So what's the deal with altium's free version?

[justanothercanuck]

Their website touts that they have a free version, but when you click the links, it takes you to a form to fill out.  I never got an email from completing the form, so I'm assuming that they're going to try phoning me at some point... but if they really want people to try their software, why are they making it so hard to obtain? 

Just give me a 60-day timed "demo", and let me play around with it for a while. 

[mariush]

There's no free version published yet, what you see is the standard "free trial" probably.

[justanothercanuck]

Same thing, basically.  My point remains though, they should make it easier to obtain.

[DerekG]

Their website touts that they have a free version

It's coming shortly. Click on Dave's link in the post below.

You heard it here first, the FREE version IS happening

[justanothercanuck]

So a guy from Altium just called me, he said they've been getting a lot of evaluation requests...  then said "I don't mean to give you sticker shock, but our software costs like $10,000." (to buy outright, I believe)  He wanted to know what kind of projects I'm working on and mentioned that their software can do flexible PCBs (I'm assuming he meant stuff like chips on flat-flex cable).  They're going to send me a video to watch, and give me the contact information of a Canadian affiliate company with some sort of engineer to go over what kind of features Altium has over other PCB tools like Eagle.

I dunno, I guess I'll find out what kind of pricing packages they have, hopefully in a price range I can be happy with. 

[EEVblog]

I dunno, I guess I'll find out what kind of pricing packages they have, hopefully in a price range I can be happy with. 

It's going to cost you not far from that $10K
Altium is not a cheap package and does not have a cheap option (until the new low end packaged to be announced soon) . It's an "all you can eat" deal, take it or leave it, you can't just buy PCB/schematic for example, you have to pay for everything.
And they will stick you for several $K/year for subscription.
You don't have to pay subscription, you can buy it outright ("perpetual license"), but then you don't get big fixes or access to the library content.