CAD · alternatives
Alternatives to Altium 365
21 cad tools sit alongside Altium 365 in this directory. Below is what separates each from Altium 365 on the figures we hold, price, model, tier count and rating, and a direct comparison for every one.
- Alternatives listed
- 21
- With a free tier
- 11
- Cheaper to start
- 6
- Altium 365 starts at
- $1990/year
Why people look past Altium 365
Only what the record supports. Each point below is a figure on the Altium 365 entry measured against the tools listed beside it.
It costs more than the category median
Altium 365 starts at $1990/year. Across the 8 cad tools listed beside it that publish a price, the median entry point is $737.5/month.
There is no free tier
The record for Altium 365 carries no free tier, so evaluating it means paying first. 11 of the 21 alternatives below can be used without paying.
What each alternative does differently
Ordered by the aggregated rating on each catalogue entry. Differences are drawn from price, pricing model, tier count and rating, the fields the category listing carries. For a feature-level difference, follow the head-to-head link on each card: those pages read both full records.
Full-cloud 3D CAD platform
- Can be used without paying; Altium 365 cannot.
- Starts $1961 a month cheaper, at $29/month.
- Sold on a subscription model rather than Per user per year.
Cloud-based 3D CAD, CAM, and CAE platform
- Can be used without paying; Altium 365 cannot.
- Starts $1920 a month cheaper, at $70/month.
- Sold on a freemium model rather than Per user per year.
- 2 tiers to Altium 365's 3.
Open-source parametric 3D CAD modeler
- Can be used without paying; Altium 365 cannot.
- Starts $1990 a month cheaper, at Free.
- Sold on a open-source model rather than Per user per year.
The photogrammetry engine formerly called RealityCapture, free below a one million dollar revenue line
- Can be used without paying; Altium 365 cannot.
- Starts $740 a year cheaper, at $1250/year.
- Sold on a Free below a revenue threshold, then per seat per year model rather than Per user per year.
Open source point cloud comparison and processing maintained largely by one person in their spare time
- Can be used without paying; Altium 365 cannot.
- Sold on a Open source, no licence fee model rather than Per user per year.
- 1 tier to Altium 365's 3.
Cloud CAD with a scripting language and a geometry engine exposed as an API
- Can be used without paying; Altium 365 cannot.
- Starts $1970 a month cheaper, at $20/month.
- Sold on a Per user per month model rather than Per user per year.
Every Altium 365 alternative at a glance
A dash means the catalogue entry carries no figure, not that the answer is nothing.
| Tool | Entry price | Model | Tiers | Head to head |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Altium 365 (this page) | $1990/year | Per user per year | 3 | |
| OnShapeIf your collaboration problem is mechanical CAD in the browser rather than PCB design | Free, then $29/month | Subscription | 3 | vs Altium 365 |
| Fusion 360If you want combined mechanical and basic electronics design in one lower cost subscription | Free, then $70/month | Freemium | 2 | vs Altium 365 |
| FreeCADIf you need a no-licence route and can accept KiCad-class electronics tooling instead | Free | Open-source | - | vs Altium 365 |
| RealityScan | Free, then $1250/year | Free below a revenue threshold, then per seat per year | 3 | vs Altium 365 |
| CloudCompare | Free | Open source, no licence fee | 1 | vs Altium 365 |
| Zoo | Free, then $20/month | Per user per month | 3 | vs Altium 365 |
| KiCad | Free | Open source, no licence fee | 2 | vs Altium 365 |
| Bambu Studio | Free | Open source, no licence fee | 1 | vs Altium 365 |
| SolveSpace | Free | Open source, no licence fee | 1 | vs Altium 365 |
| Tinkercad | Free | Free | 1 | vs Altium 365 |
| Corona Renderer | Free, then $225/month | Subscription | 3 | vs Altium 365 |
| Bentley iTwin Capture Modeler | On request | Quote | 1 | vs Altium 365 |
| Carlson Software | $4450/one-time | One-time purchase | 3 | vs Altium 365 |
| MicroSurvey CAD | $2945/one-time | One-time purchase | 2 | vs Altium 365 |
| Nomad Sculpt | On request | One-time purchase | 1 | vs Altium 365 |
| MoI (Moment of Inspiration) | On request | One-time purchase | 1 | vs Altium 365 |
| nTop | On request | Quote | 1 | vs Altium 365 |
| COMSOL Multiphysics | On request | Quote | 2 | vs Altium 365 |
| CoreTechnologie | On request | Quote | 3 | vs Altium 365 |
| ANSYS Fluent | On request | Quote | 1 | vs Altium 365 |
| Bentley MicroStation | $2284/year | Per user per year | 2 | vs Altium 365 |
Ratings are aggregated from third-party sources and imported with each catalogue entry; Softwr hosts no reviews of these products. How each figure is used is set out on the Altium 365 badges page.
Cheaper ways to solve the same problem
Free to start (11)
These publish a tier that costs nothing, so they can be evaluated before any money changes hands.
- OnShape , Free, then $29/month
- Fusion 360 , Free, then $70/month
- FreeCAD , Free
- RealityScan , Free, then $1250/year
- CloudCompare , Free
- Zoo , Free, then $20/month
- KiCad , Free
- Bambu Studio , Free
Cheaper than Altium 365 (6)
Entry price under Altium 365's $1990/year. The record does not say what unit that price is charged in, so confirm per-seat versus flat rate before comparing budgets.
- OnShape , Free, then $29/month
- Fusion 360 , Free, then $70/month
- FreeCAD , Free
- RealityScan , Free, then $1250/year
- Zoo , Free, then $20/month
- Corona Renderer , Free, then $225/month
What you would be giving up
Altium 365 is most often brought in for a hardware startup where two engineers draw boards but eight people need to review them, avoiding eight cad seats, a team handing fabrication and assembly data to a contract manufacturer as a versioned release rather than a zip of gerbers, a company running board and enclosure design in parallel and needing bidirectional geometry exchange with mechanical cad, a buyer checking component lifecycle and availability against the live bom before a design is frozen. Anything replacing it has to cover the ones you actually depend on, and a cheaper tool that misses one of them is not cheaper.
Two things this page cannot settle. It compares on price, model, tier count and rating, because those are the fields the category listing carries, feature-level differences need both full records, which is what the head-to-head pages load. And the ratings are third-party aggregates imported with each entry rather than reviews written here, so a 0.2 difference between two tools is noise rather than a finding.
If Altium 365 is broadly right and the question is cost, the Altium 365 pricing breakdown covers every tier and what each one adds. If you want the whole field rather than a shortlist, the CAD category lists everything the directory holds, and best cad tools ranks them.
Altium 365 runs on web, windows, cloud, on-premise. Platform coverage is not carried on the category listing for the alternatives, so it is one more thing to check on each head-to-head page rather than here.
Questions about Altium 365 alternatives
- What are the main alternatives to Altium 365?
- 21 other cad tools are listed in this directory, led by OnShape, Fusion 360, FreeCAD, RealityScan. They are ordered by the aggregated rating on each catalogue entry, not by any Softwr ranking.
- What is the best free alternative to Altium 365?
- 11 of the alternatives listed here can be used without paying: OnShape, Fusion 360, FreeCAD, RealityScan, CloudCompare.
- Is there a cheaper alternative to Altium 365?
- Yes. 6 of the alternatives below start under Altium 365's $1990/year: OnShape at Free, then $29/month, Fusion 360 at Free, then $70/month, FreeCAD at Free, RealityScan at Free, then $1250/year.
- Why do people look for an alternative to Altium 365?
- On the figures on record, 2 things stand out: it costs more than the category median; there is no free tier. Each is set out with the numbers behind it above.
- What would I give up by switching from Altium 365?
- Altium 365 is most often brought in for a hardware startup where two engineers draw boards but eight people need to review them, avoiding eight cad seats, a team handing fabrication and assembly data to a contract manufacturer as a versioned release rather than a zip of gerbers, a company running board and enclosure design in parallel and needing bidirectional geometry exchange with mechanical cad, a buyer checking component lifecycle and availability against the live bom before a design is frozen. Anything you replace it with has to cover the ones you actually rely on, the side-by-side comparisons linked from each alternative below put the two feature records against each other.
- Is there an open-source alternative to Altium 365?
- FreeCAD is recorded with an open-source licence model.
- How were these Altium 365 alternatives chosen?
- They are the tools filed in the same category, CAD, ordered by the aggregated rating on each entry. There is no editorial shortlist, and nothing on this page is paid: no sponsored placement runs on alternatives pages and the order cannot be bought. Softwr has not used these products.
- Where can I compare Altium 365 against one of these directly?
- Every alternative below has a side-by-side page against Altium 365 covering price, platforms, features and what each one is used for. Those pages read the full record for both products rather than the summary shown here.
- Does this list cover every cad tool?
- No. It covers what this directory holds in the CAD category, 21 tools beside Altium 365. The category page lists the rest of the catalogue as it grows.