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I've dealt with Altium before. In fact I was responsible for licensing their product at a large manufacturing company. There is no such thing as free. There ha

I've dealt with Altium before. In fact I was responsible for licensing their product at a large manufacturing company. There is no such thing as free. There has to be a catch. They are expert milkers.

kitd 12y ago
On page 2 there's "CircuitMaker will be free to start" and you pay for extensions to handle more complexity. So it probably comes down to what is core and what is an extension.
fr4 12y ago
I agree, but Altium Designer really is very, very good and has been built over almost 30 years. Unfortunately FOSS tools come nowhere near it.
- stinos 12y ago
  This. I've used a couple of packages and AD is at the top of the line. Design is a pretty difficult problem to solve which is one of the reasons FOSS, which is usually created by a limited amount volunteers in their free time especially for niche branches (i.e. not like a kernel for instance), has trouble catching up with the work of larger amounts of full-time paid jobs which are focused on just one thing.
michaelt 12y ago
Altium announced the intention to launch a lower-end tool (along with a new pricing model) a while back [1]. Presumably it's an entry-level product following a pricing model like EAGLE; limits to commercial use/board size/number of components/ layers/connections /schematic sheets. [1] http://www.eevblog.com/forum/altium/altium-designer-new-pricing-model-and-high-end-low-end-tool-in-development/ http://www.eevblog.com/forum/altium/altium-designer-new-pric...