signex
v0.9 shipped — Apache-clean cutover — open source, Apache-2.0
Open-source EDA tooling built in Rust with GPU-accelerated rendering and an Altium-quality UI.
Native .snxsch / .snxpcb formats — line-diffable in git, ~5× smaller than JSON.
Optional GPL-3.0 companion tool
converts KiCad projects one-way.
What's in the box
Signex is shaping up to be a daily driver for schematic and PCB work — matching the Altium workflows engineers know. Migrating from KiCad? Run the optional companion converter once and open the result natively.
Read and write .snxsch, .snxpcb, .snxsym, .snxfpt, .snxlib, .snxprj — TOML envelope + TSV bulk blocks, ~5× smaller than JSON. KiCad migration via the optional companion tool.
Dockable panels, undocked tabs that stay fully interactive in their own OS windows, Active Bar floating toolbar, context menus, selection filter, in-place editing.
60 fps pan and zoom on 500+ component schematics. wgpu backend targets Vulkan, Metal, DX12.
Altium Dark, Catppuccin Mocha, VS Code Dark, GitHub Dark, Solarized Light, Nord — plus a live theme editor.
Wire, bus, label, component place, rotate, mirror, copy/paste, 100-level undo/redo. Altium-compatible shortcuts.
11 electrical-rule checks, cross-sheet hierarchy validation, project-wide annotation, Altium-style Messages panel with click-to-locate.
Every subsystem is command-driven, reversible, and JSON-serializable from v0.x — so Signal AI (Pro, v3.0) drops in without rewrites.
Look and feel
The default is Altium Dark — neutral grays, white chevrons, no blue tints. Switch themes live, or write your own from the theme editor.
Who we are
Signex is developed by Alp Lab AB, an independent company based in Västerås, Sweden. We're building the EDA tool we always wanted to use — open, fast, and honest about its goals.
Hardware design is still dominated by two extremes — proprietary suites that cost thousands per seat, and open tools that leave real productivity on the table. We believe engineers deserve both: professional-grade workflows and the freedom of open source.
In public, in Rust, on real-world designs. Every milestone is a tagged release with a working binary — no vapourware, no paywalled previews. The Community edition is Apache-2.0 and will stay that way.
Signex Community is free forever: full schematic and PCB editor, simulation, plugins. Signex Pro (v3.0+) adds Signal AI, real-time collaboration, and cloud PLM — and funds the open-source work.
Questions, partnerships, or feedback?
GitHub Discussions
·
Issues
Where this is going
Signex ships in milestones. Each one is a real release — not a demo. v0.9 shipped (Apache-clean cutover) — v0.10 (Library & Polish) in development.
Iced shell, panels, themes, dock system.
KiCad format read/write, domain types.
wgpu pan/zoom/grid, Altium-style camera.
Render all elements, multi-sheet nav.
Select, move, wire, undo/redo, save.
Copy/paste, labels, components, Active Bar, Altium-style modals.
11 ERC rules, annotation, iced::daemon — undocked tabs are real OS windows.
PDF, BOM, netlist, multi-project workspaces, dirty tracking, hierarchical-sheet polish, TabPill chrome.
Native .snxsch/.snxpcb formats, KiCad I/O moved to optional GPL-3.0 companion (signex-kicad-import).
Symbol / footprint editor, multi-symbol .snxsym, Component Editor, installers.
Schematic-only public release.
GPU rendering, layer stack, cross-probe.
Greedy → walkaround → push-and-shove → diff-pair.
Full schematic + PCB editor.
Signal AI, plugins, real-time collaboration.
SPICE, EM, thermal — unified view.
Cloud PLM, BOM Studio, ERP bridge.
Standing on giants
Signex would not exist without the open-source ecosystem it's built on. We're deeply grateful to the maintainers of these projects — many of them Apache-2.0, the same license Signex uses.
The language Signex is written in. Memory-safe, fast, and fearless.
Cross-platform GPU abstraction powering Signex's 60fps canvas rendering over Vulkan, Metal, and DX12.
The cross-platform GUI framework behind Signex's UI, panels, and multi-window daemon.
Additional Iced widgets — tabs, context menus, drop-downs, selection lists, and more.
Powers Signex's project serialization, theme files, and JSON interop.
Parser-combinator library used for the ERC rule DSL.
Stable identity for every schematic object across undo, save, and multi-window sessions.
Fast regular expressions for ERC pattern matching and annotation rules.
Ergonomic error handling throughout the codebase.
PNG decoding for icons, screenshots, and embedded assets.
Native file dialogs for open / save flows across Windows, macOS, and Linux.
System font discovery and matching for the schematic renderer.
Win32 bindings — used for DWM rounded-corner hints on Windows 11.
The open EDA project that inspired the original Signex KiCad-compatibility work. KiCad-format I/O now lives in the separate signex-kicad-import companion tool (GPL-3.0-or-later) — Apache-clean Signex Community has no GPL aggregation in its build closure. Thanks to @sethhillbrand of the KiCad project for raising the licensing question that led to the cleaner two-repo split.
A full list of dependencies and their licenses is available in the
Cargo.lock
and each crate's Cargo.toml. If we've missed crediting your
project here, please
open an issue
and we'll fix it.
Open source
Whether you're an EDA professional, a Rust developer, or a long-time KiCad user — there's room to contribute.
Installation, quick start, feature walkthroughs, keyboard reference — 23 pages covering every shipped capability.
Six crates, strict architecture, ~no interior mutability. Clean Rust.
Bugs, rendering drift vs KiCad, good-first-issues tagged.
Feature requests, design debates, roadmap feedback.
Branch model, crate map, code style, release flow.