Altium Develop Reviews & Product Details

Strong features to accomplish job. Octopart is a great feature that allows me to get some components with ease and use them, along with auto linking BOM information to ensure the part is stocked and current. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

The being tied into a cloud only based library that prevents adding footprints or others who are using enterprise or pro versions of the tool from having me hand off the design and do layout where I did schematic design is a major frustration. Component selection and maintinance is a nightmare where each source of component schematics and footprint have include part numbers and manufacturers in an inconsistent way with no mature/maintained/valid working scripting interface that AI can even figure out how to get to work to maintain those inconsestencies is a major issue. When sourcing design elements from other designs if they where not generated with the cloud based library mine seems to be locked into, the components are orphaned. Missing key functions to validate component values for resistors/capacitors/inductors against part number and rules like smt only shown aged and non-modern capabilities. System is always loosing connection to server, lags out, is extremely show for many operations. Things that should take 1-2 minutes end up taking hours. Always fighting with network lag issues, crashes, and failed operations due to network issues. No other tool on my network has these problems. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

It handles large projects nicely. 25 schematic pages, 10 layers, 700 pin BGAs, differential signals, impedance matching. The recent price changes were instrumental in getting us back to paying for it. We had dropped support in 2023 and were scared about losing our perpetual licenses if we ever signed up for the new service, but everything has worked out great. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

It crashes sometimes. If you get an error message, you have to shut it down and restart. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

I use Altium Develop for electronic circuit design and project management with my colleagues, and I particularly appreciate the sharing tools and the use of Git. Real-time project synchronization with my colleagues is very valuable. Synchronization via Git is easy, just by pressing a button for the push, my colleagues quickly have the latest version of the project. I also like the creation of a workspace connected to the software on PC. The initial installation of Altium Develop was easy, smooth, and intuitive. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

I find that the inability to make adjustments to the routing in the online workspace is somewhat limiting. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

I like Altium Develop for its organized structure, cloud and version control, and the overall ease of use. It really helps that I can ask my colleague to review my board and add comments, and the way schematics and BOM are planned is really clear. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

The price of Altium Develop is high for personal use and side projects. I use KiCad for my personal projects instead. Another issue is the annotation process. Sometimes when you change a component, add something, or reset the annotation, it messes with the PCB and moves the parts. Also, making a custom template takes time, as well as setting up the first design rule and using draftsman. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

That the library and project management is no longer a paid subscription add on. There is also a large amount of high speed design features + wire harness features which would otherwise be a paid addition. Gives reason to choose altium over expedition for example. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Everything is unfortunately obfuscated by tables. Having a better hotkey and navigation system would be nice. Additionally the layout should be drag and drop from schematic instead of just dropping it all in. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Online sharing for reviews is great, as is the online BOM integration. Final output generation is pretty good, I like the outjobs. Layout is also pretty good in the way that it reacts to moving traces around and such Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Altium is kind of a clunky mess. Not super performant, and the general UI is very bloated and unintuitive. Making new components and managing libraries is a total PITA and unintuitive. It's also windows only. TBH, I far prefer working in KiCAD for most things. Pricing is acceptable, much better than the previous pricing, in which case we probably would have ditched Altium. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

The GUI itself is highly refined with highlighting features that surpass the competition. Dynamic integration between schematic and layout is also well done (with a few caveats). Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Several drafting anomalies are frustrating (complicated process of mitering corners, no separation between traces and lines or reference designators and other text objects, and ever changing menu command locations...). And of course the lack of perpetual licensing - this is a show stopper for contractors trying to make a living. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

I like that the price per seat is cheaper than a regular Altium license but still has all the features we need. It works pretty well. Tried to incorporate CoDesigner but it seemed more difficult than it was worth, especially since I manage both the MCAD and the ECAD design of the PCBAs. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Managing the seat/license is cumbersome. Sometimes it will randomly assign the seat to me even though I am not using it. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

With Altium Develop, I can collaborate closely with my clients. They can share comments directly on the boards as we’re developing them, which makes the whole process smoother. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

It would be much better if it could connect to external task management systems. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Cloud library of parts is great. Can copy or build up parts into one verified library that is available across different computers. PCB routing is pretty good, lots of tools & if you use an AI pointed at the official documentation it's pretty easy to learn how to do nearly anything. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

It's a bit like Solidworks where it has a few random crashes so you must save regularly. Lack of AI integrations for things like schematic or PCB layout review and questioning. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.