Altium Designer® vs. Cadence OrCAD®
The Ultimate Comparison Guide

Compare Altium Designer® vs. OrCAD®

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Provides advanced product design, collaboration, and PCB design tools required by large teams or professionals designing complex devices, yet easy to use for new designers and students.

OrCAD Cadence PCB Solutions

OrCAD is a legacy program that has proven itself for a broad range of designs, making it a preferred tool for experienced designers and older companies. Learn More

Schematic Capture

Schematic sheet limits

Unlimited

999

Hierarchical schematic capture with integrated analog mixed-signal simulation

Supported in Altium Designer
Supported in OrCAD

Built-in SPICE simulator with model library and migration support for LTSpice/PSpice

Supported in Altium Designer
Not Available in OrCAD

PCB Layout

Board size limits

100 in. by 100 in.

40 in. by 30 in.

Signal and plane layer limits

32 signal + 16 plane + unlimited mechanical

200 layers total, license level limits the size of your board workspace and layer count

Rules-driven design for modern PCB (HDI, Rigid-flex, and Multiboard)

Supported in Altium Designer
Supported in OrCAD

Advanced interactive routing features with built-in signal integrity tools

Supported in Altium Designer
Supported in OrCAD

High speed design and rigid-flex design features included in standard license

Supported in Altium Designer
Not Available in OrCAD

Variant management tools for complex projects

Supported in Altium Designer
Supported in OrCAD

Realistic layer stacks and a modern field solver for accurate impedances

Supported in Altium Designer
Not Available in OrCAD

Parts placement and routing in 3D

Supported in Altium Designer
Not Available in OrCAD

Photo-realistic 3D viewer with real-time clearance checking

Supported in Altium Designer
Supported in OrCAD

Visual DC power distribution analysis in the PCB layout

Requires additional Power Analyzer license

Requires additional Cadence product (Sigrity OprimizePI)

Library Management & Sourcing

Built-in BOM management with real-time supply chain

Supported in Altium Designer
Not Available in OrCAD

Unified libraries with symbols, footprints, simulation models, and distributor links

Supported in Altium Designer
Not Available in OrCAD

Access to models, parameters, and lifecycle data for millions of components

Requires an Altium Designer Subscription

Requires additional Cadence product

Management of lifecycles, in-design validation, templates, and where-used for libraries

Requires an Altium Designer Subscription

Supported in OrCAD

Advanced component data from IHS Markit®

Requires an Altium Designer Subscription

Not Available in OrCAD

Library health dashboard to monitor validity, quality, and risk issues

Requires an Altium Designer Subscription

Not Available in OrCAD

Outputs & Manufacturing

Built-in fabrication and assembly drawing generation tools

Supported in Altium Designer
Not Available in OrCAD

Intuitive interface for manufacturing output creation

Supported in Altium Designer
Supported in OrCAD

Quickly generate ECOs, reports, and documentation

Supported in Altium Designer
Not Available in OrCAD

Customizable document templates for drawings

Supported in Altium Designer
Not Available in OrCAD

Centralized management for manufacturing packages and communications

Requires an Altium Designer Subscription

Not Available in OrCAD

Share and view Gerbers, ODB++ files, and assembly steps in a browser

Supported in Altium Designer
Not Available in OrCAD

Product Design

Support for multi-board systems and assemblies

Requires an Altium Designer Subscription

Supported in OrCAD

Multi-board 3D product viewer from any web browser

Requires an Altium Designer Subscription

Not Available in OrCAD

Multi-board mechanical integration for SOLIDWORKS® 2020, 2021, and 2022

Requires an Altium Designer Subscription

Not Available in OrCAD

Built-in harness design tools

Requires an Altium Designer Subscription

Not Available in OrCAD

Cloud Services

View and share renders of design files on any device with a web browser

Requires an Altium Designer Subscription

Not Available in OrCAD

Version control, templates, and component libraries stored in cloud

Requires an Altium Designer Subscription

Supported in OrCAD

Built-in task management and commenting for design files and BOMs

Requires an Altium Designer Subscription

Requires additional Cadence product (their EDM suite)

Managed design reuse for schematics, layer stacks, and design templates

Requires an Altium Designer Subscription

Not Available in OrCAD

Project history for every change made to a design

Requires an Altium Designer Subscription

Requires additional Cadence product (their EDM suite)

Platform Integrations

Integration with MCAD applications including SOLIDWORKS®, PTC Creo® Parametric, Autodesk Inventor®, Autodesk® Fusion 360, and Siemens NX

Requires an Altium Designer Subscription

Supported in OrCAD

Advanced integration with SOLIDWORKS® for MCAD component placement, copper geometry, enclosure exchange, and multi-board/rigid-flex sync

Requires an Altium Designer Subscription

Not Available in OrCAD

PLM integration with Arena® PLM, PTC Windchill, Aras PLM, Oracle Agile PLM, and Teamcenter®

Requires an Altium Designer Subscription

Supported in OrCAD

Multiple importer utilities to convert files from other ECAD platforms

Supported in Altium Designer
Supported in OrCAD

Workflows & Processes

Configurable lifecycle management for design data and components

Requires an Altium Designer Subscription

Requires additional Cadence product (their EDM suite)

Managed workflows for part requests, design reviews, project creation/release, and lifecycle approvals

Requires an Altium Designer Subscription

Requires additional Cadence product (their EDM suite)

User, role, and group management with support for Single Sign-On (SSO)

Requires an Altium Designer Subscription

Not Available in OrCAD

Change notifications and change conflict prevention for design documents

Requires an Altium Designer Subscription

Requires additional Cadence product (their EDM suite)

Centralized control over design environments, document templates, and output files for every team member

Requires an Altium Designer Subscription

Requires additional Cadence product (their EDM suite)

Maintenance & Support

Current version

Monthly releases since Nov 2021 (active since 2000, formerly Protel 1985-2000)

Last Release October 2020
(active since 1985)

Backwards compatible with files from all previous releases

Supported in Altium Designer
Supported in OrCAD

On-demand training courses, knowledge base, and community forums

Requires an Altium Designer Subscription

Supported in OrCAD

Live chat and support tickets

Requires an Altium Designer Subscription

Support tickets only, no live chat

Dedicated customer success manager check-ins and onboarding

Requires an Altium Designer Subscription

Not Available in OrCAD

Supported Platforms

Windows 10 and newer

Supported in Altium Designer
Supported in OrCAD

MacOS 10.15 and newer

Not Available in Altium Designer
Not Available in OrCAD

Linux

Not Available in Altium Designer

*64 bit version requires libc.so.6 with subversion GLIBC_2.14 or higher

Pricing

Price

Starting at USD 355 / month


OrCAD PCB Designer Pro: USD 2,300 / year

Time-based subscription

Supported in Altium Designer
Supported in OrCAD

Perpetual License options

Supported in Altium Designer
Supported in OrCAD

Multiple Subscription options

Supported in Altium Designer
Supported in OrCAD

Altium Has Been Enabling Engineers
To Unify Their Design Environment Since 1985

  • Unify your entire PCB design environment via one platform
  • Interact and collaborate with mechanical designers like never before
  • Enjoy the #1 PCB design solution in the world
  • Route it your way, faster than ever
  • Altium Designer includes all the critical design features hobbyists and professional designers need.
  • It’s easy to convert projects from other software into Altium’s file format.
  • Altium Designer sees the highest demand by employers and industry leaders.
  • A complete toolset helps users take products from concept to high-volume production.
  • Altium’s design features are the most intuitive and easiest-to-use.
  • Individual engineers and large enterprises look to Altium to help them stay at the cutting edge of technology.

Trusted by over 20,000 companies, including

About Altium

Since 1985, we have been developing, creating and selling award-winning electronic design tools (software and hardware) that help electronics designers harness the latest devices and technologies, manage their projects across broad design ‘ecosystems’, and create connected, intelligent designs.

Leader-Winter-2024 high-performer-bw Momentum Leader best-pcb-software

Which is better: Altium Designer or OrCAD?

The biggest advantage for Altium Designer users is the powerful electronics development features and the ability to access all the essential PCB design features in a single program. In contrast, OrCAD users must purchase licenses for multiple programs at high expense to have the same capabilities. Large teams and experienced professionals trust the intuitive interface and complete set of design tools in Altium Designer for their projects:

  • Comprehensive multichannel, hierarchical schematic capture
  • Altium Designer’s integrated SPICE engine provides the same features as PSpice
  • Altium Designer’s layer stack calculator includes a built-in field solver for highly accurate impedance calculations
  • Altium Designer simplifies variant management and ECO generation
  • Altium Designer’s powerful PCB layout and routing tools are easier to use than OrCAD’s
  • Access real-time sourcing data with PCB library data inside Altium Designer
  • Collaborate with your team and share design data through the Altium 365 platform

Your PCB design software should help you stay competitive, and outdated design tools just won’t do the trick. OrCAD still uses an outdated toolset that separates important features into separate programs, leaving designs prone to errors. Altium Designer is different, providing the advanced tools professionals expect, but at an accessible price and learning curve. Don't get stuck in the past with OrCAD's outdated user interface, start using the software demanded by industry leaders and professional PCB designers.

 

Why Switch from OrCAD to Altium Designer?
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Switching from OrCAD to Altium Designer?

Switching to Altium Designer from OrCAD might seem like a huge leap. If you're an existing OrCAD user, it's easy to make the switch and start using Altium Designer from Day 1. Altium Designer includes conversion tools for importing your old libraries and projects into Altium’s file format with minimal effort. All Altium Designer users can take advantage of free online resources to learn more about Altium's leading-edge design tools, basic principles, advanced techniques, new capabilities, and everything in-between. Don’t fear the unknown; Altium is the only solution built by PCB designers for PCB designers.

If you’re comparing Altium Designer vs. OrCAD, invest in your success and choose the industry’s best PCB design software package. Get access to the easiest to use and most powerful design software by making the switch to Altium Designer.

* Cadence OrCAD®, OrCAD®, and logo are registered trademarks owned by Cadence Design Systems, Inc.

Try Altium Designer Today!

#1 in Electronics Design