Altium Designer® vs. Zuken CADSTAR™
The Ultimate Comparison Guide

Which is better: Altium Designer or Zuken CADSTAR?

Altium knows that professional design teams need to stay productive and work in a collaborative, unified design environment. Altium Designer was built with the need of professional designers in mind while also enabling advanced designs and application areas. With a complete set of design and automation features in a single application, users are ready to quickly design simple parts or advanced electronic assemblies from day one.

Zuken CADSTAR was also intended to satisfy the needs of professional designers, ranging from small companies and startups to larger enterprises. However, it was built with the same disjointed architecture as other PCB design applications. Users have to purchase progressively higher subscription levels to access features that are standard in other ECAD software packages. The Zuken CADSTAR suite also misses many important features that are needed to ensure smooth part selection, sourcing, production, and transition to volume manufacturing. Altium Designer overcomes these challenges through comprehensive integration with the electronics supply chain. All this is included in Altium Designer alongside the industry’s best CAD features, board planning and layout features, and much more.

Altium’s mission in developing Altium Designer was to create the most powerful yet easiest to use PCB design application, where all professional design features are available in a single platform. The biggest advantage Altium Designer offers over Zuken CADSTAR is the ability to access all the essential PCB design features in a single program without buying additional modules. Altium takes professional features to the next level with the best set of professional CAD features for modern electronics.

Industry-standard capabilities like instant manufacturing output generation, CAM tools, a layer stack editor with integrated field solver, high speed analysis features, and many powerful extensions are included in Altium Designer. Large teams and experienced professionals trust the powerful interface and complete set of design tools in Altium Designer for their projects:
 

• Comprehensive multichannel, hierarchical schematic capture that supports multi-board assemblies
• A mixed signal simulation SPICE engine with IBIS model support
• The schematic editor gives with access to verified component models and supplier information
• A built-in field solver for highly accurate impedance calculations inside the Layer Stack Manager
• Altium Designer’s PCB routing tools provide powerful automation while still being easy to use
• Access real-time sourcing data and CAD models for your components in your PCB libraries
• Collaborate with your team and share design data through the Altium 365^™ platform

When you’re ready to turbocharge your productivity and competitiveness, you need software that helps you design with confidence. Instead of using an outdated application structure in the Zuken CADSTAR suite, use the advanced set of design, sourcing, and manufacturing tools found in Altium Designer. The intuitive interface and instant access to critical data helps you quickly move through the design process and seamlessly transition to market. Stay productive, efficient, and competitive with Altium Designer.