-demand training. Connect for PADS Professional have come a long way since the first release - I hope you take another look at them. Jim ### 15. Great **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Abraham R. | Regulatory affairs and Quality Assurance Engineer , Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** January 12, 2024 **What do you like best about PADS Professional?** Easiness of usage and the quality of outputs **What do you dislike about PADS Professional?** Nothing as of now the overall experience was good **What problems is PADS Professional solving and how is that benefiting you?** For designing the PCB and effective hardware implementation ### 16. Best PCB DESIGN platform ever worked on **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Chakrala G. | Systems Engineer, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** August 08, 2024 **What do you like best about PADS Professional?** Things and features in PADS Professional are easy to work on GUI which will make the user love to work on it. When the work is completed we feel so satisfied with the result **What do you dislike about PADS Professional?** In PADS professional we need to wait for the things to load for a while it needs higher ram. When there is a crash,we cannot retrieve the data or get back to last work session. **What problems is PADS Professional solving and how is that benefiting you?** Its a PCB Design platform, it makes the designing with the features they offers in smooth streamline process step by step.we dont need to get confused while designing something. When we need any support they respond immediately ### 17. worst ECAD software ever used **Rating:** 0.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Electrical/Electronic Manufacturing | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** August 05, 2024 **What do you like best about PADS Professional?** it has all necessary features, support is good **What do you dislike about PADS Professional?** everything! 20 years old GUI, enormouse amount of bugs, every part of the software looks and works differently, way to expensive, very slow, everyday you find a new bug and more. Siemens Pads is far beyond other ECAD systems like Altium that works very well, are perfectly integrated, have a userfriendly interface, are ease to use, fast to understand and are low prized. Pads Professional is very difficult to understand and its difficult to find out where specific settings are and how the software works. **What problems is PADS Professional solving and how is that benefiting you?** Pads Professional creates new problems and prevents me from finishing my tasks in time. ### 18. A cohesive summary of all solutions based for PCB Design Software **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Souvik G. | Assistant Manager - EV Business Planning , Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** August 20, 2024 **What do you like best about PADS Professional?** The Routing Automation feature in the PCB Design domain helps me save a lot of time by properly routing it automatically. **What do you dislike about PADS Professional?** The downside of using PADS professional is that it requires a lot of time to process and compute analysis, even for a simple dashboard, which can be quite frustrating at times. **What problems is PADS Professional solving and how is that benefiting you?** PADS Professional is helping me reduce a lot of my time invested in making the PCB Designs and try to ideate it out to the fullest and thus utilize my capabilities in analyzing the dashboards better. ### 19. Executive Engineer with a well reputed presence for human being. **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** MD. MAKHDOOM R. | Executive - Production, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** August 09, 2024 **What do you like best about PADS Professional?** Time efficient utilisation of PCB Design and various uses in Industries particularly in Rolling Stock sector inspire me most for PADS PROFESSIONAL. **What do you dislike about PADS Professional?** As of now I don't dislike anything about PADS Professional. But maybe in future it cost human job. I mean it replace human being from their job. **What problems is PADS Professional solving and how is that benefiting you?** Efficient design solutions can solve our daily life problems. For example in Rolling Stock sector, Signalling solutions design by PADS PROFESSIONAL reduces the risk of any failure in components. So it indirectly benefits us . ### 20. My Experience in using PADS Pro **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** shashidhar s. | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** December 06, 2023 **What do you like best about PADS Professional?** The best part of the tool is the feutures where it mainly saves the time. It has features in in schematic like circuit reuse, Hirarchical blocks,multi net,array placement are the most time saving options in schematic when comes to layout the tedious process I can say is placemnt and routing where PADS Pro make it easy by the good options like Placment planing and sketch routing multi plow which reduces repeat cycles of design and display control makes it easy to access each element of the board. Again I should mention the constrait manager helps to set constarints for the design which is flexible in both at the stage of schematic and in layout. and you can generte all type of out put files of the designs. **What do you dislike about PADS Professional?** Deslikes are, Some bugs need to be fixed. After translating the projects from other tool still many errors remains in terms of Part error. constraint manger template creation and reuse need to be easy to use **What problems is PADS Professional solving and how is that benefiting you?** In layout, Generating all type of output files layout feture In Library footprint creation **Official Response from Yolanda Dong:** > Thank you for your detailed feedback on PADS Profesional, Shashidhar! It's fantastic to hear that you find the tool's features, especially in the schematic and layout stages, to be efficient and time-saving. The capabilities like circuit reuse, hierarchical blocks, multi-net, array placement, placement planning, sketch routing, and constraint management seem to contribute significantly to your design process. If you’re looking to share your insights further, we'd like to invite you to join our community. Sounds like you’d have a lot to contribute. https://eda.sw.siemens.com/en-US/pcb/pads/ ### 21. A professional tool with peculiar design vision **Rating:** 3.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Sergei I. | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** March 11, 2024 **What do you like best about PADS Professional?** - a precisely constructed path in design. - good cross probing. - fast work with polygons. - a thoughtful library manager. - good documentation. **What do you dislike about PADS Professional?** In general, after several years of designing in this system, you get used to the fact that it works differently from other systems. The pros outweigh the cons for me. The system works quite quickly, but many things work illogically. To do something you just need to remember how to do it. - still raw database integration. - inconvenient system for generating output files. - poor work with differential pairs (output from small pads). **What problems is PADS Professional solving and how is that benefiting you?** PCB Design ### 22. PADS Professional, VERY GOOD, NOT SO FRIENDLY **Rating:** 3.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Brunel B. | Jr. PCB Designer, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** May 10, 2022 **What do you like best about PADS Professional?** This is a very capable tool. Its capabilities tell you that there is a very dedicated team of engineers supporting the development of this software package. It has become the Goto CAD software **What do you dislike about PADS Professional?** It is very expensive and is not easy to jump onto. It's not begineer friendly, compared to the likes of Altium The separation between schematic capture and PCB design software is not ideal. It would be better to have a single interface for both and one can easily switch from one to another. There is no need to have PADS logic separated from PADs Router or PADS Layout. Also the UI could be more refined. **Recommendations to others considering PADS Professional:** If you can afford it, go for it. It is very capable and it is easily among the best in the market. It is supported by Siemens, which has an excellent track record of software packages. **What problems is PADS Professional solving and how is that benefiting you?** Designing high-performance printed circuit boards for consumer and military electronic products. Its capabilities easily make this software one of the best out there for complex circuits. And the fact that you could switch from PADs to hyperlynx to verify a design is highly appreciated **Official Response from Yolanda Dong:** > Thanks for sharing your feedback, Brunel! We're thrilled to hear that you find PADS Professional to be a very capable tool, and your recognition of its capabilities highlights the dedication of our team of engineers. Becoming your go-to CAD software is a testament to our commitment to delivering a high-quality product.Your support is greatly appreciated! ### 23. Reliable and proven PCB Designing solution, Xpedition & HyperLynx infrastructure **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Pritam B. | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** February 29, 2024 **What do you like best about PADS Professional?** MCAD collaboration bridges the gap between ECAD & MCAD domains, Routing automation(Sketch Router), Electrical DRC, Analog mixed-signal simulation optimizes design performance, Signal integrity analysis, Thermal analysis, Power Integrity Analysis, RF-centric design capabilities,DFM analysis, FPGA Synthesis, 3D Layout. **What do you dislike about PADS Professional?** Interface & working on PADS Professional is different & difficult compared to the PADS Standard/PADS Standard Plus. Already created design/projects in PADS Standard doesn't opens in PADS Professional. **What problems is PADS Professional solving and how is that benefiting you?** 3D Layout, Sketch Routing, Electrical DRC, Analog mixed-signal simulation, Signal integrity analysis, Pignal integrity analysis, Thermal Analysis, RF-centric design, FPGA I/O Optimization. ### 24. Still mostly using Legacy Pads **Rating:** 1.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Niko L. | PCB Design Engineer, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** March 14, 2024 **What do you like best about PADS Professional?** Routing works quite nicely. Program runs quite smoothly. **What do you dislike about PADS Professional?** Overall usability is very poor. I´m sure that the program developers are not users. There are huge problems in almost every feature. **What problems is PADS Professional solving and how is that benefiting you?** I got a new customer because I had a Pads professional. Now that customer moved back to use STD Pads because the professional was so bad.. Basically PRO is not solving any problems at the moment. I´m also using STD Pads because it solves all of my problms :) ### 25. Very good software platform for adavanced PCB designing **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Shubham S. | Co-Founder, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** August 08, 2024 **What do you like best about PADS Professional?** Quite unique features, great customer support **What do you dislike about PADS Professional?** A bit pricey from the aspect of an early-stage startup, if startups can get discounted rates initially, it can be very helpful **What problems is PADS Professional solving and how is that benefiting you?** It has helped smoothen our PCB designing process, it has become easier with less headache ### 26. Best software for PCB design with affordable price and with vast industry exposures **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Subhadeep P. | Project Engineer, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** March 05, 2024 **What do you like best about PADS Professional?** Very Helpfull for backend designing and very much reliable with high accuracy. The UI is very supportive and professional.One can use this a no of times for designing and analysing for PCB fabrication. Easy to intigrate. great customer support from Mentor Graphics. It is very easy to implement. **What do you dislike about PADS Professional?** limited features for intrigation with other softwares. **What problems is PADS Professional solving and how is that benefiting you?** This software helps to solve various pcb designing and analysing requirements of my vlients. ### 27. Satisfied by PADS Professional **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Boopathi S. | Associate Project Manager- PCB Design, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** September 27, 2023 **What do you like best about PADS Professional?** DxDesigner and PADS layout. Design Rule settings is good. Library creation is good. **What do you dislike about PADS Professional?** Properties can be modified individually not as a group for VIA and polygons. Modifying polygon border could be more efficient. **What problems is PADS Professional solving and how is that benefiting you?** Library, Layout and Document creation **Official Response from Yolanda Dong:** > Thanks for sharing your experience with PADS Professional, Boopathi! It's fantastic to hear that you appreciate the Design Rule settings and find the library creation process effective. We appreciate your positive feedback! ### 28. Recommending my friends and colleagues to this PADS design and GUI **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Semiconductors | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** August 08, 2024 **What do you like best about PADS Professional?** It has a good designing, easy to understand and simulation is very good through out the circuit board **What do you dislike about PADS Professional?** Everything is so good to me and there is no dislike for the PADS. Only concern is if you would have less the cost for month which is now $249. **What problems is PADS Professional solving and how is that benefiting you?** It has some GUI design and very easy to use. I can complete things so fast with this GUI software. ### 29. Recommendable 2D-3D pcb Aligning tool **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Sai K. | BIM Engineer, Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** August 20, 2024 **What do you like best about PADS Professional?** Best user interface with much advanced editing tools **What do you dislike about PADS Professional?** As on for sponsorships, PADS upto sone limitations for an organizational purposes **What problems is PADS Professional solving and how is that benefiting you?** Economic design ### 30. Pads Professional the ultimate suite for PCB Design **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Soma S. | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** March 22, 2024 **What do you like best about PADS Professional?** It is very cost effective in terms of PCB design sollution begineers are very benfitial remarkble customer support from mentor **What do you dislike about PADS Professional?** limited featres Complicated and time taking process **What problems is PADS Professional solving and how is that benefiting you?** PADS Professional is the ultimate suite for PCB Design Sollution. large Component Library give the liberty to work with current edge technologies. ### 31. PADS Professional featured with industry based components which is cost effective for PCB design **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** RITABAN K. | Design Engineer, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** March 01, 2024 **What do you like best about PADS Professional?** User friendly customer support from Mentor is very frequent enhanced features for adoptable implimantation affordable price **What do you dislike about PADS Professional?** dfficult to intrigate with hardwares hard for beginners some bugs need to be fixed during simulation **What problems is PADS Professional solving and how is that benefiting you?** Pads professional is very proficient for beginners to work with PCB design. The license term is cost effective for customers end. ### 32. PADS Professional is very usefull software for PCB Design with hardware collaboration facilities **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** RAHUL R. | Field Application Engineer VLSI, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** March 05, 2024 **What do you like best about PADS Professional?** Affordable User Friendly easy Implimantation relaible Customer support **What do you dislike about PADS Professional?** Limited Features difficult to intrigate complicated for beginers **What problems is PADS Professional solving and how is that benefiting you?** Its a very usefull for PCB design and people can easily afford this. give the facilites to intrigate with Hardware and the simulation results are very likely industry standard ### 33. Good experience **Rating:** 3.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Industrial Automation | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** January 11, 2024 **What do you like best about PADS Professional?** PADS Pro have a lot of tools, and many things are configurable. Routing and 3D tool are very comfortable to use. Customer Support is fast and helpful. Good management for plane shape. PADS have everithing that you need **What do you dislike about PADS Professional?** Cad is a bit hard to learn for a newbie. Constraint manager and library are complicated and long to set-up Creating a pad or a component takes a lot of time Hug trace in PADS PRO is worst than in Pads Standard (it is so bad) There is'nt an option to create a 1-layer PCB **What problems is PADS Professional solving and how is that benefiting you?** PADS Pro helps me to create PCB using a lot of tools ### 34. PADS professional is the future for PCB design **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** RAHUL R. | Application Engineer, Electrical/Electronic Manufacturing, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** February 23, 2024 **What do you like best about PADS Professional?** user friendly GUI industry based components low implimantation hazard great customer support **What do you dislike about PADS Professional?** Complecated process very difficult to use for a beginer not very well organized **What problems is PADS Professional solving and how is that benefiting you?** PADS professional make the PCB deisgn very cost effective and high redumption ### 35. Well palnned software for easy usage **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Hari Krishnan I. | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** December 13, 2023 **What do you like best about PADS Professional?** Layout features of Semi-auto routing. Doing basic SI from Constraints, schematic and layout **What do you dislike about PADS Professional?** Document binaries has changed. Not a dislike, but previous type of installation was better. **What problems is PADS Professional solving and how is that benefiting you?** Accessing library from designer **Official Response from Yolanda Dong:** > Hari, thank you for sharing your positive experience with the layout features of PADS Professional, including semi-auto routing and the capability to perform basic signal integrity tasks from constraints, schematic, and layout. Your feedback is valuable, and we appreciate your support! ### 36. It is good software with wide industry exposure. **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Agniswar M. | Sales Engineer, Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** March 01, 2024 **What do you like best about PADS Professional?** Accurate simulations and design of PCB board. **What do you dislike about PADS Professional?** All things are good but need to improve to approach of fabrication. **What problems is PADS Professional solving and how is that benefiting you?** Improvement of design pcb in industries ### 37. Great all round package **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Tom K. | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** March 07, 2024 **What do you like best about PADS Professional?** The performance is far beyond others. The routing and repouring of polygons is real time. Lots of powerful professionals features without the fuss of other packages. **What do you dislike about PADS Professional?** The user interface feels a little dated, feature discovery can be tricky and library management is geared towards a team rather than individual **What problems is PADS Professional solving and how is that benefiting you?** Fast performant PCB design ### 38. Unveiling the Power of Innovation: A Comprehensive Review of PADS Professional for PCB Design **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** a b. | Training, Professional Training & Coaching, Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** January 16, 2024 **What do you like best about PADS Professional?** I Often appreciate PADC Professional for its user-freindly interface, robust design capabilities, efficeint workflow, and strong simulation tool for PCB Design. **What do you dislike about PADS Professional?** It has occasional stability issues and desired more seamless integration with other design tools. Also aprat from this Customer support could be more better. **What problems is PADS Professional solving and how is that benefiting you?** It reduces time to market for electronic products by streamlining or pipelining the design process. Also it provides accuracy and robust simulation of any electronic product. ### 39. Powerful EDA tool for PCB designers **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** DHIMANT G. | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** December 13, 2023 **What do you like best about PADS Professional?** Easy-to-use features and very good GUI for user-friendly **What do you dislike about PADS Professional?** The archive feature was very helpful in taking backups and comparisons. This was removed in later versions. **What problems is PADS Professional solving and how is that benefiting you?** Easy to use semi-auto routing since we have control over the feature. Time saving. **Official Response from Yolanda Dong:** > Dhimant, thank you for highlighting the easy-to-use features and the user-friendly graphical user interface (GUI) of PADS Professional. Your insights are valuable, and we appreciate your positive feedback! ### 40. Best in class Mid Market ECAD Tool **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Bogdan F. | Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** December 13, 2023 **What do you like best about PADS Professional?** Tightly integrated with analysis features flow. Correct by constraction design methodology. Spreadsheet based Constrant Management system. Auto-tunning feature. PADS Connect Data Management. Dynamic plane Data Engine. BEst in class customer support service. **What do you dislike about PADS Professional?** Old fashion GUI/UX. Difficult to learn since use have to learn 4-5 different applications with different UI. Do not have multi-board design features. Non-intuitive 3D model assignment management. Limited Drawing Editor functionality. **What problems is PADS Professional solving and how is that benefiting you?** time to market. design validation **Official Response from Yolanda Dong:** > Thank you for highlighting the key features and benefits of PADS Professional, Bogdan! It's excellent to hear that the software is tightly integrated with analysis features, follows a correct-by-construction design methodology, and includes a spreadsheet-based Constraint Management system. Your feedback is valuable and appreciated! ### 41. the beginner of PADS pro **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Junli J. | Hardware Engineer, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** February 19, 2024 **What do you like best about PADS Professional?** Seamless connection to simulation tools (AMS, HyperLnx, DDR simulation) **What do you dislike about PADS Professional?** drawing the trace in PCB Layout tool is not easy to control **What problems is PADS Professional solving and how is that benefiting you?** layout and simulation work together. ### 42. Good and inexpensive tool for integrated project solutions **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Rajkumar R. | Engineering Systems Analyst, Electrical/Electronic Manufacturing, Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** March 07, 2024 **What do you like best about PADS Professional?** Schematic and PCB Integration, Library management and GUI **What do you dislike about PADS Professional?** Design database size, higher memory consumption **What problems is PADS Professional solving and how is that benefiting you?** Uesd PADS Pro for designing and delivering as per customer requirement ### 43. Most advanced EDA Tool for a designer and a team **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Mechanical or Industrial Engineering | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** January 11, 2024 **What do you like best about PADS Professional?** All features included to design complex board very quicklly (integrated flow + flex + FPGA IO + supply chain). Ability to go from the idea the the manufacturing output (schematic + verification; layout with simulation ) **What do you dislike about PADS Professional?** On boarding require a short training to be really efficient with the tool. **What problems is PADS Professional solving and how is that benefiting you?** Ability to design complex board very easily with a robust methodology (integrated flow) and integrated tools that verified the design . The tool also included some addon to manage complex issue (AMS, Signal integrity, data sharing and collaboration) ### 44. Advanced professional tool for PCB designers **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** keerthana b. | senior design engineer, Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** September 08, 2023 **What do you like best about PADS Professional?** In this tool we can get all features including from symbol to gerber generation. Do no need to get other integrated tool for some option. inbuilt advanced features helps to design our pcb in less time with quality. **What do you dislike about PADS Professional?** For beginners , takes time to learn the tool . because of its advanced and shorctcuts. Also some little bugs with exporting option to be fixed in future for smooth user experience. **What problems is PADS Professional solving and how is that benefiting you?** Pads professional started devoloping some inbuilt tutorials regarding how to use tool, this helps more for beginners to start thier learning process. Footrprint creation is easy to netin in the board. **Official Response from Yolanda Dong:** > Thank you for highlighting the comprehensive features of PADS Professional, Keerthana! It's great to hear that the tool provides all the necessary features, from symbol to Gerber generation, eliminating the need for additional integrated tools. Your feedback on the inbuilt advanced features and time-saving aspects is much appreciated. If you have any more insights to share or questions, feel free to join our community discussions: https://eda.sw.siemens.com/en-US/pcb/pads/ ### 45. PADS Pro is Xpedition lite, very powerful tool **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Research | Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** December 13, 2023 **What do you like best about PADS Professional?** I was familiar with Xpedition but needed a more cost effective product from Mentor to finish a project for a new customer. Was impressed from start to finish. Support was very good, online forums full of experienced users giving genuine answers **What do you dislike about PADS Professional?** Much like Xpedition you can sometimes get stuck but fortunately the support online is fantastic and you are guaranteed to find a solutio to whatever problem you may encounter whilst developing your design. **What problems is PADS Professional solving and how is that benefiting you?** The yearly license is significantly lower than Xpedition but maintains the core functions I need **Official Response from Yolanda Dong:** > Thank you for sharing your experience with PADS Professional! It's great to hear that you found the transition from Xpedition to PADS to be a cost-effective and impressive solution for your project. The positive mention of the support and the active online forums with experienced users providing genuine answers reflects the collaborative and helpful community around PADS Professional. Your feedback is valuable, and we're grateful for your support! ### 46. PADS **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Semiconductors | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** February 08, 2024 **What do you like best about PADS Professional?** Simple and Fridendly use for small projects Good customer support Easy to implement Easy integration The design interface is simple **What do you dislike about PADS Professional?** For big system with high speed design, like motherboard, PADS may not be a good choice. I have to use Allegro to design that **What problems is PADS Professional solving and how is that benefiting you?** Compare to other EDA design software, PADS is enough for some small projects ### 47. Lite version of Xpedition **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Rajkumar R. | Engineering Systems Analyst, Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** January 12, 2024 **What do you like best about PADS Professional?** Inexpensive and fulfills the design requirement. Integrated system. **What do you dislike about PADS Professional?** Scrpting for automation is little complex. **What problems is PADS Professional solving and how is that benefiting you?** Simple designs does not need high end tools. But can be designed using PADS profession at lower price. ### 48. Very advanced tool for creating PCB layout **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Prajwal V. | PCB design engineer, Electrical/Electronic Manufacturing, Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** August 22, 2023 **What do you like best about PADS Professional?** Creating PCB layout design from schematic to Gerber in this tool is easy & time saving compare to other tools. It will reduce layout design cycles also avoid costly design reworks and delivers them to get products to the market earlier. **What do you dislike about PADS Professional?** Working on high speed boards in this tool is little difficult. As it has more advanced features small bugs are present while saving the layout files. Interface between schematic & layout for compatability is little slow. **What problems is PADS Professional solving and how is that benefiting you?** Making some shortcuts user friendly to understand for the designers. Designing more error free design with this advanced features. Helps expansion of working process . ### 49. A versatile EDA tool for PCB layouting **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Adarsh A. | Hardware Engineer , Design, Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** September 06, 2023 **What do you like best about PADS Professional?** PADS professional has the top end features and simplicity in providing solutions in terms of PCB Layout and libtary footprint creation, it also has vary good and supportive environment for schematic drafting **What do you dislike about PADS Professional?** The options available and workflow is very unique from other CAD tools a fresher would suffer latency in learning and implementing the tool for the new designs and get adopted to it. **What problems is PADS Professional solving and how is that benefiting you?** To draft schematic ciruit and run the analysis, create library symbols and footprints for the various parts and PCB layouting for the schematic and varification, **Official Response from Yolanda Dong:** > Thank you for your detailed feedback on PADS Professional, Adarsh! We're thrilled to hear that you appreciate its top-end features, simplicity, and supportive environment for schematic drafting. Your insights are valuable, and your support means a lot to our team. We appreciate you taking the time to share your positive experience with the community: https://eda.sw.siemens.com/en-US/pcb/pads/ ### 50. Ease of usage **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Nitin R. | Researcher, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** January 10, 2024 **What do you like best about PADS Professional?** All the sections are eased nicely and effectively **What do you dislike about PADS Professional?** As such there are no much drawbacks with other designing tools **What problems is PADS Professional solving and how is that benefiting you?** All the academic projects and research projects ## PADS Professional Discussions - [What is PADS PROFESSIONAL used for?](https://www.g2.com/discussions/what-is-pads-professional-used-for) - 2 comments - [Who makes PADS PCB?](https://www.g2.com/discussions/who-makes-pads-pcb) - 1 comment - [Which software is best for PCB design?](https://www.g2.com/discussions/pads-professional-which-software-is-best-for-pcb-design) - 1 comment - [View PADS Professional pricing details and edition comparison](https://www.g2.com/products/pads-professional/reviews?section=pricing&secure%5Bexpires_at%5D=2026-06-30+04%3A58%3A09+-0500&secure%5Bsession_id%5D=e9670e65-58cc-41f1-bea4-351e53d73fe3&secure%5Btoken%5D=239b141347f938839c60de4622788affb81f289db957efa71bc4c572ce5330b8&format=llm_user) ## PADS Professional Features **Design** - PCB layout editing - Schematic editor **Tools** - Component placement **Library** - Component libraries **Platform** - Board size - Layers **Customization** - Custom interface ## Top PADS Professional Alternatives - [Altium Develop](https://www.g2.com/products/altium-develop/reviews) - 4.5/5.0 (990 reviews) - [Autodesk Fusion](https://www.g2.com/products/autodesk-fusion/reviews) - 4.5/5.0 (510 reviews) - [KiCad EDA](https://www.g2.com/products/kicad-eda/reviews) - 4.5/5.0 (63 reviews)