Compare Altium Develop vs. DipTrace

Altium Develop is a collaborative platform for modern electronics engineering teams that connects requirements management, PCB design, systems engineering, and manufacturing workflows. Built on Altium Designer and Altium 365, the platform provides a centralized environment for design collaboration, requirements traceability, BOM management, supply chain visibility, and engineering change management. Altium Develop helps hardware organizations maintain alignment between requirements, design decisions, and manufacturing outcomes while supporting distributed engineering teams through cloud-based collaboration. Core Features: • PCB design collaboration • ECAD-MCAD co-design workflows • Component and supply chain visibility • BOM and engineering change management • Design review and approval workflows • Cloud-native team collaboration • Requirements management and traceability Used by electronics teams building complex PCB-based products, Altium Develop is frequently evaluated alongside Cadence OrCAD, Cadence Allegro, Autodesk Fusion Electronics, KiCad, Siemens Xpedition, and SOLIDWORKS PCB for organizations seeking greater collaboration and lifecycle visibility across hardware development programs.

DipTrace is a professional PCB design suite from Novarm Ltd, in continuous development since 2004 and used by over 30,000 engineers across 50+ countries. Companies in aerospace, defense, medical devices, and industrial electronics rely on it for production work. The suite covers the full design flow in one environment. Schematic Capture handles multi-sheet hierarchical projects with electrical rule check, a Digital SPICE Simulator for analog and digital circuits, and cross-selection with the board. PCB Layout provides interactive push-and-shove editing, where moving or rotating a placed component displaces neighbouring traces and vias as you work, and dragged traces route themselves around pads, keepouts, and existing copper. Designers choose whether design rules are enforced at all times or violations are permitted deliberately. High-speed work is supported through differential pair routing, length matching, layer stackup management, and a PCB calculator. Manufacturing output covers Gerber X2, ODB++, IPC-2581, NC Drill, and STEP for mechanical CAD. Version 5.3 introduced a native XML project format that mirrors the binary format feature for feature, making designs practical to keep under Git or another version control system. Component sourcing runs through a database-powered search with Mouser integration and SnapEDA access to more than 10 million parts. Projects import from Altium, KiCad, Eagle, OrCAD, EasyEDA Pro, Pulsonix, and PADS. DipTrace runs natively on Windows, macOS, and Linux. Licensing is perpetual — bought once, with no subscription or maintenance fees — across five editions starting at $75. Technical support is provided to every user, including those on the free edition.