You get the 1 year license even with the $99 ECP5-5G evaluation board, so not a very big deal.. just keep buying boards until the open source stuff is complete.

You get the 1 year license even with the $99 ECP5-5G evaluation board, so not a very big deal.. just keep buying boards until the open source stuff is complete. Lattice parts are cheaper, so better for your profit margin. Lattice chips are available in some smaller packages if that matters to you. Diamond is OK, but I would not trust it with very full or aggressive designs, Vivado and Quartus are better. On the other hand, Lattice uses Synopsis Synplify for synthesis, which is very good.