Benchmarks · a Freerouting alternative
Koppar vs Freerouting
Freerouting is the open-source autorouter many KiCad users reach for. This is how it compares with Koppar on the same 8 open-hardware boards: the same parts placement, the same design rules and the same 1200 s wall-clock cap, with KiCad 10.0.4 counting what is left unrouted and running DRC.
- Fully routed, Koppar
- 8 of 8
- Fully routed, Freerouting
- 2 of 8
- Fully routed with no DRC errors added
- Koppar 8 · Freerouting 0
- No board back inside the cap
- Koppar 0 · Freerouting 4
Board by board
| Board | Layers | Connections | Koppar routed | DRC | Time | Freerouting routed | DRC | Time |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| pic-programmer | 2 | 125 | 100% | 0 | 5.5 s | 100% | 5 | 4.8 s |
| rp2040-minimal | 2 | 150 | 100% | 0 | 5.3 s | 86% | 4 | 60.6 s |
| pico-vga | 4 | 180 | 100% | 0 | 8 s | 100% | 8 | 11 s |
| cm5io | 4 | 431 | 100% | 0 | 886.7 s | no board in 1200 s | · | · |
| rk3328-som-evb | 4 | 462 | 100% | 0 | 46.1 s | 96.54% | 42 | 610 s |
| scalenode-cm4 | 4 | 446 | 100% | 0 | 79.2 s | no board in 1200 s | · | · |
| stmp157-som-evb | 4 | 905 | 100% | 0 | 483.6 s | no board in 1200 s | · | · |
| imx8mp-som-evb | 4 | 997 | 100% | 0 | 1194.3 s | no board in 1200 s | · | · |
Routed is KiCad's ratsnest completion on the board each tool returned. DRC is the errors a tool added over the human board's own findings. Measured 2026-10-14/16 on one workstation, 24 cores, one GPU. Boards, rules and harnesses are public inautorouter-bench; the full table, with four more routers, is on thebenchmarks page.
What else differs
- Freerouting is free and open source, runs on your machine and plugs into KiCad. On the boards it finishes, it often uses fewer vias.
- Koppar routes in the cloud and returns the board with KiCad's DRC report; Gerbers are released only when the board is clean.
- Koppar also starts earlier: describe the circuit in a sentence and it draws the schematic, picks parts in stock and places the board before routing it.
- Both leave you with a standard KiCad project you can open and change.