Altium Designer
Ranked 2 of 6 pcb design software by recommenders
Professional PCB design software that people use for complex and high-end boards, with routing and support praised. The most common caveat is its high price and a clunky, buggy interface.
Professional PCB design software that people use for complex and high-end boards, with routing and support praised. The most common caveat is its high price and a clunky, buggy interface.
21 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 9
- criticize it
- 12
- approval share
- 43%
Recommended in 6 of 13 months
- November 2025: recommended
- December 2025: not recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: recommended
- March 2026: not recommended
- April 2026: not recommended
- May 2026: recommended
- June 2026: not recommended
- July 2026: not recommended
- August 2026: not recommended
- September 2026: recommended
- October 2026: recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 9 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, not met.
- 0.7 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, not met.
- Recommended in 6 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Capable for professional boards
“Altium's ActiveRoute routing is the perfect blend between manual routing and autorouting”
Comment from 13 Jan 2026 in “Show HN: AI in SolidWorks” “Pretty much every high end board is designed under Altium.”
Comment from 8 Sep 2026 in “Show HN: Copperhead – Cursor for circuit boards” “the price is right for its capability”
Comment from 24 Feb 2026 in “Diode – Build, program, and simulate hardware” Well made, well supported software
“a well made piece of professional software”
Comment from 23 Jan 2026 in “App Subscription is now my Weekend Project” “it's well supported by Altium”
Comment from 12 Jan 2026 in “Show HN: AI in SolidWorks” “it's been working very well”
Comment from 1 May 2026 in “Show HN: AI CAD Harness”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Expensive for what it offers
“For the price, Altium/Protel has always been a poor deal for what you get software wise.”
Comment from 8 Sep 2026 in “Show HN: Copperhead – Cursor for circuit boards” “expensive overengineered (for normal boards) tools like Altium”
Comment from 12 Oct 2026 in “Fable Took My Job” “or being unaffordable (Altium)”
Comment from 19 Nov 2025 in “Blender 5.0” Crashes, bugs and poor quality
“Altium has to be some of the worst software in existence.”
Comment from 29 Jan 2026 in “AI's Impact on Engineering Jobs May Be Different Than Expected” “the only thing they really want is fewer crashes and bugs”
Comment from 19 Nov 2025 in “Blender 5.0” “has now officially gone to shit”
Comment from 26 Dec 2025 in “Show HN: AutoLISP interpreter in Rust/WASM – a CAD workflow invented 33 yrs ago” Hard GUI and outdated docs
“Why does Altium or anything by Xilinx always have outdated docs that refer to menus that dont exist anymore?”
Comment from 28 Aug 2026 in “I used AWS cognito for a startup. I wouldn't do it again” “the GUI (used Altium, Allegro and Kicad professionally) gets in the way”
Comment from 10 Feb 2026 in “Ask HN: What Are You Working On? (February 2026)”
Other pcb design software people recommend
The four most recommended other pcb design software, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| KiCad | 99 | 20 | 83% | 12 | 5 yrs3 owners | Approved |
| Altium DesignerThis page | 9 | 12 | 43% | 6 | — | — |
| EasyEDA | 8 | 4 | 67% | 4 | — | — |
| EAGLE PCB design software | 6 | 3 | 67% | 4 | — | — |
| Copperhead | 6 | 3 | 67% | 1 | — | — |
What people said
21 of the 25 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“expensive overengineered (for normal boards) tools like Altium”
“Pretty much every high end board is designed under Altium.”
“For the price, Altium/Protel has always been a poor deal for what you get software wise.”
“Why does Altium or anything by Xilinx always have outdated docs that refer to menus that dont exist anymore?”
“it's been working very well”
“the price is right for its capability”
“the GUI (used Altium, Allegro and Kicad professionally) gets in the way”
“I'm stuck with Altium since that's what I learned on”
“Altium isn't great, but you must not have tried the others”
“Altium has to be some of the worst software in existence.”
“a well made piece of professional software”
“Failed because there was always something some client wanted to do, move, change or optimize for production run.”
“Altium's ActiveRoute routing is the perfect blend between manual routing and autorouting”
“it's well supported by Altium”
“It's definitely easier with Altium than Solidworks so far.”
“Altium Designer? (Matlab is mostly yes)”
“has now officially gone to shit”
“the only thing they really want is fewer crashes and bugs”
“or being unaffordable (Altium)”
“which Altium makes pretty annoyingly difficult”
“it has complete lists of every part in the design, its MPN, at least one supplier to purchase it”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.