For paid/non-free, some of Altium's offerings would be the next step up, along with Fusion-360. I haven't tried Fusion-360 ECAD. I do know that Autodesk bought Eagle, but it's not clear to me if Fusion-360 is using Eagle for schematic capture and PCB?
After that, it's big-boy tools like mentor or cadence. These are overkill for hobbyists unless the man is paying for your seat.
I've heard that the really expensive EDA tools are like Adobe Photoshop --- everyone experimenting/learning tends to just pirate them, and then end up at a company which does pay for them.
https://www.autodesk.com/products/fusion-360/electronics-eng...
I've used it for mechanical and I found it extremely polished and intuitive and totally worth the subscription for that alone, but I have neither the time nor project (yet) to go down the rabbit hole of learning the ECAD functions of Fusion-360.
And good luck with creating your own components!
Prior to the early computing CAD days, the traces were really rounded and flowing, and had teardrop fills. They were also done freehand, with transparencies, markers, and tape.
This is a good example of hand-designed boards: https://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/vtg-early-1970s-ampex...
The constraint is still there. Curved traces make your GUI ridiculously unmanageable. Ever tried to manipulate font outlines? It's like that on a PCB, only an order of magnitude worse. You have to operate control points for every single segment rather than just dragging a trace. All for effectively no benefit on 99.9% of all PCB designs.
In fact, the only good argument for using non-Euclidean traces is in the ultra-high-speed arena (think DDR4 bus or multi-GHz RF). If traces are small enough that they fit between the PCB weave, different traces can have enough difference in electrical permittivity that it will screw up the matching (trace 1 has an FR-4 fiber directly underneath while trace 2 only has cross fibers underneath and so has about 50% air underneath instead of 100% fiberglass). Consequently, you have to swing the angles to weird things like multiples of 7 or 13 degrees to prevent that.
For anyone with more questions in this area of high speed digital design, feel free to reach out to me (contact info in profile) - I love the topic.
[1] https://blog.lamsimenterprises.com/2011/01/08/fiber-weave-ef...
I guess it depends on who you are, but I tried it and noped away in under 30 minutes. I understand how this might be a valuable learning tool in a classroom environment, but the restrictions it has around components and design are too much for a hobbyist experimenting.
> which makes this whole point mute.
moot
The only merit Fritzings has against a thriving open ecosystem such as KiCAD is its dumbed down interface that would make it more accessible to beginners. However, if you want to use it without paying €8, you have to compile it from source, which makes this whole point mute.