# Altium CircuitMaker Reviews **Vendor:** Altium **Category:** [PCB Design Software](https://www.g2.com/categories/pcb-design) **Average Rating:** 4.3/5.0 **Total Reviews:** 110 ## About Altium CircuitMaker Altium CircuitMaker is the best free-to-use schematic and PCB design tool for the Open Source Hardware community of designers, makers, hobbyists, students and professionals. CircuitMaker delivers powerful autorouting capabilities, hierarchical schematic entry, and Native 3D™ technology that's easily accessible and free to use. ## Altium CircuitMaker Pros & Cons **What users like:** - Users appreciate the **ease of use and powerful layout tools** in Altium CircuitMaker, streamlining PCB design effortlessly. (8 reviews) - Users appreciate the **wide range of features** in Altium CircuitMaker, enhancing their PCB design and collaboration experience. (7 reviews) - Users find the **intuitive interface** of Altium CircuitMaker allows for quick learning and efficient project development. (6 reviews) - Users appreciate the **robust library management** in Altium CircuitMaker for creating and accessing components effortlessly. (5 reviews) - Users value the **seamless online collaboration** with global teams, enhancing their PCB design and engineering experience. (4 reviews) - Users value the **ease of use** in Altium CircuitMaker, enabling smooth learning and efficient PCB design processes. (4 reviews) - Users praise the **3D visualization capabilities** of Altium CircuitMaker, enhancing design understanding and project presentation. (3 reviews) - ECAD Integration (3 reviews) - Integrations (3 reviews) - Versatility (3 reviews) **What users dislike:** - Users experience **slow rendering** with CircuitMaker, leading to frustration during initial load and file handling. (4 reviews) - Users find the **complex interface** frustrating and hard to navigate, hindering their overall design experience. (3 reviews) - Users find the **difficult learning process** challenging, especially for beginners, making software navigation tedious and frustrating. (2 reviews) - Users find the **limited features** of Altium CircuitMaker restrict the import of footprints and compatibility with file formats. (2 reviews) - Users criticize the **missing features** in Altium CircuitMaker, particularly regarding the limited component library and support. (2 reviews) - Outdated Software (2 reviews) - Users report **poor customer support** with unmoderated forums and lack of responses to feature requests. (2 reviews) - Software Bugs (2 reviews) - Users struggle with **limited component libraries** and poor support, hindering their overall experience with CircuitMaker. (1 reviews) - Expensive (1 reviews) ## Altium CircuitMaker Reviews ### 1. Powerful PCB maker **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Yann H. | 5G features test engineer, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** March 16, 2023 **What do you like best about Altium CircuitMaker?** Very powerful PCB maker. To me the very best for free. **What do you dislike about Altium CircuitMaker?** It's sometimes difficult to find help about circuit Maker. It's often redirected to Altium. Autorouter inefficient to me. I also don't like the link with Altium365 which is now mandatory. **What problems is Altium CircuitMaker solving and how is that benefiting you?** PCB design ### 2. CircuitMaker is perfect for beginners! **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Om B. | Avionics Engineer, Aviation & Aerospace, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** May 01, 2025 **What do you like best about Altium CircuitMaker?** The user interface is intuitive, and anyone can start hands-on with a minimal learning curve. The tools are great for even some industrial projects. It's a perfect step to start the journey to Professional PCB design, as it is built on the foundation of Altium Designer. It inherits the robust features of Schematic capture, PCB Layout, 3D visualisation. One of the greatest strengths is its active and supportive community forum, which has helped me enhance my learning and troubleshooting experience. For its no-cost entry point, we have quite frequently opted for CircuitMaker to train interns and students just getting started, and the projects that are created can be easily migrated and integrated with Altium Professional. **What do you dislike about Altium CircuitMaker?** CircuitMaker’s reliance on cloud storage and mandatory project sharing limits its appeal for users needing privacy or offline access. The lack of advanced features like hierarchical schematics and limited third-party integration can hinder complex designs. Improved onboarding for beginners and more flexible project management options would significantly enhance its usability. **What problems is Altium CircuitMaker solving and how is that benefiting you?** Rapid Prototyping, Training of Interns and Beginners in PCB Designing ### 3. Easy to use and Love the 3D Viewer **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Nick W. | Retail PowerSports Professional., Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** April 22, 2025 **What do you like best about Altium CircuitMaker?** The 3D viewer is awesome and makes it super easy to visualize how and what your product is going to physically look like. The Part assembly assistant is great too! It helps guide me through assembling your PCB by picking the parts and showing me where they go on my board. The Whole User Interface is nice to use. Easy to understand, controls and components aren't confusing. I have also found the rule checker to be super good! I find it easy to check by design rules and or normal rules, and it helps me identify anything out of the ordinary. I'm a student in engineering and have used KiCad and other various programs, but liked this one the best for the above, plus the libraries for parts, though I wish some components were updated more and had a footprint, and for how easy it is to learn the software. **What do you dislike about Altium CircuitMaker?** I like cloud saving, but hate it at the same time. What I mean by this is that there is no good, easy way to save my projects locally on the software without downloading them from the cloud. I wish there were a save button with the option for the cloud or the option for local only. This is my only gripe so far, getting to know the software is pretty easy, but does take a minute to get used to the software,e just like any other software. **What problems is Altium CircuitMaker solving and how is that benefiting you?** It helps me solve the lackluster handful of other free programs that lack the features of CircuitMaker with out needing to pay premiums for high-end software. As a student this is huge! I wish my collage would switch to this software for some of its classes. ### 4. Capable, but component libraries are difficult and support forum is clogged with spammers. **Rating:** 1.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Electrical/Electronic Manufacturing | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** May 20, 2025 **What do you like best about Altium CircuitMaker?** This is a cut-down version of Altium's higher end products. As such, it has several powerful tools for PCB layout. **What do you dislike about Altium CircuitMaker?** The component library is probably its worst and most difficult feature. You can't place a generic component such as a plain resistor, then assign it a package, like I have done in just about any other EDA program I have used. Instead, you have to specify the part number ahead of time - makes sense for an integrated circuit, but not if you want a generic 1K resistor. Then the footprint library is all over the map; some are accurate and some are absolute garbage. Editing the footprints is also harder than in other EDA packages. The second worst feature is the customer support. I can understand that a free program would have a community-based support forum. But the problem is that there's no moderation and Altium has completely neglected the forum. Predictably, it's been taken over by spammers who drown out any real conversation. The second most common thing you'll find on the forum is a bunch of user complaints that they have been requesting features for years and never received any response. Unlike mechanical CAD packages, which have usually been following some attempt at a standard user interface, there's not much about the UI that this one has in common with other EDA packages, and so very little will carry over from other EDA software if you've learned elsewhere. But this seems to be true regardless of what EDA solution you pick - they all have wildly different UI. This product is intended to get entry level users who Altium hopes will move on to their higher end products. Unfortunately, Altium has neglected this product enough that instead it's likely to drive entry level users who try this product on to use KiCAD. While KiCAD also uses a community design library and support forum, these are at least moderated properly. **What problems is Altium CircuitMaker solving and how is that benefiting you?** I have been using it to design circuit boards. Putting together a good quality library of electrical components from a community sourced project is a difficult problem - and one CircuitMaker seriously fails at solving. ### 5. All in one PCB designer for professionals **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Electrical/Electronic Manufacturing | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** May 08, 2025 **What do you like best about Altium CircuitMaker?** So, I have a startup and initially altium gave me a good discount to use the software. Apart from it Main pros that i see is ease of use, very powerful layout designing tools and each file like step, gerber, schematic, production file, assembly file can be generated from one place. **What do you dislike about Altium CircuitMaker?** Two things that i want to point out are 1. Very difficult for beginners but it is understood for software tool of this level. 2. It takes time to resolve any bug or issue of software. **What problems is Altium CircuitMaker solving and how is that benefiting you?** I have multiple PCB designs going on at the same time. In altium, 2 of my developers work on the same PCB at the same time on different layouts. It increases the productivity. Also after it got synced to cloud, a reviewer can input comments at the same time.Also each files required for production can be downloaded from it. ### 6. New to ECAD, wanted something similar to Altium **Rating:** 3.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Defense & Space | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** April 29, 2025 **What do you like best about Altium CircuitMaker?** I am a total noobie to ECAD but work with some professionals who use Altium Designer. The overlaps between Designer and CircuitMaker are quite helpful because they can help me when I have issues, and occasionally I can help them. It also makes the transition between the two different software packages easier. For example, if I want to start using ECAD professionally, Designer won't be a completely new and unfamiliar tool. I also really like the integration to 365, as I often use 365 for importing and reviewing designs produced in Designer or other ECAD tools. Having all that data, as well as my work in CircuitMaker, in a single location is really useful. **What do you dislike about Altium CircuitMaker?** The documentation is really lacking. Seaching anything with CircuitMaker in google often yields answers related to Designer. In some cases the answer is sufficient, but I think the limitations/restrictions of CircuitMaker are not well documented enough to know if you are just doing something wrong, or if the feature is unavailable. The application is also painfully slow to load on initial start up. I use a lot of engineering software packages (SolidWorks, ANSYS, COMSOL, etc.) and all of them are much faster and more responsive than CircuitMaker. **What problems is Altium CircuitMaker solving and how is that benefiting you?** I am a mechanical engineer working closely with electrical engineers. I need to be able to understand the design language they speak, and the challenges they face. Having a free, accessible tool to explore PCB design and ECAD for my own learning and understanding has been incredibly valuable. It is only made more valuable by how similar it is to Altium Designer. ### 7. Essencial and easy tool, only a few headaches away from perfection **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Industrial Automation | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** April 23, 2025 **What do you like best about Altium CircuitMaker?** I really enjoy the wide range of features Altium offers for PCB design. The schematic view is intuitive, and sheet symbols make project organization much easier. I also appreciate how simple it is to access component properties and modify them to fit your needs, not only manufacturer parts but internal libraries too. The routing tools are excellent, every aspect of them works perfectly. It just took me only 2 weeks to learn almost everything in the software to start my own projects. **What do you dislike about Altium CircuitMaker?** The unit conversion system is frustrating and easily the least practical part of the software. The multiple tabs don’t interact smoothly, often causing me to accidentally close one or spend too much time switching between them. Another issue is the polygon pour colors, they’re overly intense and strain my eyes, yet I still haven’t found an option to change them **What problems is Altium CircuitMaker solving and how is that benefiting you?** Altium integrate the PCB design process for our autonomous robotics competition team by addressing critical workflow challenges. Its integrated component libraries and easy access to datasheets save us hours of manual research. Then, the real-time design rule checks help us catch errors early, which is essential because we (I mean my robotic team) don't have the resources to reprint a PCB to correct tiny mistakes on the design. ### 8. Intuitive Circuit Design **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Christian G. | Engineer & Supervisor, Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** May 31, 2025 **What do you like best about Altium CircuitMaker?** Allium CircuitMaker is the most intuitive and straightforward circuit design solution that I have tried so far. For the most part, everything just works and is easy to get set up. **What do you dislike about Altium CircuitMaker?** Creating new/custom components can feel a little buggy, and if you import a component that was made with a different grid spacing, circuit design can end up a little cumbersome. The only other area of friction is having everything saved through the cloud which can be an issue if I’m working away from my desk and internet connection. **What problems is Altium CircuitMaker solving and how is that benefiting you?** Due to the streamlined layout, CircuitMaker has been the fastest way for me to prototype circuits and tweak designs. Time is valuable and any time saved not having to work around clunky programs is well appreciated. ### 9. Too good to be true **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Information Technology and Services | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** May 25, 2025 **What do you like best about Altium CircuitMaker?** I have been using this for my CIrcuit club, and it had helped me discover my love for hardware and embedded systems - how to design, how does circuits work and how we can effectively use it. I love many features of it, such as joint monitoring,or have the server version updated. Not to mention the version histories we can truncate and edit on demand :) **What do you dislike about Altium CircuitMaker?** Took me a bit to make use of the tools, but in all honesty, that is a little laid out study that one would have to do when digging in. **What problems is Altium CircuitMaker solving and how is that benefiting you?** Designed my first PCB model (albeit I did actually mess up with the Gerber files, but learnt an important lesson) and planning to use it for more complex designs. ### 10. Best open source tool for schematic and PCB **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Mechanical or Industrial Engineering | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** March 27, 2025 **What do you like best about Altium CircuitMaker?** We have been using Circuitmaker along side Altium 365, This has helped me in created layouts using the library for schematics, Our recent project requiring curcuit boards alongside electical engineers has been going great with the use of circuitmaker. Circuitmaker has both dark and light mode which is very much helpful in preferences. We have integrated this with all our other mcad tools like fusion 360, altium and codedesigner. **What do you dislike about Altium CircuitMaker?** There is not much to dislike here, the only drawback it the footprint takes a lot of time to load. Also there are no packages for a few circuits in schematic like 74hc245 **What problems is Altium CircuitMaker solving and how is that benefiting you?** It is helping me in creating PCB designs while working on varius projects ### 11. It is a good professional tool for hobbyist who want to become professional. **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Sudesh B. | Senior Hardware Engineer, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** April 28, 2025 **What do you like best about Altium CircuitMaker?** It like the User interface which gives feel of professional software. **What do you dislike about Altium CircuitMaker?** Less features. I did not like the part of not able to import footprints from external sources. **What problems is Altium CircuitMaker solving and how is that benefiting you?** I am a circuit designer. Altium has all the tools for designing a product. No need to jump into any other platform ### 12. Good program, similar to Altium Designer **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Computer Hardware | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** December 17, 2024 **What do you like best about Altium CircuitMaker?** I really like how easy it is to make a PCB in CircuitMaker. I have used Altium Desinger before, and I like how I can use this software with a similar design flow. The other things I love are the cloud integration, and the plugin with Fusion 360, similar to MCAD Codesigner. If you are looing for software to design simple PCBs, this is for you! **What do you dislike about Altium CircuitMaker?** The application appears to be built off of Altium desinger, but it is missing lots of the same features. I get that they want you to pay for the better software, but some of the key interface elements are in different locations, so it is a bit difficult to switch between the two. **What problems is Altium CircuitMaker solving and how is that benefiting you?** It helps make PCBs. I wanted something better than what Fusion 360 offered, but the CAD integration was definately a bonus! ### 13. Great for engineers, who just need to spin up a quick prototype **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Computer Software | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** April 20, 2025 **What do you like best about Altium CircuitMaker?** The UI and workflow is similar to Altium Designer as it supports a real PCB level design not just simplified circuit drawing. Octopart and Altium's component libraries. **What do you dislike about Altium CircuitMaker?** Not ideal for proprietary or even semi sensitive work. Saving and loading work relies on internet connectivity. **What problems is Altium CircuitMaker solving and how is that benefiting you?** Since all projects are public, its great design to browsing existing design. We also have the feature of projects being shared and saved online making it easier to access from different machine. ### 14. Amazing software for circuit design **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** MARINA M. | Student, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** April 22, 2025 **What do you like best about Altium CircuitMaker?** Very wide library and very easy to learn. **What do you dislike about Altium CircuitMaker?** Found PCB design functions a bit hard to use, but may be due to my lack of experience on this field. **What problems is Altium CircuitMaker solving and how is that benefiting you?** Used to design circuits for my degree in electronics engineering. ### 15. A top-tier free ECAD package for makers and at-home engineers. **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Jacob A. | Controls Engineer, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** June 18, 2024 **What do you like best about Altium CircuitMaker?** Altium CircuitMaker contains many features also found in Altium Designer, which makes it a great learning tool and a stepping stone to deciding if Altium Designer is worthwhile. It isn't really missing any major features that makes this unusable for most users. Additionally, it's really refreshing that such a polished ECAD program is available for free to makers. **What do you dislike about Altium CircuitMaker?** KiCAD was my first and most used ECAD program before CircuitMaker. A simple way to import KiCAD project files into CircuitMaker with minimal work would be a worthwhile feature. Another thing I dislike is that it's only for Windows operating systems. I use a Macbook for personal use at home, so I have to start up a Windows session on my MacBook to be able to use CircuitMaker **What problems is Altium CircuitMaker solving and how is that benefiting you?** CircuitMaker is great at being able to quickly put together designs, especially because of access to the "Manufacturer Part Search" and to be able to just drag a component onto the workspace. With KiCAD, the process was a lot slower because it rarely had any built-in components that would be used so you would have to ALWAYS make your own footprint and symbol and it added a lot of time to the design. **Official Response from Alanna Jordan:** > We're glad to hear that you find Altium CircuitMaker to be a great learning tool and a valuable resource for makers. We appreciate your feedback about the features and the availability of a free ECAD program. ### 16. Very useful. **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** SAAD K. | Postal Clerk, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** December 17, 2024 **What do you like best about Altium CircuitMaker?** - Easy to use. - Compatible with old versions (Protel For Windows,..etc). - Great design tool. - Cost effective. **What do you dislike about Altium CircuitMaker?** - Some limitations for large design. - None compatible with some other file formats. **What problems is Altium CircuitMaker solving and how is that benefiting you?** - I use it for my simple to moderate projects. ### 17. Ease of developing and making Circuit using Altium CM **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Vikash S. | Engineer, Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** October 18, 2024 **What do you like best about Altium CircuitMaker?** Upsides using Altium CM for me and my development team is eas of making designing and developing testing our PCBs at large scale. **What do you dislike about Altium CircuitMaker?** Downside we experience using Altium CM would be nothing. Great help from our product account manager or say support team. 3d designing cloud be a part on improvement. **What problems is Altium CircuitMaker solving and how is that benefiting you?** Developing and testing PCBs and electronics components. Mostly helping in component placements of boards . ### 18. Been using for quite long time and I can say that experience is smooth **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Electrical/Electronic Manufacturing | Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** December 26, 2024 **What do you like best about Altium CircuitMaker?** Wholesome features available for circuit board making and designing like from being able to create schematic diagrams to testing and stimulating circuit boards all there. Quick and easy to access various different electrical and electronics components in the library. I am able to draw complicated circuit wirings with very easily with the help of this tool. **What do you dislike about Altium CircuitMaker?** Nothing big issue or problem to call out here for this tool but Some times may rendering issue for large size files. But it's fine. **What problems is Altium CircuitMaker solving and how is that benefiting you?** I am being able to make circuit boards and it's testing for my projects assigned.. ### 19. Most favorable tool/platform for the circuit designing **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** A R. | Embedded Engineer, Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** December 23, 2024 **What do you like best about Altium CircuitMaker?** Most amazing thing about this tool that I can definitely say is it's completely free. Large library source for any components needed. Latest 3d technology schematics For me it is Easy to give properties to any particular components with comments **What do you dislike about Altium CircuitMaker?** Basic UI UX Could be improved Great altium community support with global pcb designers engineerz **What problems is Altium CircuitMaker solving and how is that benefiting you?** Circuit board Makin..... ### 20. Absolutely free to use tool by Altium for PCB and Ectronic Circuit designers **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Electrical/Electronic Manufacturing | Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** January 04, 2025 **What do you like best about Altium CircuitMaker?** Most foremost and incredible thing about Altium CM is that it's absolutely free to use for us. All top notch and advance features from Testing,Designing, Developing and Daigraming circuits to project collaboration everything is there. All in one good to go platform and tool for PCB makers. **What do you dislike about Altium CircuitMaker?** Absolutely nothing to dislikes as such here for Altium CM from my side. Simulator model accuracy can be look into feature. **What problems is Altium CircuitMaker solving and how is that benefiting you?** Yes it has helping and benefiting me from very long time. #recommended ### 21. Smooth experience using Altium CM **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Computer Hardware | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** February 06, 2025 **What do you like best about Altium CircuitMaker?** Perfect CM tool for hard-core PCB design and embedded engineers. Features that impress me and I liked best could be it's power full engine. The way it provides topological views of CM. Other outstanding features is like online collaboration with global teams. **What do you dislike about Altium CircuitMaker?** NA. Amazing support from Altium team.... **What problems is Altium CircuitMaker solving and how is that benefiting you?** CB development ### 22. Would always recommended for the PCB Designers **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Consumer Electronics | Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** September 14, 2024 **What do you like best about Altium CircuitMaker?** Loved the its features that allowing me and my team to build PCB and electronics and electrical hardwares. Most amazing thing before getting finalized you have the feature of schematic simulation of CBs. **What do you dislike about Altium CircuitMaker?** Not at all. It was it is and it will be always helpful in hardware designing. **What problems is Altium CircuitMaker solving and how is that benefiting you?** Saving our time for our hardware build projects with advance PCB designing. ### 23. Experience has been amazing till now. **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Computer & Network Security | Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** January 03, 2025 **What do you like best about Altium CircuitMaker?** Circuit designing development and testing features are advanced in this tool. Finding basics and advance components are easy with this tool. I was able to create my own components library. Adding components and doc footprints are seamless. **What do you dislike about Altium CircuitMaker?** Nothing all perfect I can definitely say. **What problems is Altium CircuitMaker solving and how is that benefiting you?** Circuit wiring and designing and testing. ### 24. Helping in my electronics projects **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Electrical/Electronic Manufacturing | Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** December 03, 2024 **What do you like best about Altium CircuitMaker?** Got full access to any electronic components. Ready to use as well as custom components. Community help is there if we get stuck somewhere. No layer restrictions Arduino integration Project collaboration along with global teams Import and export of Eagle annd DXfF **What do you dislike about Altium CircuitMaker?** Pricing may be .. nothing bad to highlight here **What problems is Altium CircuitMaker solving and how is that benefiting you?** Helpinng in electronic circuit making and testing for. our embedded PCB Design projects. ### 25. Altium CircuitMaker: A Comprehensive Look at its Pros and Cons for Hobbyists and Small Projects **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Wesley H. | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** November 21, 2023 **What do you like best about Altium CircuitMaker?** One of the most significant advantages of CircuitMaker is that it's available for free. This makes it accessible to hobbyists, makers, students, and those with budget constraints. CircuitMaker is also designed with a user-friendly interface, making it approachable for individuals who are new to PCB design. The intuitive layout and tools contribute to a positive user experience. **What do you dislike about Altium CircuitMaker?** While CircuitMaker is suitable for many hobbyist and small to medium-sized projects, some users find that it lacks certain advanced features found in professional-grade PCB design tools. This limitation can become more apparent as users work on more complex projects. **What problems is Altium CircuitMaker solving and how is that benefiting you?** Altium CircuitMaker has played a huge role in helping me create an intricate PCB design for my senior capstone project by providing a user-friendly interface, simplifying the design process, and allowing me to focus on the project's complexities rather than grappling with a steep learning curve. As a valuable tool in my PCB design class, it enhances my educational experience by offering an intuitive platform for grasping essential concepts efficiently. The cloud-based functionality proves indispensable, enabling seamless collaboration and access to my designs from various devices, ensuring flexibility and convenience. Additionally, the community collaboration features foster a collaborative learning environment, facilitating group work for both my class projects and senior capstone, ultimately contributing to the success of these endeavors. ### 26. Circuitmaker just works **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Christian d. | Proces Automation Technician, Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** July 31, 2024 **What do you like best about Altium CircuitMaker?** allthough it takes a while to learn all the features, it work perfecly for designing pcb's **What do you dislike about Altium CircuitMaker?** some functions (like editing multiple items, are somewhat hard to find. **What problems is Altium CircuitMaker solving and how is that benefiting you?** designing pcb's with multiple layers. **Official Response from Alanna Jordan:** > Hi Christian! Thank you for sharing your positive experience with Altium CircuitMaker. We understand that some functions may be challenging to find, and we're continuously working to enhance the user interface and make features more accessible. Your feedback is valuable in helping us improve the platform. ### 27. PCB Circuit maker and helps in making prototypes of CB **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Semiconductors | Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** September 12, 2024 **What do you like best about Altium CircuitMaker?** Schematic capturing of PCB Features such as PCB architecturing Most favourite with my own personal experience is 3D layouting. **What do you dislike about Altium CircuitMaker?** Nothing as such least helpful about CM Need powerful system Definitely not use to use **What problems is Altium CircuitMaker solving and how is that benefiting you?** It's solving my problems and helping in our my IoT and embedded projects ### 28. Complete solution for pcb development **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Consumer Electronics | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** July 30, 2024 **What do you like best about Altium CircuitMaker?** Intuitiv steps from schematics to layout to 3D view **What do you dislike about Altium CircuitMaker?** No intuitive way to copy & paste sections in layout **What problems is Altium CircuitMaker solving and how is that benefiting you?** Fast pcb design **Official Response from Alanna Jordan:** > Thank you for sharing your experience with Altium CircuitMaker. We're pleased to hear that it's providing a complete solution for your PCB development needs. ### 29. Incredible Experience Using Altium CircuitMaker **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Oil & Energy | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** May 30, 2024 **What do you like best about Altium CircuitMaker?** Community driven design, professional level tools, user-friendly and beginner friendly interface **What do you dislike about Altium CircuitMaker?** Limited component libraries, no professional support, project sharing issues **What problems is Altium CircuitMaker solving and how is that benefiting you?** Helping us design a PCB to control the motors and mechatronic systems on an underwater robot and interfacing it all with an NVIDIA Jetson. **Official Response from Alanna Jordan:** > We're thrilled to hear that you had an incredible experience using Altium CircuitMaker! We appreciate your feedback on the community-driven design, professional-level tools, and user-friendly interface. ### 30. Review for theTool for PCB Development that is Altium Circuit Maker **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Information Technology and Services | Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** May 10, 2024 **What do you like best about Altium CircuitMaker?** 10/10 for Altium CircuitMaker tool for it's robust performance for PCB Development. Altium CircuitMaker is the showstoppers in the Printed board/circuit designing software industry. Features mostly using and working and finding evident in our projects would be 3D preview, PCB board layout diagrams/designing and it's component wizard. Keyboard shortcuts for designing and diagram is most helpful. Topology of boards. Etc. **What do you dislike about Altium CircuitMaker?** Overall excellent experience so far.... No downside other than this platform needs high level system specifications. **What problems is Altium CircuitMaker solving and how is that benefiting you?** Massive huge collection of components with customisation features. Simply PCB Development. **Official Response from Alanna Jordan:** > Thank you for the 10/10 rating and positive feedback on Altium CircuitMaker's performance and features for PCB development. We're glad to hear that the 3D preview, PCB board layout, and component wizard have been helpful in your projects. We appreciate your support! ### 31. Great tool for the hobbyist or even the budget professional **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Larry T. | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** October 12, 2023 **What do you like best about Altium CircuitMaker?** Altium CircuitMaker is a fairly full featured design tool. The component finder function seems to actually work better than in Altium Designer. It provided schematic symbols and footprints for parts that Altium Designer did not provide symbols and footprints for. **What do you dislike about Altium CircuitMaker?** When printing out separate pcb layers, CircuitMaker seemed to combine some of the silkscreen elements on the top layer printout. It may not have been CircuitMaker's fault. It may have been an error that the provider of the footprint made. So be sure to doublecheck the symbols and footprints if you use the ones from the part finder. **What problems is Altium CircuitMaker solving and how is that benefiting you?** fast and free way to create test circuit pcb's ### 32. Beginner to professional with CM **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Jaime Isaac B. | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** November 21, 2023 **What do you like best about Altium CircuitMaker?** It gives you the chance to test and use a PCB software very close to Altium but for free so you can get a teste of it. **What do you dislike about Altium CircuitMaker?** Not all parts are available but this is the same with other software. **What problems is Altium CircuitMaker solving and how is that benefiting you?** IF you want tostart pcb design and get experience that would be helpfull to present yourself for job positions that require Altium knowledge, also cloud capability to take your designs anyware. ### 33. It is easy to learn. **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Fabio C. | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** October 13, 2023 **What do you like best about Altium CircuitMaker?** Price: At the time of my last update, CircuitMaker was available for free, making it an attractive option for hobbyists and small design teams. **What do you dislike about Altium CircuitMaker?** Limited Features: Compared to the more advanced Altium Designer, CircuitMaker offers a more basic set of features. This can be a limitation for complex or professional projects. **What problems is Altium CircuitMaker solving and how is that benefiting you?** CircuitMaker provides a user-friendly environment for creating and visualizing electronic circuit schematics. It helps users design and understand the connectivity of components in their circuits, which is essential for any electronic project. ### 34. Review for Altium Circuit Maker **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Design | Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** April 04, 2024 **What do you like best about Altium CircuitMaker?** Integration with other designing tool such as Arduiono. Formulas for electrical and electronics circuit designs availables. And multi sheet designs and assimilation of different electrical and electronics circuit diagrams. We can design or create our own elements library for particular designing project. We can also see the 3d view of our circuit board. **What do you dislike about Altium CircuitMaker?** Complexity for uses and designing PCBs Nothing else comes in my mind **What problems is Altium CircuitMaker solving and how is that benefiting you?** PCBs Boards and Diagram designing ### 35. Easy to use design tool **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Greg L. | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** August 18, 2023 **What do you like best about Altium CircuitMaker?** Very easy to a beginner in PCB design to be able to use and start designing parts. very frendly ui, and ease of use compared to other free pcb design tools. cloud storage is also nice **What do you dislike about Altium CircuitMaker?** Wish that there was an option to save a copy of the entire project to a local storage location, not just on the cloud. Also had some issues when there where multaple PCBs based on one scmatics when exporting gerber files. **What problems is Altium CircuitMaker solving and how is that benefiting you?** adds capabilities to solve small problems that a pcb can help with, where prevously would have to use a more prototype soultion for production problems and saving engineering time. ### 36. Altium CircuitMaker: User-Friendly and Feature-Rich Electronic Design Software **Rating:** 3.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Stuart R. | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** April 25, 2023 **What do you like best about Altium CircuitMaker?** Altium CircuitMaker is an exceptional electronic design software that has truly impressed me with its robust features and user-friendly interface. As an electronics enthusiast and hobbyist, I have used several design tools in the past, but CircuitMaker has quickly become my go-to choice for all my circuit design needs. **What do you dislike about Altium CircuitMaker?** While Altium CircuitMaker has many positive aspects, there are a few areas where it could be improved. One notable limitation is the size and complexity of projects that the free version of CircuitMaker can handle. As a hobbyist or small-scale designer, I've found that the free version has limitations on the number of components and layers that can be used, which can be restricting for more complex designs. Additionally, while CircuitMaker's simulation capabilities are powerful, the options for advanced simulations, such as mixed-signal or RF simulations, are limited in the free version. Another aspect that could be improved is the learning curve for beginners. While CircuitMaker is generally user-friendly, some users may find the initial learning curve steep, especially if they are new to electronic design software. More comprehensive and accessible tutorials or documentation for beginners could help address this challenge. Overall, while CircuitMaker has many strengths, there is room for improvement in terms of project size limitations, advanced simulation options, and beginner-friendly resources. **What problems is Altium CircuitMaker solving and how is that benefiting you?** Altium CircuitMaker solves the problems of affordability, user-friendly design, and simulation capabilities, benefiting me as a user by providing an accessible and cost-effective solution for electronic design. Its intuitive interface and extensive component library make it easy to create and edit schematics and PCB layouts, while the real-time collaboration feature enhances teamwork. The simulation capabilities help me identify and resolve issues in my circuits before physical prototyping, saving time and resources. Overall, CircuitMaker empowers me to pursue my electronics design projects without financial constraints, with an efficient and user-friendly software that streamlines my design process. ### 37. Excellent Beginners Choice for Entering Electronic Schematic & PCB Design **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Shehzad S. | Hardware Design Engineer, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** April 25, 2023 **What do you like best about Altium CircuitMaker?** Intuitive. Easy to understand. Have used in the past during an online course for learning electronic design. Published 3 designs on CircuitMaker. The last project was a complex and manufacturable real product based around Atmega328 microcontroller. I can say that I successfully manufactured an Arduino clone from CircuitMaker. Also, in CircuitMaker, one could look at other user's complex designs and learn from them. There even exists a forum where user share their designs and share great information about it. **What do you dislike about Altium CircuitMaker?** Since it is CAD software that works online, due to the weblike interface, some complex designs have a bit of lag while designing. Due to the above, one has to operate the software at a slightly slower pace. **What problems is Altium CircuitMaker solving and how is that benefiting you?** The lag as been optimized a lot over the years. And keeping the software free for user all this time while having good support from the developers are some good points to have. ### 38. As a newbie to PCBs, Altium is a solid choice for learning as I do. **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Thomas M. | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** April 13, 2023 **What do you like best about Altium CircuitMaker?** The most helpful thing about Circuitmaker is definitely the electrical rule check, because I have no idea what I'm doing and it helps to have an actual eye watch over me. It tells you what's wrong as wel, and with a bit of searching you can easily fix what's wrong. I can't talk about competitors as I've never used another software, but I've heard Kicad is a pain to use and it's been relatively friendly for my needs. **What do you dislike about Altium CircuitMaker?** The support for the app and accessing the Gerber files for the boards we create are both tenuous. The forums seem slow to respond when compared to live service, and despite the program being remarkably similar to Altoum Designer, support refuses to help with problems. The Gerber files are another pain, to go through so many hoops to get them and not have the idea if they work until after submission. Placing a border gave me a lot of trouble, and it was only through the help of an external site(JLCPCB) I was able to solve the issue and export my Gerber files correctly. **What problems is Altium CircuitMaker solving and how is that benefiting you?** It lets me create parts I need for the speciality circuit board I am designing, and helps me organize my PCBs in a succinct and effective manner. My productivity was slow at first as I figured everything out, but now it helps me work very fast with relatively few issues. It's also self fueling, as I was able to access the footprints of existing parts to try and learn how to create my own parts - the community based nature of the software really helps in that, and gave me a very good basis to spring off to developing everything in house. ### 39. Altium Circuit Maker Review **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Colby D. | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** March 09, 2023 **What do you like best about Altium CircuitMaker?** I most enjoy the fact that most of the needed components come readily with the schematics built in so I do not to worry about making a template myself; however, whenever I do find the need to make my own the UI for that is easy to pick up and is user friendly. **What do you dislike about Altium CircuitMaker?** The only issue I have found so far is with the shared schematics, sometimes the saving to server process is lengthy and is slow to update on any shared machines. **What problems is Altium CircuitMaker solving and how is that benefiting you?** Altium is helping me and my colleagues design better PCB by providing access to an easy to use platform that incorporates many design tools. This benefits us as whenever we have a deadline to meet or something to design, we have direct access to a platform that gives us this ability. ### 40. "In-Depth Review of Altium CircuitMaker: A User-Friendly PCB Design Software" **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Mr.Angamuthu A P. | Assitant Professor, Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** January 27, 2023 **What do you like best about Altium CircuitMaker?** User-friendly interface: CircuitMaker has a simple and intuitive interface that makes it easy for users to design and edit PCBs. Powerful design capabilities: CircuitMaker has a wide range of design tools and features, including support for multi-sheet designs, advanced routing, and 3D visualization. Active community: CircuitMaker has a large and active community of users, who contribute to the software by providing feedback, bug reports, and new features. This can be helpful for users who have questions or need assistance with the software. Free to use: CircuitMaker is a free and open-source software, which makes it accessible to a wide range of users, including hobbyists and students. Altium's reputation: Altium is a well-established company in the EDA industry and CircuitMaker is a product that is aligned with their philosophy of making PCB design accessible and easy to use. Continual development: Altium continues to develop and improve CircuitMaker, adding new features and fixing bugs regularly. Compatibility with other Altium products: CircuitMaker can also be used in conjunction with other Altium products to create a seamless design to manufacturing workflow. **What do you dislike about Altium CircuitMaker?** the software can be slow or unresponsive at times, especially when working with large or complex projects. CircuitMaker is not as feature-rich as paid version of Altium Designer, which is the commercial version of the software and it may not have all the features that some advanced users may require **What problems is Altium CircuitMaker solving and how is that benefiting you?** High cost: Many professional PCB design software can be expensive, making it difficult for hobbyists, students, and small businesses to afford. CircuitMaker is completely free to use. Complexity: PCB design can be a complex and time-consuming process, especially for beginners. CircuitMaker's user interface is designed to be intuitive and easy to use, with a variety of tutorials and resources to help users get started. Lack of collaboration: PCB design often involves multiple people working together, but traditional software can make it difficult to collaborate. CircuitMaker has built-in collaboration tools, such as the ability to share and review designs with others. By solving these problems, CircuitMaker benefits users by making it possible for them to design and create PCBs regardless of budget or experience level, and facilitating collaboration and sharing of designs. ### 41. CircuitMaker is an excellent option for the simulation of electronic circuits **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** James Michael W. | Automation Engineer, Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** February 25, 2019 **What do you like best about Altium CircuitMaker?** CircuitMaker is a great tool for the design and operation of electrical circuits. Its intuitive operation allows you to quickly draw, modify and combine layouts easily. It is a very clear precision tool that allows easy assimilation of the theoretical part of electrical circuits. By means of libraries that the program contains, great projects are obtained, the easy way to find an element occurs in a nested way within a subfamily. This tool has all the necessary features to be implemented professionally in your company or organization. **What do you dislike about Altium CircuitMaker?** CircuitMaker's features help design electronic circuits quickly and without much hassle. However, your component library needs to be updated. **Recommendations to others considering Altium CircuitMaker:** CircuitMaker is a simulation software for electronic circuits, in the design of both digital and analog circuits. CircuitMaker is very practical and easy to use. I recommend it **What problems is Altium CircuitMaker solving and how is that benefiting you?** This platform allows to simulate the circuits before assembling the physical circuit. This feature allows you to detect and correct design errors before investing time and money in the construction of the real hardware prototype. It facilitates the design of both digital and analog circuits, which evidences a wide advantage in its implementation **Official Response from Alanna Jordan:** > Hi James, Thank you for your previous feedback on Altium CircuitMaker, we appreciate your insights. We're continually working on making improvements that make for a better user experience, and we're glad you found CircuitMaker to be intuitive and easy to use. ### 42. Easy to use **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Teoh B. | Student, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** January 12, 2023 **What do you like best about Altium CircuitMaker?** This pcb software is intuitive to use and if I need any help it is easy to find tutorials for it. I can also ask for additional help in the community forums if I need to. **What do you dislike about Altium CircuitMaker?** Many of the parts in the library don't show that they have a schematic or footprint connected to it even if there's one in octoparts so you have to manually create one. **What problems is Altium CircuitMaker solving and how is that benefiting you?** I needed to quickly create a PCB design for my senior capstone project and with this program I can create the schematics I need for the PCB design for free and with little hassle. ### 43. Professional PCB Layout software for all kinds of people **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Simran S. | Hardware Engineer, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** January 05, 2023 **What do you like best about Altium CircuitMaker?** What's most appealing to me is the incredibly low cost of this software - this is something that is in-reach for hobbyists as well as professionals looking for a fully-featured PCB layout program. I'm very used to using Altium, which is this companies other PCB design software. The team behind Circuitmaker seems to have mostly brought over all of the functionality from Altium, with a few restrictions in place (lack of keyboard shortcuts, for one); but even with that in mind, CircuitMaker is still a very strong PCB design software program. I'm able to do everything that I need to for any particular design - I can design my schematic and design the PCB all quite simply and easily. I do like the integrated parts library as well. **What do you dislike about Altium CircuitMaker?** I do wish that designs didn't HAVE to be saved to their cloud; this makes it difficult to use for sensitive projects for enterprise use cases. Allowing for projects to be saved offline would be awesome. It's also frustrating that I'm not able to design my own parts library; sometimes I want to use a particular part but it isn't available in the built-in library that CircuitMaker provides. **What problems is Altium CircuitMaker solving and how is that benefiting you?** CircuitMaker offers a very cheap way to design PCBs - it's great for one-off designs, or designs that aren't sensitive in nature. It also provides a great alternative to other low cost / free PCB CAD software that is on the market ### 44. Great software! **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Ian G. | Owner, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** February 02, 2023 **What do you like best about Altium CircuitMaker?** Altium Circuit Maker is a fantastic software for designing and creating circuits. Its user-friendly interface and intuitive tools make it easy for beginners to get started and create their first circuit in no time. Additionally, the large community of users and contributors ensures that resources are always available to help with any issues that may arise during the design process. **What do you dislike about Altium CircuitMaker?** One issue is its limited component library, which can make it difficult for users to find the specific parts they need for their designs. Additionally, the software can be slow and resource-intensive, which can be frustrating for users who are working on complex designs. **What problems is Altium CircuitMaker solving and how is that benefiting you?** The main problem that CircuitMaker solves is the high cost of proprietary circuit design software, which can be prohibitively expensive for many individuals and smaller organizations. ### 45. CircuitMaker prototype Small Projects **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** John T. | Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** April 25, 2023 **What do you like best about Altium CircuitMaker?** The best part of CircuitMaker is that it is intuitive to use and can easily handle small projects. The number of component libraries is excellent **What do you dislike about Altium CircuitMaker?** I do not see a significant downside. Given it is not CircuitStudio, the interactive 3D feature would be nice, but depending on the project, it is not a significant issue **What problems is Altium CircuitMaker solving and how is that benefiting you?** This is a simple and easy to used Schematic and PCB CAD tool. I also use the more robust Altium package for work, but I use CircuitMakerfor quick designs for prototyping. ### 46. The best free PCB design software **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Kirsch M. | Adjunct Professor, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** January 23, 2023 **What do you like best about Altium CircuitMaker?** I like that the interface is similar to Altium Designer. It's clean and sleak. The user experience is really good. The projects being in the cloud is just a small drawback of what you're getting with CircuitMaker. Quite frankly one of the best tools out there to get FREE pcb design experience off of with quality. **What do you dislike about Altium CircuitMaker?** I don't like that projects need to be in the cloud only. other than that, nothing else negative to say about it. it's basically as good as altium for hobby designs and such. **What problems is Altium CircuitMaker solving and how is that benefiting you?** the problem of not having a sufficiently powerful software tool that's both free and also user friendly, that doesn't require figuring out a jigsaw puzzle to understand. also best user experience. it feels premium for something that's free. ### 47. Functional software for makers **Rating:** 3.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Steve S. | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** March 16, 2023 **What do you like best about Altium CircuitMaker?** The pros of CircuitMaker are the strengths seen in others offerings where a stripped down version of the professional suite still retains the functionality necessary to get the job done without much fuss. **What do you dislike about Altium CircuitMaker?** The methods of filtering and cross referencing between the schematic and the layout is pretty finnicky, especially if portions on the schematic were duplicated. All sorts of stuff there. Otherwise, no complaints. **What problems is Altium CircuitMaker solving and how is that benefiting you?** Needed a CAD program to do simple PCB design without having to jump through too many hoops. It's also easier than trying to learn the open source stuff that's out there, due to the unfamiliarity. ### 48. Pcb design review **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** P L. | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** July 20, 2023 **What do you like best about Altium CircuitMaker?** It is very much useful software for design a peb circuit in better way **What do you dislike about Altium CircuitMaker?** It doesn't have any disliked information **What problems is Altium CircuitMaker solving and how is that benefiting you?** It is used by me to solve the pcb designing problems mainly occurs in high level pcb design ### 49. Possibly the best open source PCB software **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Roberto C. | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** February 11, 2023 **What do you like best about Altium CircuitMaker?** Altium CircuitMaker is a must-have for hobbyist electronics designers. The software is free, open-source, and easy to use, with a user-friendly interface that makes it accessible for everyone. The community-driven library is a fantastic resource and saves a lot of time when searching for components. The tools for schematic capture, PCB layout, and design verification are top-notch and produce high-quality designs. Overall, a great choice for anyone looking to get into electronics design. Highly recommend! **What do you dislike about Altium CircuitMaker?** So far I have not found any major drawbacks in the product. Only a redesign of the interface would be nice. **What problems is Altium CircuitMaker solving and how is that benefiting you?** Electronic designs for medical applications. Ease and speed in prototyping new designs. Increased productivity by spending less time testing ### 50. CircuitMaker is a fantastic free tool for engineers looking to get started with the Altium ecosystem **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Electrical/Electronic Manufacturing | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** March 30, 2023 **What do you like best about Altium CircuitMaker?** To me, the most attractive features of CircuitMaker are the free access and the collaborative platform. While working on a PCB project, it can be difficult to decide what tool to use, as it can be hard to move between them CircuitMaker makes it easy to get started with Altium tools and provides plenty of features to get for somewhat complicated projects. **What do you dislike about Altium CircuitMaker?** The collaborative platform can also be a downside. I did not always want to publicly share my work, and the three free 'sandbox' or unshared projects fill up quickly! **What problems is Altium CircuitMaker solving and how is that benefiting you?** CircuitMaker is a free tool based on the commonly used Altium Designer that allows for advanced pcb design without a heavy pricetag, except projects must be open-source (short of a few private projects that you are allowed). ## Altium CircuitMaker Discussions - [What does Altium software do?](https://www.g2.com/discussions/altium-circuitmaker-what-does-altium-software-do) - 1 comment - [What does Altium software do?](https://www.g2.com/discussions/what-does-altium-software-do) - 1 comment - [Is Altium CircuitMaker good?](https://www.g2.com/discussions/is-altium-circuitmaker-good) - 1 comment - [View Altium CircuitMaker pricing details and edition comparison](https://www.g2.com/products/altium-circuitmaker/reviews?section=pricing&secure%5Bexpires_at%5D=2026-06-15+12%3A45%3A52+-0500&secure%5Bsession_id%5D=c794efaf-7a4f-4ed7-b536-e26b43c3b7bf&secure%5Btoken%5D=020414c8be1c539424f2111db528670f1442bd0283bc74a0c939523ceff62b6a&format=llm_user) ## Altium CircuitMaker Features **Design** - PCB layout editing - Schematic editor **Tools** - 3D modeling tools - Component placement **Library** - Component libraries **Platform** - Board size - Layers ## Top Altium CircuitMaker Alternatives - [KiCad EDA](https://www.g2.com/products/kicad-eda/reviews) - 4.5/5.0 (63 reviews) - [EasyEDA](https://www.g2.com/products/easyeda/reviews) - 4.4/5.0 (20 reviews) - [Autodesk Fusion](https://www.g2.com/products/autodesk-fusion/reviews) - 4.5/5.0 (509 reviews)