The KiCad symbol and footprint libraries ship with the app and are indexed at startup, so a part is a search away rather than a library you have to go find and add first. The files are the same format your existing project already uses.
macOS, Windows and Linux · no account. Every platform.
The count
01
The footprint number is the indexed one, not the file count: 15,447 .kicad_mod files ship, and the 15,124 with pads in them are the ones you can find. Three of the 155 footprint directories on disk contribute nothing to the index, which is why the libraries that count is 152.
What a part carries
02
A search that only gives you names makes you open every one of them. Each hit here carries the library it came from, how many pads it has and whether it is surface-mount or through-hole, and the filters above narrow on the same three things — so the wrong package is discarded from the list rather than after placing it.
The pane on the right draws the pads of whichever row is selected and, underneath, the 3D model that will end up in the STEP export. It is the same geometry either way, which is the only reason a preview is worth looking at.
What the 3D model is for →
A part placed from the index keeps the exact footprint string the library ships it under — the same identifier whether the board is opened in Rivet or in KiCad, because it is the same file either way. Nothing is renamed on the way in, so a string copied out of a datasheet finds the same part it would find anywhere else.
See it on a board →
Rivet is its own editor with its own engine, and it is compatible with KiCad rather than built from it: it ships the KiCad symbol and footprint libraries, reads them, and writes symbols and footprints back out in the same format. A project that already has parts in it opens, and whatever gets added leaves in the format it arrived in.
The schematic editor →macOS, Windows and Linux · no account. Every platform.