Introducing Altium Discover, Altium Develop, and Altium Agile

[jc101]

The Altium website was updated, I think today, showing their new "One Vision".  From the website...

• Altium Discover equips engineers with a solution-oriented approach for finding, exploring, and selecting electronics solutions that meet specific design requirements.
• Altium Develop delivers unlimited power for multidisciplinary electronics product creation via an out-of-the-box solution designed to enable teams to work freely in a peer-to-peer network.
• Altium Agile offers a solution for electronics product and system development for the modern agile enterprise, delivering control without the complexity of traditional enterprise software.

Under the blurb this is this section...

What This Means for Existing Customers

If you already use Altium, your tools and subscriptions continue without change. When you are ready, moving to Altium Discover, Altium Develop, and Altium Agile is a seamless upgrade—your designs, libraries, and workflows remain fully compatible. The familiar tools you rely on now expand onto a modern platform that adapts to your workflows, enhances collaboration, and unlocks new possibilities—without requiring you to change how you work. You will soon receive additional details about upgrading.

It is hard to tell, but it really does look like Altium Designer is heading to require A365 to function at some point.

Anyone have more details about this?

Edit to add this link to the announcement https://www.altium.com/company/newsroom/announcement

[thm_w]

https://www.altium.com/discover

    Captures context around design intent and requirements to drive solution-focused engagement
    Enhances communication and collaboration with manufacturers and distributors
    Provides insight and intelligence to accelerate informed decision-making

Don't know what this is, maybe integrating PCBA manufacture options into the software?

https://www.altium.com/develop

Every change, comment, and decision lives in real-time context, giving you and your collaborators the visibility to stay aligned—without the need for formal check-ins. Insight flows as work happens, so you're always informed to make your best decisions.

Looks like regular Altium + 365, but updated to include live editing.

https://www.altium.com/agile

Robust connectivity with enterprise systems, including but not limited to PLM, Jira, and requirements management

activeBOM with jira/etc integration, and some process control paths.

[Ice-Tea]

I'm sure they will simplify the licensing options and reduce the focus on software-as-a-service so folks like me can get on with their jobs 

Looking forward to it!

[SethGPI]

Someone on the Altium forums claims to have reached out and got this response from the Director of Sales since none of the Account Managers had any idea.

It's mostly just a rebranding exercise. As such:
- Discovery = Altium basic
- Develop = Altium Pro
- Agile = Altium Enterprise (and a totally poor choice of names as it has nothing to do with scrums, sprints, etc. or MS Teams)

One slight twist though is that Agile is split into:
- Agile Teams (Enterprise light) PLM and ERP connectivity but for mid-sized companies
- Agile Enterprise (full on Enterprise) intended for companies >$500M and 1K employees

Designer and 365 will still be the core elements but there will be tiered functionality like the current three versions.

They said that current licenses and tiers would be supported come renewal time but couldn't say if these plans would be forced to transition at some point.

[cunningfellow]

I just shouted out "Bingo" in the middle of a meeting.

[temperance]

They said that current licenses and tiers would be supported come renewal time but couldn't say if these plans would be forced to transition at some point.

They will at some point, as always. Altium, a company you can't trust with anything they do and say.

[jc101]

I wonder if this change will enable them to EOL those with permanent on demand licences out there. They have removed maintenance already, but this could be a means to force a transition to their term based SaaS model.

[jc101]

And, yes, it does. Anyone with existing maintenance agreements (some have them for another 3 years) will not be getting anything for their money.

Altium Designer is dead - expect no updates.

https://www.eevblog.com/forum/altium/altium-designer-is-dead/

[Ice-Tea]

There will be some more or less public outrage. The account managers of some large accounts will complain behind close doors. In a few months time there will be wispers about some special version for specific customers behind close doors. And in two years time there will be a managment change, Silicon Valley will be chasing some other Golden Goose or there will be a company project called Vission 3-30 or some such nonsense and everything will change. Again. The catchphrase "improved customer experience" will be used.

Rinse & repeat.

[tooki]

And, yes, it does. Anyone with existing maintenance agreements (some have them for another 3 years) will not be getting anything for their money.

Altium Designer is dead - expect no updates.

https://www.eevblog.com/forum/altium/altium-designer-is-dead/

And you created a whole separate thread for that because…?

Seems to me you should have just posted that here.

[jc101]

Two different things really.
This is more that there was some new products, the other is that the current Altium Designer is no more. Even if you had active maintenance, for years to come, you won't be getting any software updates. You are, in effect, forced to migrate to the new offerings if you want bug fixes.

The mods can shuffle things around if they want to.

[tooki]

Two different things really.
This is more that there was some new products, the other is that the current Altium Designer is no more. Even if you had active maintenance, for years to come, you won't be getting any software updates. You are, in effect, forced to migrate to the new offerings if you want bug fixes.

I think that’s a very strange interpretation and characterization of it. I think you’re jumping the gun, especially given the unclarity of the communication so far.

[jc101]

Not according to the release notes... my emphasis in bold. Despite having a permanent licence, for which I paid for maintenance until Dec 2026 - I will now not get that maintenance. I will not get updates. To get any updates, I have to migrate to the time limited subscription model.

25.8 was the last public release of Altium Designer as a standalone product. Altium Designer is now branded to reflect its association to a platform solution available from Altium. It is now Altium Designer Develop (when part of the Altium Develop solution) and Altium Designer Agile (when part of the Altium Agile solution). Note that to access these newly-badged variants of Altium Designer, you must be subscribed to one of the platform solutions and install afresh through the relevant solution's Home page (through its browser-based interface). In this documentation, the shortened form Altium Designer is used when referring to this software.

Note that while you cannot directly update a previous standalone instance of Altium Designer to Altium Designer Develop or Altium Designer Agile, you can still connect to a platform solution's Workspace (Altium Develop Workspace and Altium Agile Workspace) from it. To do this, you must be using Altium Designer 20.1.14 or later.

[tooki]

Not according to the release notes... my emphasis in bold. Despite having a permanent licence, for which I paid for maintenance until Dec 2026 - I will now not get that maintenance. I will not get updates. To get any updates, I have to migrate to the time limited subscription model.

I’m saying that to say that “Altium Designer is no more” is ridiculous: the very release notes that you quoted refer to them as “these newly-badged variants of Altium Designer”, clearly indicating that a) it’s a renaming, not a change in product per se, and b) that they’re still Altium Designer.

That certainly didn’t merit an entire thread separate from this one!!

[nctnico]

What I'm wondering is: how you keep access to your files if you don't pay a yearly subscription?

[temperance]

Just say buy buy to Altium and move to Kicad.

Life without altium. That CAD for loosers with a unified user interface. It's beautiful. And I say it, many people, also people close to me and I say, and many people other people, also in other countries, like never before life is is made great again without altium. The best way to develop PCB's, so beautiful, and I must truly say, and I know you all have been very disappointed but we are getting it back. We are getting it back. Now as I speak, we are getting it back and our productivity is now through the roof since a few months. Yesterday, and my CAD senator told me that too, it was the best decision ever in the USA, I made that happen. In two months, I did the unimaginable. Everyone said we couldn't do it.

[Psi]

Out of interest, what free or near free / one off cost commercial use PCB CAD software has the ability to open Alitum PCB/SCH files (or something altium can export to) and convert to its own format with the least amount of pain?

Obviously a lot of altium specific stuff wont import, but just in general, if you want an altium schematic and PCB designs moved to a different tool where you can generate gerbers, which one is the best?

Bonus points if it can import pcb/sch library files somehow

[tszaboo]

The pricing seems better than the bullshit they tried last year. How much was that, 500 EUR a month? Since that turned out to be a complete trainwreck, I'm guessing they are rebranding now. I wasn't honestly looking forward for reviewing features and possibilities. At this point I don't really trust them to not try to screw me with something.
All they had to do is keep releasing new features to the PCB designer, and fix bugs, and the company would pay for it. But no, they had to get greedy and change existing licenses. Dear Altium, you are not Dart Vader. You don't get to alter the deal.

[Rnj]

as an active client with Altium under the last 15 years it's really sad to say they change the business model and don't even care about a good way to say how does it come to work... at least some videos showing more details of each new "model of SaaS".

The v25.8 was updated in almost 4 months.. and what we have until now is a single post with only subject and macro resume of these 3 models.. There is a lack of respect with all clients and that is clearly reforcing those who say that the company can't be trusted anymore.

[free_electron]

Just say buy buy to Altium and move to Kicad.

Life without altium. That CAD for loosers with a unified user interface. It's beautiful. And I say it, many people, also people close to me and I say, and many people other people, also in other countries, like never before life is is made great again without altium. The best way to develop PCB's, so beautiful, and I must truly say, and I know you all have been very disappointed but we are getting it back. We are getting it back. Now as I speak, we are getting it back and our productivity is now through the roof since a few months. Yesterday, and my CAD senator told me that too, it was the best decision ever in the USA, I made that happen. In two months, I did the unimaginable. Everyone said we couldn't do it.

Wearing the "Make Altium Great Again" hat i see...

[free_electron]

What I'm wondering is: how you keep access to your files if you don't pay a yearly subscription?

Download. There is a mechanism through the "content cart' for the libraries. The projects can be grabbed as zip files containing everything.

https://www.altium.com/documentation/altium-designer/connected-workspace/extracting-data

[nctnico]

What I'm wondering is: how you keep access to your files if you don't pay a yearly subscription?

Download. There is a mechanism through the "content cart' for the libraries. The projects can be grabbed as zip files containing everything.

https://www.altium.com/documentation/altium-designer/connected-workspace/extracting-data

By access I mean being able to open & modify designs without needing to pay. Having files without being able to open & modify them is not usefull.

[jc101]

If you don't pay the rental fee for the software, you cannot do anything but read your data - assuming you've downloaded everything, and the Altium Designer viewer (which is free) is maintained. There is no guarantee that will remain.

If you let the subscription lapse, I think they keep the cloud data for 6 months then wipe it.

[temperance]

And that is exactly why I bought a perpetual licence... for the case a project would require a change or something 5 years later.

But PADS is even worse. Designs are encrypted when stored. You not pay= you not see anything. You can't even open your own files in a viewer.

[gamalot]

Altium Designer Agile???

https://filecr.com/windows/altium-designer/