# Ultiboard Reviews **Vendor:** NI **Category:** [PCB Design Software](https://www.g2.com/categories/pcb-design) **Average Rating:** 4.3/5.0 **Total Reviews:** 22 ## About Ultiboard Ultiboard is printed circuit board design and layout software that integrates seamlessly with Multisim to accelerate PCB prototype development. Ultiboard software offers efficient PCB design layout and routing with a customizable environment. You can use its flexible tools to place parts and copper with manual precision to define critical board elements. With its automated functionality, you can quickly complete a design. The advanced spreadsheet view, toolbox, and design wizards help you easily manage, control, and define any board layout. Seamless integration with Multisim software provides simple schematic transfer to PCB, and forward and backward annotation ensures design iteration management. You can easily export industry-standard file formats such as Gerber and DXF to complete the design flow from schematic to layout ## Ultiboard Reviews ### 1. Works great **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Higher Education | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** December 16, 2021 **What do you like best about Ultiboard?** Personally I had used multisim for circuit simulation so it was very seamless to transit to ultiboard for PCB designing **What do you dislike about Ultiboard?** It is sometimes very slow and lags but in most scenarios works just fine **What problems is Ultiboard solving and how is that benefiting you?** Designing PCB was the main motive and to print the schematics directly to be used for documentation. ### 2. I have designed all my complex PCB designed in Ni Ultiboard and my experience is excellent. **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Muhammad Hassan J. | Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** September 28, 2020 **What do you like best about Ultiboard?** Most of the PCB design softwares are more complex for beginners. The best thing about Ni Ultiboard is its simplicity. It is as simple as beginners can use it easily. At the same time, they can design complex PCB circuits. We can manually manipulate copper layers of the circuit. we can manually change or create footprints for existing or new components that we add to our design. We can also add new packages to Ni Ultiboard. One more thing that I like most is its ability to transfer our design form Ni Ultiboard to Ni Multisim in order to check our design response. **What do you dislike about Ultiboard?** One of the downsides of NI Ultiboard is its incomplete circuit wiring during auto-routing. When we use auto-route, I have experienced that mostly it completes up to 85 to 90%. Sometimes it performs an excellent job during auto-routing and generates its 100%. One more thing that the software should have to do, as soon as we complete our design there should be an option which shows total power losses that occur in our PCB design with respect to a specified current, a specified copper layer thickness. **Recommendations to others considering Ultiboard:** One should have to try it. **What problems is Ultiboard solving and how is that benefiting you?** I am designing printed circuit boards (PCB) for my projects. Currently, I am working on multilevel inverter design with SiC MOSFETs, Home Automation. I use Ni Ultiboard because it is easy to use, has precise dimensions, has 3D preview for our designed circuits. We can also transfer our project form Ni Ultiborad to Ni Multisim and vice versa. ### 3. Enables a fast paced product development from conception to final production. **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Arvind G. | Power Electronics Intern, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** November 16, 2020 **What do you like best about Ultiboard?** The part shoving feature made my work a lot easier. I could make PCBs within strict design standards in no time. The in-place part edit feature is a life saver. Many times during design stage we come across irregularities in the footprint for a particular model. It takes quite some time to go back and change it in the database and resume with the work again. The in-place part edit just lets me edit the footprint on the board itself saving me valuable time. **What do you dislike about Ultiboard?** I can't select a trace on an individual layer even if I am working on the intended layer. All the traces inside the selection area get selected even if they are all on separate layers. I also want to be able to scroll more easily using just my mouse. The net names aren't visible until I zoom in a great deal to the intended area on the PCB. **Recommendations to others considering Ultiboard:** Ultiboard has made it a lot simpler for me to design my products. I can easily transfer my simulation schematic from Multisim to Ultiboard and get on with designing. The software takes some getting used to but that is the case with every other pcb designing software on the market today. Ultiboard makes it a hell of a lot easier for me to design my PCBs. You should give the software a try and check out their part shoving and in pace part edit features as well. **What problems is Ultiboard solving and how is that benefiting you?** I am designing sub 100 Watt power supplies using Ultiboard. The power supplies are usually flyback converters with three winding transformers. With ultiboard the final pacement of the transformer is very easy. I can easily change swap the winding terminals, move around the pins and even make the bobbing size smaller! All thanks to the in-place part edit feature. ### 4. Outdated UI but very effective at designing and printing circuit boards. **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Demi M. | Documentation Engineer, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** November 24, 2020 **What do you like best about Ultiboard?** Ultiboard is effective. It can and will get a circuit board designed for printing. It's helpful that it can generate the connections for the user while also allowing tweaking or full blown customizations. **What do you dislike about Ultiboard?** Ultiboard may not be the most user-friendly application in existence today. The icons can get a little cluttered. The indicators such as a <= 90 degree angle in routes can be thin and easily missed if you're not looking for them. **What problems is Ultiboard solving and how is that benefiting you?** Currently, I'm not solving any major problems with Ultiboard. I have used it to create my own PCBs for little side and home improvement projects, which has been quite the lifesaver. Sometimes, a circuit board in a kitchen appliance gets on the fritz, and we need to repair it. Other times, I want to create my own appliance such as a semi-automated bartender. It's useful for quick, small jobs. I have yet to use it for multi-layered projects. ### 5. Best Circuit Design Software I ever used!!! **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Jeeva S. | Technical Account Manager, Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** November 21, 2020 **What do you like best about Ultiboard?** Best software for the PCB circuit and design. I mainly used it when I was an engineering student in electronic courses and exams. The software was straightforward to use, even for students, and with minimum supervision and lecturers' assistance. With this software, I managed to create a multiple-layer circuit with reasonable time. **What do you dislike about Ultiboard?** - The software GUI looks a bit retro, especially with the current time. - Finding electronic components also a bit tedious, and the search must be accurate. - The simulation was sometimes not working or accurate for the complicated circuit, and it took me some time to find the root cause. - There are also fewer documentations and helps with the software. **Recommendations to others considering Ultiboard:** There are other circuit board design and layout software in the market; however, I would suggest using Ultiboard, primarily for engineering students and first-time users, due to its ease of use and understanding. I took roughly one day to understand how to use the software, and after that, I managed to create multiple circuit boards. This software is best for educational institutions only. **What problems is Ultiboard solving and how is that benefiting you?** I was mainly used for the electronic assignments and exams on designing circuits for an engineering student. Based on my experience, I recommend this software for the first time user and engineering student. Even though the GUI looks a bit retro, I don't see any obstacles and challenges in using this software for my university assignment and exams. I would suggest for users to be more accurate on searching the components whenever they are using this software for the PCB design. ### 6. It is very simple,easy and user friendly **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Kashif H. | Technical Officer, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** October 29, 2020 **What do you like best about Ultiboard?** It is very simple and easy specially for fresh students.It is as simple as beginners can use it easily.you can designed simple as well as complex PCB circuits from it specially on working on Micro controller and micro processor .I completed my final year project by using this software, the project was OPEN LOOP IRON DETECTOR FROM A CONVEYOR TRACK. It is basically a PLC based project in which electromagnet arm and conveyor belt are used. The electromagnet energized, using counters, timers & switches and collect all pieces of iron from garbage through a fixed Program Logic, and no sensors are used. **What do you dislike about Ultiboard?** some of the components are not present in the library. i.e IC'S and sod's. sometimes its stuck in the middle or hanging problem. But at last i personally like it very much. **What problems is Ultiboard solving and how is that benefiting you?** i solved the project about ohm's circuits for close path with it and its very easy by placing separate volt meter and ampere meter. I also completed my final year project by using this software, the project was OPEN LOOP IRON DETECTOR FROM A CONVEYOR TRACK. It is basically a PLC based project in which electromagnet arm and conveyor belt are used. The electromagnet energized, using counters, timers & switches and collect all pieces of iron from garbage through a fixed Program Logic, and no sensors are used. ### 7. Ultiboard Student review **Rating:** 3.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Consumer Electronics | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** October 24, 2020 **What do you like best about Ultiboard?** I enjoyed the simple UI as well as the feasibility to import from NI Multisim which allowed me to print a PCB of the CE AMP I was working on as well as add many layers to the wiring. Moreover, I was able to customise the menu to fit my specific needs. I have not yet printed the PCB but it looks very simple. The UI although outdated offered ease of use. **What do you dislike about Ultiboard?** I dislike the fact that the UI is a little dated as well as the fact that the Copper wiring sometimes gets mixed up and has to be manually adjusted. Moreover I dislike that the components have to be manually untangled in order to fit the PCB board specifications. A more modern UI would be excellent. Also I wish there was compatibility for MAC OS since I am a primary MAC user. It would be great to see also Multisim as well as Ultiboard integrated into one system. Also I ran into the issue where I had to reopen the files because they kept crashing on windows 10 but I'm sure that is just a temporary bug which will soon be fixed. SImple Issues overall. **Recommendations to others considering Ultiboard:** I would suggest getting to know Multisim first since all components are imported from there **What problems is Ultiboard solving and how is that benefiting you?** I am creating a CE AMP, It is easy to print out the PCB once completed. Furthermore I enjoyed the layering components since I could choose which track I wanted. Moreover I have realised that it is very simple to implement with a PCB printing software. ### 8. Used ultiboard to create PVC board for senior project in college. **Rating:** 3.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Princesa C. | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** September 10, 2020 **What do you like best about Ultiboard?** I loved how user friendly the program was. It's been over 4 years and I can honestly say I'd still remember how to do most of the "commands" I used. **What do you dislike about Ultiboard?** Sometimes the way that the program tried simplifying your chip was more complicated than before. I think that ist to be expected of any program though. I think sometimes the program let us be too free with how we connected microchip components and this was impossible in real life. Again though I dont think that's anything unusual of the program and more likely had to do with inexperience. **What problems is Ultiboard solving and how is that benefiting you?** We were able to create a unique board to satisfy the needs of our senior capstone project, and we needed multiple sensors to have input ability in a very small space. I liked that we were able to create this and succeed with our project. ### 9. I had a pleasant experience using ultiboard for a project. **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Abraham C. | Research Engineer, Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** November 23, 2020 **What do you like best about Ultiboard?** The most helpful thing with ultiboard is it has an intuitive user interface, it’s easy to use and has clean appearance. I really like the snapping feature when connecting pins. **What do you dislike about Ultiboard?** The auto-route feature could work better. The downsides are that it sometimes because cluttered when importing files and saving files. **What problems is Ultiboard solving and how is that benefiting you?** I solved start to finish circuit board design. It was easy to move from Multisim over to ultiboard. ### 10. Experience in Using Ultiboard **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Jonathan F. | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** November 01, 2020 **What do you like best about Ultiboard?** Easy route and auto detection of error in layout. It also uses the latest technology **What do you dislike about Ultiboard?** There is nothing I actually liked and had been using it all of my college years and haven't found any unnecessary feature. **Recommendations to others considering Ultiboard:** It will be useful for project enthusiast especially those who focus on doing circuit boards, I highly recommend to explore and learn the features offered by Ultiboard. It is easily to navigate and use friendly. **What problems is Ultiboard solving and how is that benefiting you?** I am using to route circuit boards and eat is easy that using wired circuits. It lessen time to work for a circuit project. ### 11. Nice software **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** GOWTHAM V. | Lecturer, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** December 27, 2020 **What do you like best about Ultiboard?** Designing is very easy , frequently using components are really great **What do you dislike about Ultiboard?** Soft slows down the laptop process, and changing into trace is little bit difficult **Recommendations to others considering Ultiboard:** For PCB design board it is the best I used **What problems is Ultiboard solving and how is that benefiting you?** Circuit boards for my projects ### 12. Awesome and super helpful for my engineering research project. **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Shambhavi A. | R&D Electrical Engineer, Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** September 27, 2020 **What do you like best about Ultiboard?** I could find a lot of components and it's easy to create a circuit here. We used it for out research project and the project was very successful. **What do you dislike about Ultiboard?** Nothing so far. Everything seems working fine for me. **Recommendations to others considering Ultiboard:** Choose the right one based on the components you want to use. **What problems is Ultiboard solving and how is that benefiting you?** My engineering project. Comfortable to use and has wide range of applications. ### 13. It is quite user friendly **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Suhotra Kishore C. | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** September 29, 2020 **What do you like best about Ultiboard?** Ultiboard makes complicated designing seem feasible. It is very helpful for innovative designing. **What do you dislike about Ultiboard?** Got hanged sometimes while running with other softwares. **Recommendations to others considering Ultiboard:** Use it for designing , it's a lite software ,but some times it hangs so do not run if other softwares are running. **What problems is Ultiboard solving and how is that benefiting you?** I mostly solved academic problems using ultiboard. It helped me learn Analog electronics much better. ### 14. Optimus tool **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Francesco R. | IPC certification, Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** September 24, 2020 **What do you like best about Ultiboard?** It is easy to learn and to teach, I used when I was a teacher of electronics in an high school. I used the student version and it is very complete. **What do you dislike about Ultiboard?** I like the software there is a good community to solve any problem. **What problems is Ultiboard solving and how is that benefiting you?** Print the design and learn how to put the devices on the PCB. ### 15. A perfect fit for PCB design **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Biliaminu J. | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** September 26, 2020 **What do you like best about Ultiboard?** Real Time Design Rule Check. Easy transfer of schematic from multism to ultiboard **What do you dislike about Ultiboard?** Nothing is really least helpful with ultiboard. It's a robust tool for electronic engineers **Recommendations to others considering Ultiboard:** Good product for electronic designer. Especially when you also combine it with multism **What problems is Ultiboard solving and how is that benefiting you?** Designing of electronics microcontroller projects in multism and designing the prototype with ultiboard ### 16. Not so good but will do the job ! **Rating:** 3.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Md. Mizanur R. | Electronics Engineer, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** April 24, 2020 **What do you like best about Ultiboard?** Its a NI instrument product and as usual its student-centric. So your expectation should not be like the professional tools out there in the market like Altium or Orcad. However I find it easy to learn. **What do you dislike about Ultiboard?** Lack of support tools. Many things in routing traces I had to do manually, whereas other CAD software provides tool for those which drastically reduce the time. **Recommendations to others considering Ultiboard:** If you are student or teacher, interested to do/teach basics of PCB designing , then you can start with Ultiboard. Its integrated with NI Multisim which has a nice circuit simulation engine, so one does not have to do much work after first stage of design. **What problems is Ultiboard solving and how is that benefiting you?** PCB designing . This is the one and only solution Ultiboard provides. Didnt find mentionable benefits compared to other tools. ### 17. First step in learning PCB designing **Rating:** 3.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Higher Education | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** September 24, 2020 **What do you like best about Ultiboard?** The auto routing features help a novel user understand the rules of PCB designing **What do you dislike about Ultiboard?** The fact that I've used Ultiboard along with Multisim means that there is a dependency. It would be much better if you could just start design the circuits in Ultiboard. Of course, I haven't used the software extensively so there might be a way to do this but I'm not aware of that yet. **What problems is Ultiboard solving and how is that benefiting you?** Main purpose of my use was too teach students about PCB designing ### 18. Found comfortable while using for the first time designing the for the project **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Uday kumar p. | Process and Product quality Engineer Trainee , Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** October 07, 2020 **What do you like best about Ultiboard?** All sensor layouts was readily available **What do you dislike about Ultiboard?** Nano and other user friendly development boards are missing **Recommendations to others considering Ultiboard:** user friendly **What problems is Ultiboard solving and how is that benefiting you?** developing the PCB board for project with schematics ### 19. Ultiboard is recommended for intermediate pcb designing and not for high speed designings **Rating:** 3.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Consumer Electronics | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** September 13, 2020 **What do you like best about Ultiboard?** You can import your circuit from NI workbench. **What do you dislike about Ultiboard?** Ultiboard is not user friendly while working on high speed and complex pcb design. **Recommendations to others considering Ultiboard:** Use it for basic or kick starter design. Simulate your circuit and import it in ultiboard. **What problems is Ultiboard solving and how is that benefiting you?** I only benefit import your design from NI workbench to ultiboard for test pcb. ### 20. This product is very user friendly, simple to understand and can create very complex PCB designs. **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Higher Education | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** September 24, 2020 **What do you like best about Ultiboard?** Simplicity to use and understand. This product is being used as a teaching instrument for young graduates. **What do you dislike about Ultiboard?** The extent to which the product is presently used is satisfactory. **Recommendations to others considering Ultiboard:** Very good for designing PCB **What problems is Ultiboard solving and how is that benefiting you?** This product is being used as a teaching instrument. ### 21. Ultiboard Review **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Rakesh S. | Design Engineer, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** April 29, 2020 **What do you like best about Ultiboard?** Almost all components are available in Ultiboard and those which are not you can create the foot prints. Easy to use. **What do you dislike about Ultiboard?** Creating the board size in Ultiboard is painfull. **Recommendations to others considering Ultiboard:** Its a good software to learn and implement design. **What problems is Ultiboard solving and how is that benefiting you?** I designed my PCB's for my graduation projects. It helps to get the great designs. ### 22. Be Simple, offer complexity **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Health, Wellness and Fitness | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** December 21, 2019 **What do you like best about Ultiboard?** What I like most About ultiboard and multisim are the way they let user construct it's designs. It's elegant simple, and will offer the user the ability to see their designs simulations in some way and, if the user wants to, will let them adjust the components and designs specifications needed for their specific job. It's simple for simple solutions, and powerful enough to free the user! **What do you dislike about Ultiboard?** I dislike the lack of companies specific components specifications. When we have to use some company specific components we are unable to directly find them in ultiboard. **Recommendations to others considering Ultiboard:** Use it to have our product designed as fast as possible. **What problems is Ultiboard solving and how is that benefiting you?** Circuit boards designs, simulation and visualizations. The benefits are huge, because I think the software is the most user friendly in the market, and it's also a complete solution . So I can only say it has everything one might need to develop it's on design in a single platform. ## Ultiboard Discussions - [How do you use NI ultiboard?](https://www.g2.com/discussions/how-do-you-use-ni-ultiboard) - [What are the features of Multisim software?](https://www.g2.com/discussions/what-are-the-features-of-multisim-software) - [What is Ultiboard software?](https://www.g2.com/discussions/what-is-ultiboard-software) - [What is the best way to compare current components with others?](https://www.g2.com/discussions/33058-what-is-the-best-way-to-compare-current-components-with-others) - [efrf](https://www.g2.com/discussions/33013-efrf) - [View Ultiboard pricing details and edition comparison](https://www.g2.com/products/ultiboard/reviews?section=pricing&secure%5Bexpires_at%5D=2026-05-15+11%3A09%3A48+-0500&secure%5Bsession_id%5D=9863c409-4d38-451c-95ab-7e50ea685f93&secure%5Btoken%5D=214d07403a631872e050e2da1c88e5f88d876cb11fe08d603d3c14222d387986&format=llm_user) ## Ultiboard Features **Design** - PCB layout editing - Schematic editor **Tools** - 3D modeling tools - Component placement **Library** - Component libraries **Platform** - Board size - Layers **Customization** - Custom commands - Custom interface ## Top Ultiboard Alternatives - [Altium Develop](https://www.g2.com/products/altium-develop/reviews) - 4.5/5.0 (974 reviews) - [KiCad EDA](https://www.g2.com/products/kicad-eda/reviews) - 4.5/5.0 (62 reviews) - [Autodesk Fusion](https://www.g2.com/products/autodesk-fusion/reviews) - 4.5/5.0 (508 reviews)