In Altium, your engineers place and route every board by hand. In Flux, you give the requirement, and the AI engineer picks the parts, draws the schematic, and routes the board.
Flux is your team's autonomous hardware engineer. Give it a requirement. It plans the design, picks the parts, draws the schematic, routes the board, designs the mechanical parts, and writes the firmware. It checks its own work in simulation and design rule checks, and hands your engineers files ready to manufacture.
Altium Designer is PCB design software. It covers schematics, layout, routing, SPICE simulation, signal integrity analysis, and manufacturing files in one interface.[1]
Altium Develop includes Altium Designer and Altium 365, for reviews, sourcing, and releases.[2]
Altium routes high-speed and dense layouts at any angle with an interactive routing engine.[1]
Altium manages multi-board interconnects in one environment and validates the 3D assembly.[1]
Reviewers can comment on a design in Altium 365 without Altium Designer.[2]
Flux picks parts from 734,000+ public parts with live prices and stock, draws the schematic, places the parts, and routes the board like an experienced designer. It checks the design against every datasheet, runs circuit and full-wave electromagnetic simulation, and hands you manufacturing files. Your engineers review and edit the result. Flux runs in your web browser.
| Feature | Flux | Altium |
|---|---|---|
| Requirements and specification | The AI engineer turns your idea into requirements and a product specification, and checks the design against them. | Requirements & Systems Portal in Altium 365[9] |
| What it is | AI hardware engineer with its own design tools | PCB design software[1] |
| Where it runs | In your web browser. Nothing to install. Your projects live in the cloud. | Windows desktop software that you install on your computer[3] |
| Who does the design work | The Flux agent. Your engineers review and edit. | Your engineers[1] |
| Schematic and parts | Built in. Picks from 734,000+ public parts. | Built in[1] |
| Placement and routing | The AI engineer places the parts and routes the board like an experienced designer. Your engineers review and edit. | Interactive routing that your engineers drive[1] |
| High-speed design | The AI engineer plans DDR topology and timing budgets, routes differential pairs and length-matched buses, tunes length and skew, fans out BGAs with blind, buried, and microvias, and sets trace impedance from your stackup. It checks the routed board with S-parameters, TDR, eye diagrams, crosstalk analysis, and a signal integrity, power integrity, and EMC review. Your engineers review and edit. | Differential pairs, length tuning, and impedance-controlled routing that your engineers drive[5] |
| Flex and rigid-flex boards | Built in. Named stackups for rigid and flex areas, coverlay and stiffeners, hatched flex pours, bending lines with a folded 3D view and folded STEP files, flex design checks, and Gerber, ODB++, and IPC-2581 files. The AI engineer routes each area on its own layers. | Rigid-flex design modes in the Layer Stack Manager, with substacks, board regions, and bending lines that your engineers set up and route by hand[12] |
| Parts and sourcing | 734,000+ public parts, with live prices and stock from distributors | Manufacturer Part Search with real-time pricing and availability from suppliers[4] |
| Simulation and design rule checks | SPICE, power delivery network, full-wave electromagnetic, signal integrity, thermal, and mechanical simulation, plus design rule checks | SPICE simulation and signal integrity analysis[1] |
| Firmware | Writes firmware for the board it designed | A separate code editor[1] |
| Wiring harnesses | Built in. Flux designs the wiring harnesses between the boards: connectors, pinouts, and wires, in the same project. | Harness design in Altium Designer[11] |
| Manufacturing files | Gerber, ODB++, IPC-2581, bill of materials, pick-and-place, and more; Flux can check the files before you order, including copper gaps, silkscreen, board outline, BOM, and pick-and-place files. | Manufacturing files[2] |
| Quotes and orders | Quotes and orders for boards, 3D printing, CNC machining, and wire harnesses, from the project. | PCB fabrication and assembly quotes and orders through Altimade[8] |
| Import from other tools | Imports complete projects from Altium, OrCAD and Allegro, KiCad, PADS and Xpedition, CADSTAR, Eagle, Fusion Electronics, EasyEDA, DipTrace, and SOLIDWORKS PCB. Flux imports Labcenter Proteus SDF netlists with Specctra board exports. IPC-2581 revision B and C files become board projects with reusable footprint parts. | Import Wizard for OrCAD, Allegro, PADS, KiCad, EAGLE, and other tools[7] |
| Versions, branches, and merges | Full change history. The AI engineer forks a design into a second version, keeps both, and merges the changes that you pick. | Git-based version control in an Altium 365 Workspace[6] |
| Who reviews the work | The whole team, in one live project in the browser: electrical, layout, mechanical, and firmware engineers | Shared Workspace projects for editing, viewing, and commenting[6] |
| Product images, videos, and documents | Product images, product videos, datasheets, and regulatory documents, made from the design in the project. | A separate tool[1] |
| And the mechanical parts too | ||
| Mechanical CAD | Built in, kernel agnostic. From an enclosure to a complete robot arm. | 3D assembly check and mechanical CAD synchronization[1] |
| Mechanical simulation | Finite-element stress, thermal, and airflow simulation | STEP export to a separate mechanical tool[10] |
| Mechanical manufacturing | STEP, STL, and 3MF files, plus quotes for 3D printing, CNC machining, sheet metal, and laser cutting | STEP export to a separate mechanical tool[10] |
| CNC toolpaths and G-code | The AI engineer writes the toolpaths, the G-code, a toolpath preview, and a setup sheet for the parts that it designed. | STEP export to a separate CAM tool[10] |
Flux places the parts and routes the board like an experienced designer, and it respects your design intent and your layout rules.
Flux picks from 734,000+ public parts. It checks live prices and stock across distributors before it puts a part on the board.
Flux checks every board against your layout rules and the capabilities of your fabricator.
Flux reads the datasheet of every part and checks the design against its pinouts, ratings, and limits.
Bring your Altium project in. Ask the agent to change it. Then get it manufactured: Flux hands you the files that your manufacturer needs.
Example request
“Move the USB connector 3 mm closer to the board edge, and reroute its traces.”
Altium Designer 
OrCAD and Allegro 
KiCad 
PADS, Xpedition, and NX 
CADSTAR 
Eagle and Fusion 
EasyEDA 
SolidWorks 
CATIA 
Creo 
Onshape Import complete projects, part libraries, and 3D models. Schematics, parts, and placement come across, and routing from most formats.
Imported designs are ready to edit right away. Ask "move the USB cutout 3 cm left" or "make the enclosure tighter", and Flux does the work.
Flux hands you the files that your manufacturer needs: Gerber, ODB++, IPC-2581, bill of materials, and pick-and-place for the board, and STEP, STL, or 3MF for the mechanical parts.
Orchestration
Hand Flux a complete product. The lead AI engineer splits it into workstreams, starts parallel threads across projects, manages them, and reports back.
Each workstream runs in its own agent thread. The main board, the daughterboards, and the enclosure come together at the same time.
The lead engineer starts work in other projects and tracks it all from one place.
It monitors every thread, steers work that goes off the brief, and collects the results.
Changes that move an interface or resize a board wait for your approval.
Flux writes a brief for each board with its outline, mounting holes, connectors, and the enclosure openings they line up with. Each board gets its own project and its own AI engineer, and all three are designed in parallel. Flux then places the finished boards in the main assembly and measures clearances and connector alignment in millimeters.
Verification lab
Flux doesn't stop at generating designs. The AI engineer simulates and checks its own work with professional-grade solvers, and it shows you the results.
SPICE simulation of analog, power, and mixed-signal circuits, with Monte Carlo, temperature sweep, and noise analysis, run and read by the AI engineer.
Full-wave simulation of the routed board: signal integrity, power integrity, impedance, S-parameters, crosstalk, and antennas.
Electrical and manufacturing rule checks on every schematic and board.
Reads the datasheet of every part and checks the design against its pinouts, ratings, and limits.
Flux runs PCB thermal analysis of the routed board at stated operating powers, plus heat and airflow simulation of the enclosure, before you build.
Airflow and cooling through the enclosure, so vents, fans, and heat sinks work before the first prototype.
Finite-element stress analysis of brackets, enclosures, and mounts.
Sourcing
Flux connects directly to major electronics and mechanical parts distributors. The AI engineer picks chips, connectors, screws, and standoffs that are in stock, compares prices across distributors, and replaces parts that are at end of life before the product goes to production.
Digi-Key 
LCSC 
Mouser 
Arrow 
Verical 
TME 
HQonline 
McMaster-Carr 
MISUMI 
JLCMC Manufacturing
Flux gets quotes directly from the fabricators for circuit boards and assembly, 3D printing in plastic and metal, CNC machining, sheet metal, laser cutting, injection molding, casting, and wiring harnesses. The AI engineer compares price and lead time, checks the design against each fabricator's rules, keeps the quote current as the design changes, and places the order when you confirm.
JLCPCB 
PCBWay 
OSH Park 
AISLER 
Craftcloud JLC 3D printing PCBWay 3D printing 
Shapeways 
OSH Cut 
SendCutSend 
MiniProto The board, the mechanical parts, and the firmware are in one project. The agent can change the board and the mechanical parts together. You do not move files between an electronics tool, a mechanical tool, and a code editor.
There is nothing to install and no license server to manage. Flux works on any computer with a modern web browser.
Share a project with a link. Several people can edit it at the same time. Nobody sends files by email or asks which version is the latest.
New features and new AI models arrive in the product. You do not install a new version or move your projects to it.
The Flux library has 734,000+ public parts. You do not build a part library before you start.
Invite people with a link. Single sign-on and project-level permissions control who sees what.
One platform
Flux is not a collection of disconnected CAD applications. It is one AI-native engineering platform where every discipline shares the same project, the same data, and the same AI engineer.
Parametric enclosures, brackets, and mounts, fitted to the real board's mounting holes and connectors. Bring in your own STEP models. One parts library for the whole product: chips and connectors, devices that are not on the board, and mechanical hardware such as screws and standoffs.
Firmware for the board Flux designed, for example on Arm Cortex-M, RISC-V, AVR, or Pico, then built, analyzed, and unit tested.
Model-agnostic AI
Flux pairs frontier AI models with a state-of-the-art agent harness built for CAD and EDA. The models bring reasoning. Flux brings the engineering tools, project context, and workflows that turn that reasoning into working hardware.
Adaptive splits every engineering job into tasks and gives each task to the model that does it best for the price. Hard design decisions go to frontier models. Routine work goes to fast, low-cost models. Independent tasks run in parallel, so complete devices come together faster. Your team works with one AI engineer, and Flux handles the delegation behind the scenes.
Work with the frontier models your team already trusts, inside Flux.
Every model gets Flux's specialized engineering tools, project context, and workflows.
When a better model ships, your team gets it without switching engineering platforms.
Avoid depending on any one model provider for your engineering capacity.
Adaptive matches each engineering step to the model that does it best, from deep design decisions to routine checks.
See current pricing
Trial terms depend on your current offer.
See current pricing
Trial terms depend on your current offer.
See current pricing
Trial terms depend on your current offer.
See current pricing
Teams subscriptions start paid.
Eligible individual plans include a free trial. Teams subscriptions start paid; trial and pricing terms depend on your current offer. See all plans
Use Altium when your engineers want to design every board by hand in a desktop tool. Use Flux when you want an AI engineer to do the design work and your engineers to review it.
Explore individual plan offers, or book a demo with our team.
