40% Off Altium Designer

[batteksystem]

Still too expensive for low volume designer

[GlowingGhoul]

Still too expensive for low volume designer

There's always CricuitStudio for $495.

[Bassman59]

Nothing for Mac OS?

You can run Altium in a virtual machine, but that's not the same as native Mac OS.

How hard is it to transition from Eagle to Altium?

The hardest part is porting or recreating your libraries.

[MrRedHat]

After having to go through the whole dog and pony show to get pricing from an Altium Sales rep. Here’s the info I got just in case anyone else is looking (I’m in the US).

The full license is $7,495 and then with the Eagle discount, it brings it down to $4,497. You then have to purchase the first-year subscription for $1,850 which brings the total price to $6,347+tax.

I guess the juicy tidbit is that the sales guy said the only reason why they’re running this promotion is because Altium is in a pissing contest with Autodesk Eagle. I guess apparently, Autodesk stole an Altium employee and now they’re going after them by trying to steal Eagle users.

I’m really not sure how many Eagle users they’re going to steal. The sales rep told me that they don’t even consider Autodesk Eagle a competitor and couldn’t care less about Eagle. My thinking on price alone, if you’re a happy Eagle user it’s about eight times cheaper over three years to stay with Eagle assuming you’re paying for the premium version. In my opinion, if you’re a happy Eagle user, you might as well stay, unless there’s something specific you need.

[Michael Lloyd]

I'm just a hobbyist that doesn't make more than 20 or so boards a year, if that. I'll just stick with what I have I guess. I'm not going to "upgrade" any further than where I am (first pay level whatever that was). CircuitStudio seemed like a nice way to get started with Altium (except the price)

[mrpackethead]

After having to go through the whole dog and pony show to get pricing from an Altium Sales rep. Here’s the info I got just in case anyone else is looking (I’m in the US).

The full license is $7,495 and then with the Eagle discount, it brings it down to $4,497. You then have to purchase the first-year subscription for $1,850 which brings the total price to $6,347+tax.

I guess the juicy tidbit is that the sales guy said the only reason why they’re running this promotion is because Altium is in a pissing contest with Autodesk Eagle. I guess apparently, Autodesk stole an Altium employee and now they’re going after them by trying to steal Eagle users.

I’m really not sure how many Eagle users they’re going to steal. The sales rep told me that they don’t even consider Autodesk Eagle a competitor and couldn’t care less about Eagle. My thinking on price alone, if you’re a happy Eagle user it’s about eight times cheaper over three years to stay with Eagle assuming you’re paying for the premium version. In my opinion, if you’re a happy Eagle user, you might as well stay, unless there’s something specific you need.

Its about time  and speed.

I'm in teh business of designing electronics.. The costs associated with Altium over Eagle are justified in that i can get more work done in the same time with Altium that i can with eagle. ( i was an eagle user and migrated to Altium )...    Thats not to say that Altium is perfect. Far from it.   

I have a hobby which is CNC maching.. I have a low cost milling machine that i've tinkered with and put motors on etc and got running..   I can actually turn out some pretty amazing work with but it takes me a lot longer than the pro shop down the road.. If i tryed pushing my machien to run at the speed they do it would just produce rubbish.    I dont' have all the amazing measurement gear or the complex work holding..  But i can acheive accuracy and i can hold my work down,  but the process's just take minutes rather than seconds..     Its exactly like your EDA package.

If time is important then you need tools that help you get a job done quicker.

[MrRedHat]

I'm just a hobbyist that doesn't make more than 20 or so boards a year, if that. I'll just stick with what I have I guess. I'm not going to "upgrade" any further than where I am (first pay level whatever that was). CircuitStudio seemed like a nice way to get started with Altium (except the price)

Yes exactly. Your reasoning is why I think the guy seemed annoyed with the whole promotion. He went through a whole 30 minute phone sales pitch and I was thinking to myself, “yeah, still too high in price”, especially when you don’t even consider Eagle a competitor.  The sales guy is probably taking a ton of sales calls from Eagle users and once they find out the price they’re still going, “No way”. I suppose it’s his own fault, he could have e-mailed me the price and saved both of us 30 minutes worth of time. He insisted on talking to me on the phone.

[MrRedHat]

Its about time  and speed.

I'm in teh business of designing electronics.. The costs associated with Altium over Eagle are justified in that i can get more work done in the same time with Altium that i can with eagle. ( i was an eagle user and migrated to Altium )...    Thats not to say that Altium is perfect. Far from it.   

I have a hobby which is CNC maching.. I have a low cost milling machine that i've tinkered with and put motors on etc and got running..   I can actually turn out some pretty amazing work with but it takes me a lot longer than the pro shop down the road.. If i tryed pushing my machien to run at the speed they do it would just produce rubbish.    I dont' have all the amazing measurement gear or the complex work holding..  But i can acheive accuracy and i can hold my work down,  but the process's just take minutes rather than seconds..     Its exactly like your EDA package.

If time is important then you need tools that help you get a job done quicker.

I agree with you completely and that’s why I was considering it. My situation is slightly different though, I don’t make money from it, but I hope to do so in the future. I’m currently just an Engineering student and my reasoning was if the discount was enough I would buy it at a discount and then keep the maintenance on it. I was hoping for $2,000 less expensive on the initial license and about $600/year less in the maintenance costs. If such a time arises in the future that I can really make full use of the product, I will buy the license at the full cost.

I do understand why he seemed annoyed with the promotion though. I’m sure he’s probably spending lots of time taking calls from hobbyists who don’t end up buying it all because management is pissed off Autodesk offered one of Altium’s employees a better deal.

[Michael Lloyd]

I have the first level of Eagle that you have to pay for. I've had it or a long time. Counting upgrades that required payment I've probably got about the same in it as the ControlStudio cost. I'm not opposed to switching to improve... and I'm not a fan of the Autodesk takeover. Idk... it's not like changing which word processor I use...

[MrRedHat]

I would be interested in knowing who Autodesk “stole” from Altium. I wonder if it’s some top programmer or some management guy? If it’s a top-notch programmer, it could mean a lot of improvements in Eagle coming down the line. Perhaps Autodesk positioning itself to compete with Altium in the future? Competition is always good for us, so it could work out in the end.

[GlowingGhoul]

I'm just a hobbyist that doesn't make more than 20 or so boards a year, if that. I'll just stick with what I have I guess. I'm not going to "upgrade" any further than where I am (first pay level whatever that was). CircuitStudio seemed like a nice way to get started with Altium (except the price)

Yes exactly. Your reasoning is why I think the guy seemed annoyed with the whole promotion. He went through a whole 30 minute phone sales pitch and I was thinking to myself, “yeah, still too high in price”, especially when you don’t even consider Eagle a competitor.  The sales guy is probably taking a ton of sales calls from Eagle users and once they find out the price they’re still going, “No way”. I suppose it’s his own fault, he could have e-mailed me the price and saved both of us 30 minutes worth of time. He insisted on talking to me on the phone.

It seems to me CircuitStudio @ $495 offers a better package than Eagle, with a perpetual license. Optional $150/yr maintenance. Of course comparing Eagle to Altium Designer pricing looks bad, even with the discount, they're not in the same league.

CircuitStudio is about 90% Altium Designer in terms of features.

[julianhigginson]

but why do people from eevblog need to bother the altium sales rep if $6k is absolutely too steep? It's mentioned in the thread already how much it'll cost...  And even if it hadn't been, altium is known to be a ~$10k piece of software normally, so... a 40% discount on that is never going to get you under $2k.

I agree that circuit studio is a more sensible Eagle competitor. I don't know anyone doing professional electronic development using Eagle... Eagle is for people who like OSHW and have decided that they might try mucking about with their own boards for something to do rather than just shop for arduino shields at adafruit. This is not the kind of area where $10k for an EDA tool is a sensible expense.

Sometimes altium just runs promotions for no particular reason (for the last few years since the big price bump, about 1 - 2 times a year I see offers for altium designer at least 30%) so I don't really see the specialness of this deal anyway.. it's a bit bigger and needs an eagle license, but really it's nothing that unusual.

[blackfin76]

Still too expensive for low volume designer

I totally agree and I don't get the whole circuit studio thing. They should make it AD without the simulator and FPGA stuff. Nobody I know uses it and CC is downgraded beyond useful. A company that makes such products is not really listening to what the market needs.

[Bud]

I would be interested in knowing who Autodesk “stole” from Altium. I wonder if it’s some top programmer or some management guy? If it’s a top-notch programmer, it could mean a lot of improvements in Eagle coming down the line.

I think it is an urban legend. But if true, you are kidding yourself. Be prepared to things becoming broken in new releases and all sort of weird bugs you could not even imagine. So if that "top notch" programmer left Altium, i say good riddance.

[ebclr]

It's easy to begin, hard to be proficient since Altium goes far away than Eagle