circuit design resources

Question

I'm new to this hobby and have seen a few software tools mentioned in various articles so I thought I would post a list of them here.

• Breadboard design tool http://fritzing.org/
• Circuit design: http://kicad-pcb.org/
• List of a few others: https://www.element14.com/community/groups/development-tools/blog/2016/09/03/best-free-online-circuit-simulator

If there are other notable ones please comment and I'll add them to the main list.

Answer 1

I'm not a PCB design pro, but I have worked with fritzing and kicad. Fritzing is very easy to learn but has its limitations. I often use it to quickly create nice looking wiring diagrams and for that is is very good. You can also take it further and create PCBs from it but the compatibility with board houses (where you can produce the PCBs) requires some extra work. 

KiCad is very powerful for a free tool but also not the easiest to learn. I created my first PCB from KiCad after watching a series of these tutorials from Chris Gammell (Contextual Electronics) https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLy2022BX6Eso532xqrUxDT1u2p4VVsg-q
Then the complexity was somewhat manageable and I ordered my first PCBs from OSHPark and dirtypcbs

Answer 2

Don't miss to have a look at easyEDA. Its an online editor for creating electronic schematic in an intuitive and simple way. It's even easy to get PCBs and they are realy cheap but good quality!

Befor I did a project with  the EAGLE software. To succeed there I had first to read a book and it was really hard work until I got a PCB - and quite expensive too...