GerbDiff is now free for personal use
The full app, every feature, no time limit.
With the release of version 3.0, GerbDiff is free for personal use. Not a trial, and not a stripped-down edition. If you are working on your own personal projects, on Windows, macOS, or Linux, you never have to pay for GerbDiff again.
Why we are doing this
A visual diff before a board goes to fab is a check every hardware engineer should have, and the more people who have it open, the fewer avoidable respins ship. Putting the whole app behind a subscription kept it from exactly the people we most wanted using it: students, hobbyists, and anyone checking a board on their own time.
The honest part is that GerbDiff's revenue was never going to come from personal projects. It comes from professional work, where a single missed change can turn into a five-figure respin. So we changed the model to match. Personal use is free. Commercial use is licensed. The people who get commercial value from the tool pay for it, and everyone else simply gets to use it.
Personal or commercial?
The line is simple. If you are using GerbDiff for your own personal or hobby projects, that is personal use, and it is free. If you are using it for or on behalf of a business, or as part of work you are paid for, that is commercial use and needs a license. Using it at your job is commercial, even if it is only you.
Exports from the free version carry a small line noting they were made with GerbDiff Personal. A commercial license removes it. That is the only functional difference between the two. Everything else about the app is identical.
Commercial pricing
Commercial use is $29 per month, or $249 per year for a single seat. Teams are $19 per seat per month with a five-seat minimum and floating seats, so you pay for how many people use GerbDiff at the same time, not how many have it installed. Every commercial plan starts with a 30-day free trial, and when a trial or subscription ends the app returns to the free Personal tier rather than locking you out.
If you already subscribe
If you are one of our existing subscribers, thank you for backing GerbDiff early. Your current rate is yours to keep for as long as your subscription stays active. You do not need to do anything.