Altium Develop Verified Customer Reviews (2026)

Overall experience was great actually, except the custom footprinting part.
Has a steep learning curve but actually fun to learn when doing a project side by side.

As a beginner, this is great to learn because of the course Altium provides with this. The cloud support is genuinely great to use and having version control is amazing as well.

Custom footprint seems to have a lot of friction.

Our experience with Altium is magnificent. For us it is an irreplaceable product.

We have used other development environments in the past, but Altium beats them all.

The 365 integration with suppliers who are working on developing some boards for us is very useful, and it is very simple and helpful to be able to validate in real time the modifications that are being carried out.

It would be very interesting to be able to have direct thermal simulation tools integrated, and that electronic simulation processes could be simpler.

Overall Altium Develop is a cost effective tool that is the industry standard for good reasons. It has all the functionality we need to develop advanced electronics.

Altium Develop is the next generation of Altium PCB design software. The integration with Altium 365 makes version control and collaboration easy. New pricing structure is transparent and makes it easy for smaller teams to get started and scale up.

When working with complex PCBs Altium Develop can hang or crash. It is recommended to save often.

A great experience overall! It provides the full suite of PCB development all in one place under a project file, from schematic to layout to drawings to gerber files

- Can import designs from many different other EDA software
- Fully integrated
- Works well with Flexible circuit boards
- License solutions have improved

- Can take time to find where everything is
- Can be tricky to sync the BOM

I have been using Altium Develop for about a year now, on a daily basis, for schematic design and PCB layout in an industrial environment. With around 20 years of experience as an electronics engineer, I have had the opportunity to work with different PCB design tools over the years. Altium Develop has proven to be a very complete and professional solution that fits well with my daily engineering activities. I use it extensively for both schematic capture and PCB routing, including relatively complex industrial designs. After one year of regular use, my overall experience has been very positive, and the software has become an important part of my design workflow.

The main advantage of Altium Develop is its completeness. It provides a very wide range of tools for schematic design, PCB layout, routing, design rules and overall project management, all within the same environment. The integration between the different stages of the design process makes the workflow efficient and helps reduce the need to switch between different tools. I also appreciate the depth of the features available, which makes the software suitable not only for simple boards but also for more complex professional and industrial projects. For an engineer working with PCB design on a daily basis, having such a comprehensive toolset available is a significant benefit.

The main drawback is the cost. Altium Develop is a professional solution and its price can be relatively high, especially when compared with some free or much less expensive PCB design tools that can cover many of the requirements for less complex projects. For individual users, students, hobbyists or small teams with limited budgets, the cost may therefore be difficult to justify. That said, for professional users who work with PCB design on a daily basis, I believe the additional features, integration and overall capabilities can make the investment worthwhile.

The Altium Develop experience is simple and affordable but it is frustrating now being able to trust the free trial experience

The core functionality for 90% of Altium features are present in Altium Develop. It has the main schematic capture, layout, etc features and the additional things like cloud storage and sharing with 365 which is convenient to share designs with non EEs.

The free trial of develop provided codesigner functionality that was removed after purchasing the license. The documentation and information from our Altium rep was very unclear when purchasing so we tested everything in the free trial before making our decision. After signing up, the workflows that we tested and documented as working fine, suddenly stopped working.

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.

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.

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.

Everything we need in an ECAD tool. Everything a small team needs from Altium without the big team cost.

We are a small team of electrical engineers and have been using Altium Develop since January, it has been a great tool, and highly recommend.

None, tool has been great to use, and I have had no complaints from my team.

Excellent ! Liked the way its has been designed. Before i used to go to 10 different places just to design one PCB but now i can do it all in one place. Its a bit of storage eater i get it but i can surely ignore that issue for its phenomenal performance.

The best thing about this software is its all in one quality, like you do not have to go to 10 different apps just to build one PCB its all in one and that the reason its famous in industry level manufacturing or in other areas as well. really liked it.

a little bulky, but what can you expect from a PCB design suite. still better than others.

Overall, it is a great value. I'm still getting used to the subscription model. I still prefer a perpetual license approach instead.

All the features of the earlier Altium Designer Professional version, but at a reduced cost. It is a great value.

offline installer is not available from downloads, A365 (cloud) is watered-down version of A365 Professional.

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.

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.

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.

At the moment, it is still OK for us to do the custom specified electronics design, especially when the Layout is large and complex. But still, the current business model, licensing pricing and so on brings many uncertainties to us. If other competitors like KiCad is dramatically improved over the next years, we will certainly consider other options.

a. versatile user-interface, rich set of tools.
b. built-in PCB 3d realtime illustration.
c. powerful quote function, lot easier to make customized selections.
d. harness and customized net color makes schematic design more efficient.
e. PCB Panel is extreme helpful.
f. very easy-to-use and handful draftsman.

a. graphics sometimes crash when the Layout design is large in size.
b. documentation for API-usage in Altium script is extremely poorly organized/written.
c. License purchasing+pricing+configuration and the whole SaaS business model is a pain in the axx.
d. Uncertainty of for how long can the project files still be opened correctly, thank to point c.

Overall, I am very satisfied with the software because of the one platform to oversee all processes: schematic, PCB, manufacturing and documentation.

It has many useful features, like the manufacturing part database, the harness design, and the variation. It improves my work and documentation significantly.

I am working with the Altium 365 database. I uploaded all our created parts to the Altium 365 database, but the system often slows down between 1 p.m. and 3 p.m. Pacific Time. It delays my work progress. Also, the program required some learning trials, but they were manageable.

It was very difficult to even get Developer working. Altium had many snafus trying to migrate our workspace. In the end it became a one year stalemate.

It works fine and has fixed some of bugs that previously existed. Better collaboration tools for cross discipline reviewing.

Altium is trying to phase out the perpetual licenses and once you make this jump you're going to be paying annually FOREVER. Licenses and projects are not shareable outside of your geographic area so international coordination is not well supported.

I've used Altium Develop weekly since May for R&D hardware work. It covers schematic and PCB layout well for a small team, and collaboration is noticeably easier than a file-based workflow. I rate it 4 out of 5 — the design experience is solid, but the limited automation, especially via MCP, is a real drawback.

Real-time collaboration is the biggest strength — our team can work in one cloud workspace with version history and comments instead of passing design files around. Sharing a design for review takes a link rather than an export, which saves time on every design review.

Automation is the weak point. Driving Altium Develop through MCP or scripts is difficult, so repetitive tasks still have to be done manually, which slows things down on larger projects.

I have used Altium for about five years to design hardware at our startup, including high-frequency radar boards. It gets the job done and its output is trusted by manufacturers, but every session feels like fighting the tool rather than designing. It is bloated, the UI is unintuitive, and the core experience has hardly improved over the years despite the high subscription cost. We keep using it mainly because it is the industry standard and switching has a real cost, not because we enjoy it. Teams starting fresh should seriously evaluate lighter and faster-moving alternatives before committing.

The core feature set is complete: schematic capture, multilayer PCB layout, differential pair and length-tuned routing, design rule checking, 3D board view and MCAD/STEP export are all in one package. It handles complex, dense boards, including the 77 GHz radar boards we design, and the output files (Gerbers, ODB++, BOMs, pick-and-place) are accepted by every fab and assembly house we work with. It is an industry standard, so files and libraries are easy to share with partners.

The software is bloated: it is slow to start, heavy on resources, and sluggish on large designs even on a high-end workstation. The interface is hard to use, with important settings buried in nested dialogs and panels, and the learning curve is steep even after years of use. Worst of all, the product barely evolves. In five years, the same usability problems and long-standing bugs are still there, while new releases mostly add subscription and cloud features rather than improving the core design experience. Licensing is also expensive for a small company.

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.

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.

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.

Overall, Altium develop is no different than Altium designer pro (their previous product). The value add is the cost dramatically decreased to where it becomes a no brainer to get seats for all your staff.

There are a lot of features that really help with design
built-in cross probing
hierarchy design
cost for add ons like PDN and SI are not expensive
differential pair analyses

- very little support
- uploading stuff to cloud allows Altium to take snapshots of your design*
- advanced toolsets are buggy (diff pair routing when overconstrained goes haywire)
- tools hidden under layers of menu contents
- should have a shortcut configure bar like in photoshop
- allow user defined keyboard shortcuts
- net aliases would be ideal so you can short different nets together (tying grounds together)

Overall I think Altium is headed in the right direction with Altium Designer Develop. I know many in the industry were upset to see the Altium move to a subscription model vs. permanent license ownership, but I think this improves the user experience since the Altium user base will all be working with the latest versions of the product.

The price of the Altium Designer Develop seat is better than an Altium Designer seat alone and includes a wealth of useful features. The BOM health assessment and adaptive cost estimator has been particularly useful to our org. The integration with Altium 365 cloud infrastructure has also been really nice when moving between workstations

There were some issues with licensing when we first moved to Altium Designer Develop (2 year license expired after only 1 month), but this was corrected quickly and I don't think it's a systemic issue with the platform.

If you do PCB design professionally and boards are how you make money, its still the most complete package out there and the time it saves justifies the cost. If you're a hobbyist, a student, or a two person shop, the price is going to hurt and KiCad has closed a lot of the gap.

Everything is in one program. Schematic, board layout, parts library, BOM. I'm not jumping between three tools and hoping nothing gets lost in between. Drawing traces feels good once you learn the shortcuts, and the tool pushes other traces out of the way instead of just blocking you. It also warns me when a part is going out of production before I send the board out, which has saved me from having to redo a design. The 3D view makes it easy to check the board fits the enclosure.

The price, subscription renewals have gone up every cycle and its hard to justify for a small team when the competition is free or a few hundred dollars.