Free Altium Designer Alternatives for Windows

There are many alternatives to Altium Designer for Windows if you are looking for a replacement. The best free Windows alternative is KiCad, which is also Open Source. If that doesn't suit you, our users have ranked more than 50 alternatives to Altium Designer and 19 are free and available for Windows so hopefully you can find a suitable replacement. Other interesting free Windows alternatives to Altium Designer are QUCS, LibrePCB, LTspice and EasyEDA.

More about Altium Designer
Copy a direct link to this comment to your clipboard
Altium Designer alternatives page was last updated

Alternatives list

  1. KiCad icon

    KiCad

     126 likes

    KiCad is an open source software suite for electronic design automation (EDA) - designing schematics of electronic circuits and printed circuit boards (PCB). KiCad is developed by Jean-Pierre Charras. And features an integrated environment between schematic capture, bill of...

    59 KiCad alternatives

    Cost / License

    Application types

    Platforms

    • Mac
    • Windows
    • Linux
    • Flathub
    • PortableApps.com
    • Docker
    PcbNew - Editor
     
    |
    2
    KiCad vs Altium Designer Comments
    Michal D.
    Positive
    0

    It's free and provide very good possibilities for circuit and PCB boards design

    Review by a new / low-activity user.
    Guest
    Positive
    0

    Ease of schematic and pcb creating. BOM creation is not very good as excel templates cannot be used so this becomes a largely manual process. Most of the add-on tools cannot be added regardless of what the instructions say. Following the instructions usually ends in some sort of crash. Import/translation tools never install regardless of the instructions. But, with all of that said KiCad is still the best free alternative to Altium Designer.

    Review by a new / low-activity user.
    • KiCad is Free and Open SourceAltium Designer is Paid and Proprietary
    • KiCad is LightweightAltium Designer is not according to our users
  2. QUCS icon

    QUCS

     38 likes

    The Quite Universal Circuit Simulator (QUCS) is an integrated circuit simulator allowing the simulation and graphical presentation of results of large-signal, small-signal and noise behavior in circuits.

    36 QUCS alternatives

    Cost / License

    Application types

    Platforms

    • Mac
    • Windows
    • Linux
    QUCS screenshot 1
     
  4. LibrePCB icon

    LibrePCB

     22 likes

    LibrePCB is a free EDA software to develop printed circuit boards. It’s currently under heavy development to bring out first stable releases as soon as possible.

    Cost / License

    Application types

    Platforms

    • Mac
    • Windows
    • Linux
    • Flathub
    LibrePCB screenshot 1
     
    |
    1
    LibrePCB vs Altium Designer Comments
    dbrgn
    Positive
    0

    The project is still fresh, but very promising. The developers have spent a lot of time thinking about proper a library file format that avoids problems of current open source EDA suites and will make creating and sharing comprehensive parts libraries easier. It is also much better regarding usability than current alternatives like KiCAD.

    Review by a new / low-activity user.
    • LibrePCB is Free and Open SourceAltium Designer is Paid and Proprietary
    • LibrePCB is LightweightAltium Designer is not according to our users
  7. Pspice icon

    Pspice

     5 likes

    Software for Simulating Voltage and Currents of a text file net-list of a electronics components such as Resistors, Capacitors, inductors, transisters, Diodes, Voltage and Current Sources, etc.

    32 Pspice alternatives

    Cost / License

    • Freemium
    • Proprietary

    Application types

    Platforms

    • Windows
    Pspice screenshot 1
     
  9. Ngspice icon

    Ngspice

     8 likes

    Ngspice is a mixed-level/mixed-signal circuit simulator. Its code is based on three open source software packages: Spice3f5, Cider1b1 and Xspice. Ngspice is part of gEDA project, a full GPL'd suite of Electronic Design Automation tools.

    Cost / License

    • Free
    • Open Source

    Application types

    Platforms

    • Mac
    • Windows
    • Linux
    ngspice on KDE (Linux) with gschem in background
     
  10. Horizon EDA icon

    Horizon EDA

     3 likes

    Horizon is a free EDA package. Contribute to carrotIndustries/horizon development by creating an account on GitHub.

    Cost / License

    • Free
    • Open Source

    Platforms

    • Windows
    • Linux
    Horizon EDA screenshot 1
     
  11. Circuit Diagram icon

    Circuit Diagram

     4 likes

    Circuit Diagram is a free application for making electronic circuit diagrams and exporting them as images. Design circuits online in your browser or using the desktop application.

    36 Circuit Diagram alternatives

    Cost / License

    Platforms

    • Windows
    • Online
    Circuit Diagram screenshot 1
     
  13. atopile icon

    atopile

     1 like

    atopile is a language and toolchain to describe electronic circuit boards with code. By replacing the point and click schematic interface with code, we introduce software development workflows like reuse, validation and automation to the world of electronics.

    Cost / License

    • Free
    • Open Source (MIT)

    Platforms

    • Mac
    • Linux
    • Windows
    • BSD
    • Python
    atopile screenshot 1
     
  14. TinyCAD icon

    TinyCAD

     4 likes

    TinyCAD is an open source schematic capture program for MS Windows. Use TinyCAD to produce professional circuit diagrams and export net list information to PCB applications.

    33 TinyCAD alternatives

    Cost / License

    • Free
    • Open Source

    Platforms

    • Windows
    screenshot of TinyCAD in operation
     
12 of 19 Altium Designer alternatives