Need advice on PCB manufacturer for DIY project

[Chris Chung]

My boards from PCBWay arrived. They had shipped in from Hong Kong. Elecrow ships from China (and I recall sometimes from Singapore). PCBWay is quicker. They shipped my boards on Feb 22nd and I received them March 9th. So it's a little bit more than 2 weeks. It could be a fluke though, need more shipments to confirm.

To my eyes the are about the same quality. And my design usually is mostly simplistic and not at a very detail level. These boards do have very thin traces. I am comparing the NP41S boards. The old version is made by Elecrow and the new ones are from PCBWay.

The only difference I can find is that PCBWay plated the pads w/ more solder. It actually helped me on SMD soldering as I usually try to not apply solder when I tact the MCU corners. I don't know if this is a good or bad thing in general terms.

The reason I had used PCBWay is that for size larger than 10 x 10cm, they offer a flexible rate, and in my case I had save about $20 for a batch of 5 boards. Their shipping may cost a bit more and they charge $2 for paypal transaction.

Details on the SMD pads.
   

Overall PCBs.