ProtoFlow vs EasyEDA: AI Schematic Capture vs Browser ECAD

EasyEDA is genuinely free and genuinely good at what it does: schematic, multilayer layout with autorouting, and one-click ordering, all wired directly into the JLCPCB and LCSC supply chain. That tight integration is the appeal and the catch, the smooth path runs through one fabricator and one parts catalog.

ProtoFlow is free too, but it is deliberately fab-neutral. It uses AI to draft the schematic from a plain-English brief, pulls real parts from LCSC, DigiKey, and Mouser, runs DRC and ERC, and exports a standard KiCad project you can manufacture anywhere. If you like EasyEDA's price but not its gravity toward a single pipeline, that is the trade ProtoFlow removes.

The other gap is the drawing itself. EasyEDA is primarily a manual capture-and-layout tool; ProtoFlow's whole reason to exist is to generate and edit the schematic with AI, so the slowest, most tedious part of a new board, placing the first parts and naming the nets, is a prompt instead of an afternoon.

These are not mutually exclusive. A common workflow is to draft and validate in ProtoFlow, export, and then take it into EasyEDA or KiCad for layout and ordering. You get AI at step zero without giving up the cheap-prototyping pipeline if that is where you want to fabricate.