Software Alternatives & Reviews

LibrePCB VS Altium Designer

Compare LibrePCB VS Altium Designer and see what are their differences

LibrePCB logo LibrePCB

LibrePCB is a free EDA software to develop printed circuit boards.

Altium Designer logo Altium Designer

PCB Design Software
  • LibrePCB Landing page
    Landing page //
    2022-12-12
  • Altium Designer Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-09-11

LibrePCB

Categories
  • Electronics
  • Simulation
  • Design Tools
  • CAD
Website librepcb.org
Pricing URL-
Details $

Altium Designer

Categories
  • Simulation
  • Electronics
  • Design Tools
  • CAD
Website altium.com
Pricing URL Official Altium Designer Pricing
Details $-

LibrePCB videos

Introduction to LibrePCB A new, powerful and intuitive EDA tool for everyone

Altium Designer videos

Introduction to Altium Designer

More videos:

  • Review - Design Review - Altium Designer + Altium 365

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to LibrePCB and Altium Designer)
Simulation
57 57%
43% 43
Electronics
58 58%
42% 42
Design Tools
61 61%
39% 39
IDE
0 0%
100% 100

User comments

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Reviews

These are some of the external sources and on-site user reviews we've used to compare LibrePCB and Altium Designer

LibrePCB Reviews

We have no reviews of LibrePCB yet.
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Altium Designer Reviews

Comparing the Top 5 CAD Software for Electronics Design Development
Altium Designer gain its popularity in the design community and it is used by professional electronics engineers for creating complex and complicated PCB designs. It is mostly appreciated by engineers who work on IoT and industrial solutions.
Source: hackernoon.com
Our Top 10 printed circuit design software programmes
Some people still use Protel, the former version of Altium Designer. The reasons vary from one user to the other and, as seen above, software assessments can be very subjective:

Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, LibrePCB should be more popular than Altium Designer. It has been mentiond 6 times since March 2021. We are tracking product recommendations and mentions on various public social media platforms and blogs. They can help you identify which product is more popular and what people think of it.

LibrePCB mentions (6)

  • Effective June 7, 2026, Autodesk will no longer sell nor support EAGLE
    There's also https://librepcb.org/ Has anyone had time to try Horizon and/or LibrePCB and compare them to KiCad? - Source: Hacker News / 10 months ago
  • What is "this type" of PCB "called"
    On the open source front, LibrePCB seems to be the only contender, never used it myself, but have heard good things and met some devs at a conference and they were nice. The level of support you get there may be a bit more personal. Otoh, if you've never designed PCBs before, it may be hard to even tell if something is a bug... Source: 10 months ago
  • Hardware design on linux
    I would throw LibrePCB into the mix. Coming from Eagle, it was easier for me to grasp than KiCad. Source: 11 months ago
  • How can I make professional looking schematics for free?
    Also LibrePCB at https://librepcb.org A bit "lighter" in size than KiCad. Source: about 2 years ago
  • from where should I start for designing my own PCB?
    I've been turning out some nice results from LibrePCB. It has a learning curve like anything else but its not an impossibly convoluted workflow like some of the more established FOSS programs out there. Source: over 2 years ago
View more

Altium Designer mentions (1)

  • Biden invokes Defense Production Act for printed circuit board production
    Check out Altium’s website (altium.com. A lot of free resources that might help. They also have a YouTube channel. Good luck. Source: about 1 year ago

What are some alternatives?

When comparing LibrePCB and Altium Designer, you can also consider the following products

KiCad - A Cross Platform and Open Source Electronics Design Automation Suite

Fritzing - Fritzing is an open-source initiative to support designers, artists, researchers and hobbyists to...

Autodesk EAGLE - Autodesk EAGLE is an electronic design automation (EDA) software.

Proteus PCB design - Proteus PCB design combines the schematic capture and ARES PCB layout programs to provide a...

EasyEDA - EasyEDA - Web-based EDA suite; runs in browser.

LTspice - LTspice® is a high performance SPICE simulation software, schematic capture and waveform viewer with enhancements and models for easing the simulation of analog circuits.