Altium Develop vs. PTC Windchill

AD is perfectly suited for the company's needs. We design a few boards per year, and having one seat is enough for us. The software offers all the tools required to design, lay out, and send manufacturing files over to the PCB manufacturers. The version control feature is very useful for tracking changes, especially during the development and certification stages.

Incentivized

This product is perhaps typical of something that seems as though it was conceived in the 90's and has seen various appendages since, none of which do their job particularly well. Nothing in this system is efficient and all its processes demand a huge, close to maximum possible level of human effort. No doubt many companies, such as my own are spend huge amounts of money for the debateable privilege of tripling their employees workload and making them as inefficient as possible to make the administration of the system seem more important than it actually is.

• Extremely straightforward and easy to use
• Easy to find all tools, including laying traces, adding net labels, etc.
• Great training documents and videos, very using friendly; especially for first time users
• 3D models of the PCB are excellent
• Easy to generate files; including schematics, BOMs, Gerber files, etc.

Incentivized

• It is compatible with all devices and operating systems such as web-based, Android, and iOS.
• It allows user to customize its interface based on their requirement.
• It provides a digital part list with all required data like Part Name, Part No., Weight, Material, etc.
• Searching data is so facile that one can get data without any trouble.

• The move to constraint management vs. design rules is half-baked. requiring saving separate constraints to schematics vs. PCBs results in constraints being overwritten constantly when pushing updates.
• Forcing subscriptions - removing the option for perpetual licenses.
• Integrated simulation is still un-intuitive and difficult to use.
• Requirements management feels completely separate, and I forget it's even part of Altium.
• No easy way to manage or layout schematics with "generic components" - every item is forced to be a manufacturer part at design time, slowing down initial schematic capture.

• Extract partlist should be directly in Excel because everyone time we have to convert it to Excel.
• ECN report formatting need improvement.
• Many times part no doesn't go to ERP even after ERP released state.

ALTIUM DESIGNER is the reference tool in the electronic circuit design sector, its use is widespread worldwide. Although there are other alternatives, some of them free do not rival ALTIUM DESIGNER in terms of features and reliability. It is also very practical to request quotes with ALTIUM DESIGNER BOM reports since all suppliers are accustomed to using the tool.

Incentivized

The schematic editor is easy to use for simple designs within a couple weeks of training, but can also handle complex designs and multi-board designs with no formal training needed. The addition of the wire harness designer offers a great way to allow for the electrical engineers to control the designs without the need of additional CAD software.

Incentivized

Windchill is an extremely verbose and unintuitive system, with masses of unnecessary duplication of fields, convoluted workflows, unclear roles and terrible search capabilities. It is one of the worst software products I have ever seen to propose solving something that is actually factors quicker to do with manual writing and paper work

Not very stable. Sudden lack of functionality when the license expires is not indicated clearly and can lead to loss of work.

Incentivized

Long process for solving problems. Problem solved after multiple emails, but not explained what was the solution, just "it is solved now"

Incentivized

easy to follow, Good technical materials. good videos The platform is easy to use.

Incentivized

Some times it is slow down PC due to polygons

Incentivized

Altium Develop gave the most cohesive experience compared to other platforms. Most others feel like several pieces of software kludged together (and often are). Altium Develop was clearly a unified system and felt like a much more modern piece of software. At the time it was competitively priced while having features open-source alternatives couldn't match.

Incentivized

Windchill is having a great market share & its UI is simple & neat, integration with Creo & ERP system. These are the main reasons of considering Windchill by our organization.

Incentivized

Because, in my opinion, usage for small organization is poor, it is difficult to set up initial configuration to support scaling.

Incentivized

• Allowed our team to turn out PCB designs as early as 2 months before our deadlines
• Better team retention as Altium 365 is not frustrating to use
• Mitigated costs through reliably accurate DRC reports, avoiding bad PCB designs to be sent for fabrication

Incentivized

• Saves time as all of our drawings and business instructions and procedures are housed in a central location with check-in/out capability and version control.

Incentivized