--- title: Altium CircuitMaker Reviews meta_title: 'Altium CircuitMaker Reviews 2026: Details, Pricing, & Features | G2' meta_description: Filter 110 reviews by the users' company size, role or industry to find out how Altium CircuitMaker works for a business like yours. aggregate_rating: rating_value: 4.3 review_count: 110 scale: '5' date_modified: '2026-08-09' parent_category: name: CAD url: https://www.g2.com/categories/cad --- # 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 value the **ease of use and comprehensive tools** in Altium CircuitMaker, making PCB design efficient and accessible. (9 reviews) - Users appreciate the **wide range of intuitive features** in Altium CircuitMaker, enhancing their PCB design experience. (7 reviews) - Users find Altium CircuitMaker's **ease of learning** exceptional, allowing quick setup and minimal learning curve. (6 reviews) - Users value the **ease of use** of Altium CircuitMaker, allowing quick onboarding and efficient PCB design across projects. (5 reviews) - Users value the **extensive library management** features of CircuitMaker, facilitating easy component creation and integration. (5 reviews) - Users value the **seamless online collaboration** with global teams, enhancing their PCB design and engineering experience. (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 face **slow rendering** issues, especially with large files, impacting their workflow and efficiency in design tasks. (4 reviews) - Users struggle with the **complex interface** of Altium CircuitMaker, finding it frustrating and unintuitive for design tasks. (3 reviews) - Users find the **difficult learning process** challenging, especially for beginners navigating bugs and interface issues. (2 reviews) - Users express disappointment over **limited features** , particularly the inability to import external footprints and compatibility issues. (2 reviews) - Users find the **missing features** of Altium CircuitMaker, especially in the library and UI, frustrating and limiting. (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. 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. ### 2. Gets the job done **Rating:** 3.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Aditya S. | Electrical Engineer, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** January 12, 2023 **What do you like best about Altium CircuitMaker?** It is quite similar to AD so the workflow is familiar and it's quite affordable. **What do you dislike about Altium CircuitMaker?** Not all the shortcuts are mapped like in Latium designer. The UI is a bit clunky and begging for an update **What problems is Altium CircuitMaker solving and how is that benefiting you?** Providing a tool similar to Latium designer but at such an affordable price range ### 3. Well Rounded EDA **Rating:** 3.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Avery A. | Design Engineer, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** January 05, 2023 **What do you like best about Altium CircuitMaker?** CircuitMaker is a great alternative to Altium Designer for us because we don't design enough PCBs to make the expense of AD viable. **What do you dislike about Altium CircuitMaker?** More difficult to learn than KiCad. We had a hard time finding advanced tutorials **What problems is Altium CircuitMaker solving and how is that benefiting you?** It's another alternative software for us to design PCBs ### 4. Lots of options but not beginner friendly **Rating:** 2.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** MohammadHossein O. | Graduate Research Assistant, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** February 09, 2023 **What do you like best about Altium CircuitMaker?** You can develop very professional designs **What do you dislike about Altium CircuitMaker?** It is not beginner friendly and can be complicated at times **What problems is Altium CircuitMaker solving and how is that benefiting you?** Designing PCB board for company demo boards to showcase company's products ## 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?filters%5Bnps_score%5D%5B%5D=3§ion=pricing&secure%5Bexpires_at%5D=2026-08-13+18%3A29%3A26+-0500&secure%5Bsession_id%5D=43ed7542-a4f7-4508-9179-dfd979012e8a&secure%5Btoken%5D=0614b45a89b82397c81e720e5565e76930d06edcfb5ee446e9c4c5ebe7ff6968&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 (64 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 (510 reviews)