Altium Develop Reviews

Summary: Very good job Altium. Best software I have ever used hands down!
Been doing Electrical Engineering for 30 Years now and have used them all.

Positive: Well thought out.
Constantly improved.
Very good support.
Saves so much time.
Visually stunning, logical interaction, Simulation, Draftsman, library from suppliers, SolidWorks integration, Active BOM, Cloud Based, Auto routing, etc.

Negative: Panel Snapping is awful, not intuitive.
Some refreshing errors.
No group project instant messaging while working together on project!
Some file types not supported.

Summary: A pretty good application, i am writing the rest of this part cause the writing requirements.

Positive: The designing and the features, hella a lot more but i am too lazy to write it i am writing this part to due to the writing requirements.

Negative: The pricing, and nothing else i am writing the rest of this part cause the writing requirements.

Summary: Great designing experience.
I'm yet to explore other parts as integrated simulators and CAD designers.

Positive: 1) Easier for multiple engineers to work on.
2) Great visual for firmware engineers to know things.
3) Version Control is superb
4) Can't forget about PCB Compare and Schematic compare feature with the previous version.
Thank you for this!!

Negative: Making local libraries is a little hassle because we don't provide all the details regarding vendors and all links.

Summary: I have very positive feelings about Altium Designer and do suggest it to others for professional use.
Out of all the different PCB design softwares I have used Altium has been the easiest and the best one for getting in to a nice flow state while designing.

Positive: Easy to use and gets in my way the least of any ECAD software I have used.
Nothing in it feels needlessly painful and it works well for advanced, complex designs.
Good for multi-sheet design and schematic verification of those.

Official documentation is PUBLIC and not behind a login wall or in random pdf files.
It is indexed by Google and other search engines, so searching for solutions usually yields hits on up to date official documentation, not unanswered forum posts from 2006.

Negative: Pricing.
Can't afford it for personal projects at home, so it needs to be provided by employer or client. This is especially relevant if you want to keep your skills with it sharp or try new ways of doing things.
Sometimes opaque errors that are annoying to Google, but so far I have been able to eventually solve all except one issue just by googling.
For that I had to contact Altium support, which was able to solve it.

Summary: Using Altium was definitely a much-needed upgrade on my previous -mostly for personal projects- use of eCAD tools. 9.5/10 would recommend.

Positive: Easy to use, a plethora of educational videos, and a responding support team. Much more capabilities than some previously used eCAD tools.

Negative: Price for single users is a bit much, but I'm a student so I got the educational license.

Summary: I need to provide some simpler and more training materials, maybe more examples and demos to us for have a update level.

Positive: For designers, it's easy as a recommended electronic tool, for new bees, it's easy to understand and design new analog and digital circuits, for schematics and PCBs, AD can translate ideals into Solidworks 3D designs, and ultimately become a delightful and friendly product.

Negative: Version compatibility needs to be improved, and 3D footprints can be more accessible.

Summary: Overall it's an amazing product. I've also used other software, but Altium is the only one I enjoyed working with.

Positive: -Lots of options and gadgets to work with.
-You can add your shortcut keys to most of the commands.
-Cloud base library which makes part creation, editing, and history keeping very easy.

Negative: -On bigger projects which have lots of components and VIAs, it gets very slow.
-Sometimes crashed when it can't communicate with the server and doesn't let you save.
-Doesn't have PCB concurrent design ability between two (or more) designers.

Summary: A professional tool for developing the best possible PCB designs. They kept all possible features available to assist you in getting an excellent result. I’m really happy to have chosen it.

Positive: First of all the user interface is very intuitive and made for quick reference in terms of checking and testing your designs. The risk of doing something wrong has been reduced significantly. Also the possibility the Altium Concord Pro on 365 is a major benefit! Everything has been tweaked and adapted for a perfect end result. I’ve been using other PCB design software but Altium Designer is absolutely top notch and generates the most professional results.

Negative: Haven't found any while using it for now, but maybe in the future. But to be honest I doubt it.

Summary: My favorite EDA tool since some years, I like working with AD, even its not perfect and completely bug free.

Positive: AD has many helpful features and great ideas (my favorite is the Multichannel sheets feature), which abbreviate some PCB design tasks.

Negative: Often, you may think that some feature are not completed properly. It has some mysterious bugs, but it's going to be better during time.
AD needs lot of good organisation and preparation, if you don't invest some time in preparation, you will fail to use AD as a nice and helpful tool. If you are new in AD, you should definitely get help from better skilled AD users, or you should forget it.

Summary: The easiest design software (for me), Full of features and possibilities, 3D preview of your project with 3D STEP files, custom components are the reasons why I use this software for design PCB.

Positive: Every thing is easy to understand in this app and has a lot of features.
every one can use this, like students or professional users.
and I think it's the most compatible software for PCBs in companies and factories.
After 18 version it has a more beautiful design environment
But most of all in this app, I like component libraries. you can easily create your own component library and use for your projects.

Negative: It's a little bit hard to find resources and tutorials for this software like YouTube videos.
But at least there's documentation.

Summary: State of art. Even compared to Catia, Cadence and Mentor still manages to keep up. Very few things could be improved.

Positive: Everything, from interface, resource usage, compatibility with other apps, easy tool access, intuitive design functions.

Negative: As small business, the price. Quite out of the range of most hobbyists.

Summary: The choice of which PCB design software to use can be very personal for people and they do not like to change. But if you're just getting started, starting with Altium will enable you to adapt to any other software out there since Altium is the amongst the most complex and powerful tools available.

Positive: - Altium is a very powerful tool. You can design professional-grade PCBs with any number of layers and Altium has a big enough feature set to enable you to do that. At the same time, I learned it as a student and still was able to grasp the concepts and use it easily.
- The 3D viewer is excellent and makes it really easy to visualize at each step.

Negative: - The price of this software makes it unfeasible for students and individual entrepreneurs. Period.
- No big community of contributors like KiCAD or eagle. Basically it is a premium software for industrial applications.

Summary: A step over the 90s CAD software we've been using, but I'd like all of the features opened on the standard license to help justify the cost.

Positive: The library tool is great as it is one of the few things I can say is superior to KiCAD or any other open-source alternative.

Negative: Not everything works, locking of various customizations onto high tier subscriptions. No clear distinction between some 365-only features and Develop SW client features. Paying to have access to offline tutorials is really dumb.

Summary: I recommend it to every windows user, as Linux user I am a bit underwhelmed, since it actively hurts my productivity to maintain both OS just for one Software. Solve that and create a more sophisticated Licencing-Structure and we are at full five stars.

Positive: End-to-End Reliability: It delivers a highly robust solution covering the entire process of PCB design from start to finish.
Seamless Cloud Integration: The cloud ecosystem works flawlessly for real-time collaboration and sharing data with both teammates and production facilities.
Flawless Version Control: The Git-based version control is a massive plus, practically eliminating any misunderstandings or mix-ups regarding design revisions.
Rewarding Learning Curve: While getting up to speed is medium to hard, mastering the system pays off significantly in long-term productivity.

Negative: Strictly Windows-Bound: This is my primary issue. For professional users on Linux, there is basically no way around a dual-boot setup, which is frankly a shame.
Finicky License Management: If you are a mobile user who frequently swaps locations or networks, the system often drops the seat login, which frustratingly prevents you from saving your work.

Summary: Altium remains one of the strongest professional PCB design packages on the market, and it shines on RF and high-speed projects. Altium 365 makes team collaboration genuinely useful, even if sharing still has room to improve. The lack of Linux and macOS support, gaps in the component search and limited integrated simulation keep it from being perfect. If you want something more powerful than KiCad with real collaboration features, it is definitely a good replacement and worth the investment.

Positive: I have been a regular user of Altium since 2013 when I first used it in my course. Altium is by far one of the best PCB design tools available, especially for RF and high-speed designs. The layout tools, impedance-controlled routing and design rule system handle demanding boards very well. Altium 365 is a strong addition for cloud collaboration, making it easy to share projects and keep a team working from the same data. For anyone who has outgrown KiCad and needs proper collaboration features, it is a very capable step up.

Negative: The software still feels stuck in the past when it comes to platform support: there is no native Linux or macOS version, which is frustrating for teams that don’t run Windows. Manufacturer Part Search is missing a lot of components, and other library sources cover parts much more completely. Design sharing in Altium 365 works, but could be smoother. I would also like to see more advanced simulation built in for the price we pay, for example power integrity analysis comparable to Keysight Power Analyzer tools. Support can be better in Germany - took me a while to get a proper quote.