Is Altium free anywhere?

[Bobertsawesome]

If I recall correctly, not even the almighty Dave gets Alitum for free anymore 

[thm_w]

If I recall correctly, not even the almighty Dave gets Alitum for free anymore 

They renewed it for him recently, only after a few complaints.
Any software company should be throwing licenses at the top relevant youtubers in their field, its dumb not to.

[Zero999]

I get that Altium is better than KiCad, but is it really worth more than an extra person? I understand that's the case for some tools, but question whether it's the case for Altium?

Forgive me. I've not done PCB design for years.

Where are you going to hire someone for $5k per year?
Its not worth an extra person no, maybe 5-20% of your PCB time or something.

Offshore to India?


Thanks. I thought it was more than that.

[asmi]

They renewed it for him recently, only after a few complaints.

To be fair I can't remember last time I've seen AD featured in Dave's videos... But maybe I missed something - YT has been rather funky for me lately. Or always.

[asmi]

Offshore to India?

The kind of person you can hire for that money won't even know the word "resistor".

Thanks. I thought it was more than that.

Once you invested into seats, maintaining update subscription is not very expensive (comparatively speaking of course). Currently it's about 2k USD per year, but I'm sure those who own multiple seats can negotiate better prices. Even I got 20% off renewal price without any real haggling - simply asked the rep if she can get any discount for me, and she did.

[eugene]

KiCad is not quite ready to replace Altium for two reasons. The first and biggest is that, as already stated, it simply lacks some features that Altium has. But, nobody necessarily needs to wait for the KiCad developers to implement the feature. No, I'm not talking about the fact that KiCad is open source, so you can modify the source code if you want. I'm talking about the fact that KiCad offers a direct way to implement functionality or integrate with other software through the use of plugins. You don't have to bribe the KiCad developers; specific features are developed by the people that actually need them. So the idea of a commercial company hiring a KiCad developer is only slightly off the mark. If the company has a software development team, then they can task one of its members with building the plugin they need.

I'm not saying that every feature in Altium could be replaced (successfully) with a KiCad plugin, but lots can. There's been requests for integration with a parts database. I haven't tried it, but I'd be wildly surprised if it weren't possible to do that in a variety of different ways with a plugin.

The other reason that KiCad is not ready to replace Altium is that anyone that works with others using Altium need it themselves. As a consultant, when a customer requires me to use Altium I ask for a computer with all the software installed. When I'm done with the project I return the computer. The rest of the time I use KiCad because I don't need the extra features. But, if I did need to buy an
Altium license, then I would probably just use it all the time and not bother with KiCad at all. See the problem? So there's an entire market that KiCad will not penetrate until it can at least open Altium projects, make modifications, and save the project in Altium file format. Maybe that could be done with a plugin?

[tooki]

KiCad is not quite ready to replace Altium for two reasons. The first and biggest is that, as already stated, it simply lacks some features that Altium has. But, nobody necessarily needs to wait for the KiCad developers to implement the feature. No, I'm not talking about the fact that KiCad is open source, so you can modify the source code if you want. I'm talking about the fact that KiCad offers a direct way to implement functionality or integrate with other software through the use of plugins. You don't have to bribe the KiCad developers; specific features are developed by the people that actually need them. So the idea of a commercial company hiring a KiCad developer is only slightly off the mark. If the company has a software development team, then they can task one of its members with building the plugin they need.

I'm not saying that every feature in Altium could be replaced (successfully) with a KiCad plugin, but lots can. There's been requests for integration with a parts database. I haven't tried it, but I'd be wildly surprised if it weren't possible to do that in a variety of different ways with a plugin.

The other reason that KiCad is not ready to replace Altium is that anyone that works with others using Altium need it themselves. As a consultant, when a customer requires me to use Altium I ask for a computer with all the software installed. When I'm done with the project I return the computer. The rest of the time I use KiCad because I don't need the extra features. But, if I did need to buy an
Altium license, then I would probably just use it all the time and not bother with KiCad at all. See the problem? So there's an entire market that KiCad will not penetrate until it can at least open Altium projects, make modifications, and save the project in Altium file format. Maybe that could be done with a plugin?

The problem with “round-trip” editing of files in another format is that your program then needs to reproduce all the functionality of the format.

A simple but real-world example: any spreadsheet that wants to open Excel spreadsheets needs to support two internal date formats, the “1900 epoch” dates originating in the DOS source code, and the “1904 epoch” originating in the oldest classic Mac version. And each date format has different pros and cons, such that even today, there is occasionally the need to set a spreadsheet to 1904 dates. And each one has its own quirks. Similarly, Lotus 1-2-3 had some weird date handling bugs, so an Excel spreadsheet can be set to 1-2-3 mode to reintroduce those bugs, to allow formulas to work as expected.
So as a spreadsheet developer, if you want to import Excel files reliably, you have to have code to handle every one of those weird date formats, even if 99% of files don’t use them.

It’s one thing to provide a lossy import function (like how Altium can import KiCad projects). But seamless round-trip editing requires you to robustly support all the major features, and most of the minor ones. The only thing you can leave out are things that I’d call “automation”, that is, features that help you do things, but which aren’t inherent properties of the objects. (For example, an autorouter: its output is tracks which could just as well have been placed by hand. Or via stitching tools. Whereas the properties of the vias need to be supported.)

[eugene]

The problem with “round-trip” editing of files in another format is that your program then needs to reproduce all the functionality of the format.

Yeah. I don't honestly see round trip editing in the foreseeable future. Which means that Altium will continue to dominate the commercial market for quite a while.

[nctnico]

Altium license, then I would probably just use it all the time and not bother with KiCad at all. See the problem? So there's an entire market that KiCad will not penetrate until it can at least open Altium projects, make modifications, and save the project in Altium file format. Maybe that could be done with a plugin?

That is nonsense. None of the PCB design packages have formats that are really interchangeable because different software uses different primitives. Simple things like pads and copper pours are likely not even compatible because they are defined using different parameters. And it is not necessary to have a universal fileformat either. It is not like Altium is the defacto standard for all PCB design anyway. So in the end it is pretty simple: you stick with what is suitable for a project c.q. the environment you find yourself in. For the projects I'm doing, I rarely (=never) encounter reference designs made using Altium.

[Infraviolet]

"many free programs were clearly written to serve a niche so tight that you wonder why the developer bothered releasing the monstrosity that solved their particular problem onto the bewildered public"

The real question is why the bewildered public are trying to use those solutions when they don't have exactly the same specific niche.

[thm_w]

They renewed it for him recently, only after a few complaints.

To be fair I can't remember last time I've seen AD featured in Dave's videos... But maybe I missed something - YT has been rather funky for me lately. Or always.

youtube.com/watch?v=HJVy8LAI_Bc