4 ms·

I switched from Eagle to Altium for a few reasons - Autodesk took my 3-years subscription money and then ditched Eagle, did no work, updates or improvements on

I switched from Eagle to Altium for a few reasons - Autodesk took my 3-years subscription money and then ditched Eagle, did no work, updates or improvements on the product I'd actually subscribed to, and tried to force me to move to a cloud-based app. No thanks. Never again, Autodesk. - Altium is a world away from Eagle, with its push/shove routing, rules, field-solver for impedance matching, dynamic lookup for components, just, well, everything basically. It's a steeper learning curve than Eagle, but it's far and away just better as well. - A perpetual license is what makes it worthwhile. Altium is already way more than I need, as a hobbyist, which gives me a lot of room to grow into it. I'd been using Eagle for ~20 years before switching, and I'd spent a lot on that over the years. If I get the same time-scale out of Altium that I did out of Eagle, it's not so bad averaged out.

pclmulqdq 3y ago
Altium ended perpetual licenses in 2021. I have a perpetual license of Altium 21, but when my salesperson came back for Altium 22, they had stopped the perpetual licensing scheme. To put numbers to it, it used to be $5000 for a license and $2000/year for a support contract on that license ($7000 in the first year covering the license and the support), and it's now something like $3000 for an annual license with no perpetual option. KiCad has been slowly getting toward feature parity with Altium 21, and I have had more fun with KiCad for hobby projects anyway. For those who tried it years ago, when I first tried KiCad in 2014, it was pretty crappy, but at some point between then and now they got their act in gear. The modern version is pretty close to a professional tool, and they are essentially taking feature ideas from Altium, so it's a pretty easy switch.
- spacedcowboy 3y ago
  Can’t be true. I bought a perpetual license just over 12 months ago (as in 5 days over 12 months ago). It still works fine, and it says it’s perpetual. Edit: and isn’t. They offer a perpetual license here [1] [1]: https://www.altium.com/altium-designer/licensing https://www.altium.com/altium-designer/licensing
  - pclmulqdq 3y ago
    Oh, they brought it back and doubled the price. How lovely.
    - stephen_g 3y ago
      We managed to negotiate a couple of grand off (including waiving the first year of maintenance) when we needed another license a few weeks ago but yeah it's a bit scummy.
- jorvi 3y ago
  > and they are essentially taking feature ideas from Altium, so it's a pretty easy switch. I wish this was more of an attitude in the software space, especially the open source software space. You don’t need to completely clone something, but paid software often tests UI with focus groups, A/B testing etc; Might as well profit off of that and steal the good parts. An example of how it’s not done is Photoshop vs GIMP/Krita. Both programs have extreme NIH syndrome, where they go out of their way to not implement something in the way Photoshop has, leading to -at times a very- convoluted UI and UX.
  - MayeulC 3y ago
    https://www.gimp.org/docs/userfaq.html#i-dont-like-gimps-user-interface-why-cant-you-just-copy-adobe-photoshop https://www.gimp.org/docs/userfaq.html#i-dont-like-gimps-use... One of the arguments I've heard against this is that it makes software feel like a "cheap clone". If most features are here, but there are a few missing or slightly different, you will resent their absence, or notice the difference, and conclude the clone is "incomplete" and inferior. And indeed, it would be very hard to make a perfect clone, but it may not be desirable either. There may be better ways/tools to achieve the same results, and if you just look for the features you are used to, you'll never find them. I haven't used Photoshop in years, but regularly use GIMP. It was not always intuitive, but now that I'm used to it I find the workflow quite effective.
    - wellanyway 3y ago
      Lmao, coming from gimp that's rich.
      - ilyt 3y ago
        After the big UI change that put everything in one window instead of million small ones I don't really have problems with GIMP UI.
    - jorvi 3y ago
      Since we are talking about cloning, a good example is the clone brush / stamp. In Photoshop it’s it’s own tool. In Krita (and perhaps GIMP?), it’s just another brush you have to dig for and find, and adjusting the clone settings is very annoying. This is a common occurrence, where you will google for “where is X in Krita / GIMP”, where X is a very regular tool that for some opaque reason has been stuffed away in a very strange place. Photoshop stores their glassware in the cupboard? We better keep it in the fridge! I hope that at some point Krita or GIMP or maybe even a unified Paint.net+Pinta gets a Blender moment, where a few bigger companies are tired of paying gobs of money to (mainly) Adobe and start to pay for development.
tibbon 3y ago
I got burned on “perpetual” licenses from Avid with Pro Tools. I hate licensing games these days
- ryandrake 3y ago
  I wouldn't believe anything marketed as "perpetual" or "unlimited." The real limit is either written in the fine print, or you're just begging for the rug to be pulled out from under you later when they do change the fine print. These words are nonsense marketing-speak, and it's surprising people fall for them.

pclmulqdq 3y ago

Altium ended perpetual licenses in 2021. I have a perpetual license of Altium 21, but when my salesperson came back for Altium 22, they had stopped the perpetual licensing scheme. To put numbers to it, it used to be $5000 for a license and $2000/year for a support contract on that license ($7000 in the first year covering the license and the support), and it's now something like $3000 for an annual license with no perpetual option. KiCad has been slowly getting toward feature parity with Altium 21, and I have had more fun with KiCad for hobby projects anyway. For those who tried it years ago, when I first tried KiCad in 2014, it was pretty crappy, but at some point between then and now they got their act in gear. The modern version is pretty close to a professional tool, and they are essentially taking feature ideas from Altium, so it's a pretty easy switch.

spacedcowboy 3y ago
Can’t be true. I bought a perpetual license just over 12 months ago (as in 5 days over 12 months ago). It still works fine, and it says it’s perpetual. Edit: and isn’t. They offer a perpetual license here [1] [1]: https://www.altium.com/altium-designer/licensing https://www.altium.com/altium-designer/licensing
- pclmulqdq 3y ago
  Oh, they brought it back and doubled the price. How lovely.
  - stephen_g 3y ago
    We managed to negotiate a couple of grand off (including waiving the first year of maintenance) when we needed another license a few weeks ago but yeah it's a bit scummy.
jorvi 3y ago
> and they are essentially taking feature ideas from Altium, so it's a pretty easy switch. I wish this was more of an attitude in the software space, especially the open source software space. You don’t need to completely clone something, but paid software often tests UI with focus groups, A/B testing etc; Might as well profit off of that and steal the good parts. An example of how it’s not done is Photoshop vs GIMP/Krita. Both programs have extreme NIH syndrome, where they go out of their way to not implement something in the way Photoshop has, leading to -at times a very- convoluted UI and UX.
- MayeulC 3y ago
  https://www.gimp.org/docs/userfaq.html#i-dont-like-gimps-user-interface-why-cant-you-just-copy-adobe-photoshop https://www.gimp.org/docs/userfaq.html#i-dont-like-gimps-use... One of the arguments I've heard against this is that it makes software feel like a "cheap clone". If most features are here, but there are a few missing or slightly different, you will resent their absence, or notice the difference, and conclude the clone is "incomplete" and inferior. And indeed, it would be very hard to make a perfect clone, but it may not be desirable either. There may be better ways/tools to achieve the same results, and if you just look for the features you are used to, you'll never find them. I haven't used Photoshop in years, but regularly use GIMP. It was not always intuitive, but now that I'm used to it I find the workflow quite effective.
  - wellanyway 3y ago
    Lmao, coming from gimp that's rich.
    - ilyt 3y ago
      After the big UI change that put everything in one window instead of million small ones I don't really have problems with GIMP UI.
  - jorvi 3y ago
    Since we are talking about cloning, a good example is the clone brush / stamp. In Photoshop it’s it’s own tool. In Krita (and perhaps GIMP?), it’s just another brush you have to dig for and find, and adjusting the clone settings is very annoying. This is a common occurrence, where you will google for “where is X in Krita / GIMP”, where X is a very regular tool that for some opaque reason has been stuffed away in a very strange place. Photoshop stores their glassware in the cupboard? We better keep it in the fridge! I hope that at some point Krita or GIMP or maybe even a unified Paint.net+Pinta gets a Blender moment, where a few bigger companies are tired of paying gobs of money to (mainly) Adobe and start to pay for development.

tibbon 3y ago

I got burned on “perpetual” licenses from Avid with Pro Tools. I hate licensing games these days

ryandrake 3y ago
I wouldn't believe anything marketed as "perpetual" or "unlimited." The real limit is either written in the fine print, or you're just begging for the rug to be pulled out from under you later when they do change the fine print. These words are nonsense marketing-speak, and it's surprising people fall for them.