Altium Designer Reviews

I would say that there is a lot to learn but help and documentation is plentiful. I am able to do anything I want with these tools.

Features, documentation and the fact that it is widely used. Many chip products use Altium to document evaluation boards.

Complexity and cost. There are many ways to execute features. The cost is high although you get a lot for your money.

Overall experience has been very positive.
Altium is feature rich, uses a modern user interface, has tons of help videos and documentation, provides excellent technical support, and provides regular product updates.
Great combination that is orders of magnitude better than the PADS Standard we previously were using.

=> Live BOM information with Part Obsolescence and Part Availability
=> Revision controlled central Components library and Board design repository with Where Used traceability from Components to Brds and vice versa
=> Project Templates to promote consistency and get new board designs stared very quickly
=> ECAD/MCAD integration for doing quick fit checks with the Mechanical team who use Solid Works

=> Number of "paper cuts" in the SW where things work differently from menu to menu or annoyances that you get used to working around. Rather than adding more features, would love to see Altium address more of these User Interface annoyances
=> With all the benefits of the integrated revision controlled OnPrem server, comes the downside of it running somewhat slowly. Would love to see Altium work at speeding it up

Since moving to Altium, the speed in which we can prototype a design has gone from days to hours. Being able to integrate it with Solidworks using MCAD co-designer means that both electronic and mechanical can work side by side without waiting for each other.

Component libraries and manufacturer parts search means we can find the components we need with manufacturer approved footprints and have them in our design in seconds.
ActiveBOM is also an excellent tool for helping us pinpoint which components are facing obsolescence or shortages so we can plan accordingly

It is a costly tool with concord pro, and to get everything set up with templates is quite a long and difficult. But the overall benefit is worth it

I spend golden days in Altium training. It given me intense pleasure when working with it. Moreover, I got a some industrial experience. I learn to mail to officials in a decent language.

I fall in love with Altium 365 while playing with
projects. The professor, who came came for us is quite friendly. He not hesitated while clarifying and repeating the previous classes topics.

For us classes timings are little bad. Moreover, my licence is deactivated. I want my licence to be renewed to practice once again.

The entire process from creating a symbol to generating Gerber works seamlessly. I also had a look at the Simulation tool, which is quite impressive as well.

I have worked on multiple CAD tools throughout my career. Compared to some of the other CAD tools I have been using, Altium provides an excellent user interface. The 3D view is another commendable aspect of this tool. You can turn on the single mode option and analyze each layer in detail.

I have been using this tool for more than 12 months and haven't found any major concerns yet. My only suggestion would be to add more simulation models (SPICE/IBIS) for parts from leading manufacturers in to the database.

Altium is a good tool, we are kind of stuck with it now, since we committed on it a few years ago and have all our designs in Altium, including a complex component library.
if i would chose again from scratch, i'd probably go with kicad and spend the license money as donation for that project.

Industry standard in power electronics, basic functions work without any problems, overall very stable and we design all our PCBs with this software

We bought a perpetual license in spring, a few months later this license model was cancelled without any warning. very frustrating experience.

Except for learning curve and price it is a great design software out there with a good support team behind it.

Lots of features discovering something new every day.
Great integration with cad design.
Great component library.

A very sharp learning curve so it takes a while to get used to it.

Altium has been a very useful tool for importing external designs via DXF/DWG and making customizations as needed. Robust features allow for ease of use when starting from schematic to layout in order to make the designers time much more efficient

Online documentation is plentiful and covers many of the basic needs to navigate the many tools at your disposal. The training courses are very thorough and well laid out to cover basic flows all the way to complex circuit design.

So many features that it can almost be hard to scratch the surface on a lot of them

We've used a few tools over the years and Altium is easily a mile ahead, both in feature set and ease of use.

The feature set is extensive, and we are able to produce designs very quickly indeed. The routing tools are also incredibly powerful, and it just makes the job so much easier overall.

The only thing that could have been better is more transparency in that once you purchase a pro license, all subsequent licenses need to be pro as well.

I've been designing PCB circuits for about 30 years, 13 of them at Siemens, and I determined to use Altium Designer for all my projects. Test it yourself, you are going to like it.

About Altium Designer I like very much the ease of use, and that is a very complete and integrated tool to design any kind of PCB. For example, the database approach for component libraries is very good and fast.

What I don't like, as any other PCB tools, is the need to make component libraries at all, with risk of mistakes. When is it going to be a universal format for all CAD software, to define all data of a component (schematic, pinout, 3D mechanics, models, parameter data,..)? This way the manufacturer could offer an already tested format of its components for the professionals.

Overall, this offers the best trade off between cost and usability that I have used, having tried many other software, such as OrCAD, KiCAD, Proteus, etc.

Ease of use, A365 feature, cloud connectivity, ability to view designs via a browser. Advanced features to allow for great PCB design

Having to pay extra for some features such as harness design

Overall this software is vey good, a little bit expensive. It was much better if we could access to cheaper version with less feature.
Support is good.

Not very hard to work with without knowledge.
The libraries are available.
A lot of YouTube videos to help.

There are many complicated menus and features.
There is no help or explanations in the menus to help to understand.

Altium is a very powerful tool and found it faster to build a model vs similar products on the market ie.. kicad

The over layout of the program is very intuitive for schematic design as well as PCB layout. The parts search feature as well as the BOM generation tools all streamline the process to get to a final design quicker. This was very helpful as a capstone project for my program can be on strict time constraint

Although the parts search feature is convenient, the library is not as extensive as I'd hope especially if you are trying to find a passive component like a switch. Furthermore the parts search do include discontinued models and is something that you have to watch carefully.

I would definitely recommend Altium for either small and big businesses. Also, from an industry point of view, Altium is considered a must when it comes to Electronics Engineers' CVs.

Easy and intuitive UI.
The library set and its management.
A comprehensive DRC set of features and its interface.
The community that uses Altium.
A standard in the electronics industry.

The price is always an issue when it comes to software, although there are even more expensive packages that are not as good as Altium.

I think Altium is one of the best PCB design softwares on the market and it’s my go to choice for both professional work and personal projects.

The built in advance features for PCB design like 3D view and parametric design puts Altium a step above Kicad.

There is a sharp learning curve. After learning the basic features some of the more advance stuff takes a while to learn.

I began my PCB design journey using two other software but had an upcoming major design project that consisted of 2-3 high voltage PCB designs. As this was going to be a serious project that lasted more than 6 months I wanted to use a software that I would be happy to put on my resume and was actually used and recognized in industry. I ended up choosing Altium Designer because they offered access to me while I was in school and also provided me with the Altium PCB design course for beginners. I took the course and was honestly blown away by how much better Altium was than my other experiences and was very pleased by the feature set. Ultimately, I would recommend Altium and Altium education to anyone who is looking to get started with PCB design as its the easiest fully featured and industry recognized PCB design software there is in my opinion.

*Fully featured PCB design software
*Easiest to learn while retaining lots of features
*Altium Education

*Could have provided more than 1 educational project
*Integrated Component Search is not the best

I'm productive with the SW, but they could improve it and slim it down A LOT. I'm sure these features like PCB Codesign will get even better in a short time.

I like the server based library and integrated revision tracking. Design rules are fairly easy to implement. The PCB Codesign feature is great as well. A colleague and I can work on the same layout (separate portions) and merge almost without an issue. Integration with MCAD save me a lot of time as well.

There aren't enough components in the library. The wizard does make it easier to create a footprint/symbol, but KiCad has a much larger component library.

I've been an Altium customer since it was Protel 1.0 and have recommended it to my customers & startups for just as long. Now its mainstream but I honestly can't say I find todays offering much more productive for banging out schematics or PCB designs though it does offer a lot of bells & whistles. Altium in later years including AD24 offers some expected improvements ie for high speed bus routing that are worth getting comfortable with but things like library work is still a clunky chore. Have no idea if the other mech-EE & PCB mfg. types of features like wiring harness EDA or CAM type setups are good because I haven't had the need nor made the time to learn how to use those features.
In todays work environment there's little training & high demands so really wringing out ideal functionality will take some self imposed educational homework because the tool offers little to no help to learn them on the fly (mid project). I welcome a future addition of AI power steering ie library wizardry and logical auto-place of parts etc as small examples because the sooner it learns how/what we do over & over and over again the sooner it can help enable that....for now its all too manual & slow.

The News & Updates feed is excellent. Other pros Keeping things that are as simple as they were going back to even Protel are welcomed.

Workflow UI is too complicated and options are buried & scattered. Finding where an option or control is becomes an exercise in endless googling & guessing. Can't find a list of HOTKEYS (In Protel Days we got mouse pads showing them off). In general one is almost better to start from scratch & bite the tutorial bullet than try to apply past Altium experience to using newer versions,

I really recommend this software. I have used it in both really big companies and in very early-stage startups and it has always been invaluable. It easily pays off itself by enabling us to design PCBs more effectively. Collaboration with Altium is very easy, and a lot of places are starting to use it as their defacto software. I really recommend it if you haven't tried it!

I like how Altiun is integrated very well unto one tool, allowing you to design the schematic and the layout from very simple PCBs all the way to complex, multi-pcb system. I have used Altium since Altium 14.0, and they have come a long way in terms of abilities and usefulness. They are my favorite ECAD software for PCB design.

The licensing can get a little complicated with all the versions of Altium available, but that has been simplified in some part with Altium 365.

I also wish there was more accessibility for hobbyists and for personal use, but Altium does provide alternatives to Altium Designer aimed at that market. I wish their shortcut scheme was the same though, as the time of this writing I have tried some of their other offerings aimed at hobbyists and after 10+ years of using the software it is hard to bot miss that the hobbyists offering's keyboard shortcuts are different enough to be a little confusing. But I guess this is a very niche point. The hobby software is still very good for being free

I have used Fusion360, Eagle, and KiCad to design PCBs, but Altium reigns supreme. There is not a better PCB designing software that is as well maintained, documented, and supported. The engineers are constantly improving the designers workflow and the ease of access is incredible.

- The software itself is modern and sleek, each action is very fast as well. If processing time is required, there is always an active indicator.
- Every feature one could need for PCB designing is available, with countless articles and videos tutorials for them. There have been many instances where I looked up how to do something, discovered a better way to do it, and had many resources to help me accomplish it.
- There are very detailed error messages whenever some issue arises. If the software itself doesn't tell you a solution, there is an official article showing how to resolve it.
- Hundreds of lessons available to help guide a new PCB designer learn best practices, and seasoned designers ease into a new tool.

- Making a change to a library element is tedious. I may have not found a better way to do it, but the only way I have found is long.