Upverter — My experience designing PCBs

Upverter is an entirely online Printed Circuit Board software. I have used it since around 2016 to design something like 4 boards. I am not associated with Upverter in any form, but I do believe it is a very useful software worth mentioning.
In this article I am going to briefly discuss about its characteristics and my personal opinions.

Pricing

Upverter is currently Free.
This aspect is specially important if you want to develop commercial products. It is common that companies offer a limited free version of a software where you could only use it to open source/open hardware products.
In the beginning Upverter had distinct pricing plans with different features. It has since changed its business model to make the use of the software free.
The current source of revenue for the company seems to be their Concierge services. It is possible to order board layout, components footprint and schematic.

Collaborating

One of Upverter’s most interesting characteristic is that you can work with others at the same time in the same design. For instance, two people can work with the same schematics. While one deals with a DC-DC converter, the other can work on a sensor. It is just like a Google Docs for PCBs. For me that has been a large productivity upgrade.

Besides that, it is possible to check and fork the several public designs created by the community.

Verified Parts Database

There is a great parts database. For most of the common parts, there is no need to design the schematics or footprints. Their parts search is generally good. A verified parts will be cleared labeled.
I have never had problems with their verified parts, which takes a big weight off the shoulders not having to double check every component.

PCB Layout

Their layout tools are generally easy to use. It is possible to change between metric and imperial system. They offer good default values for the vias and traces and it is possible to create complex multi-layered designs.
The one thing that might be missing is the functionality to auto-trace the board. However it is understandable that they will not offer that in the future since that part of their business model is to offer board layout for hire.

The issues

There are surely some bugs in Upverter.
The program might crash and reload when moving too many parts at the same time. For example, I would select several components and try to drag them and it would make the browser to refresh.
The connection with their servers seem a little unstable sometimes. Upverter normally saves the design on every change. It happens, however, that it cannot save after some time. It shows on the screen when was the last checkpoint, so you need to make sure it was saved before you close the design.
There are some other bugs such as when moving a component in the schematics, the wire connected to it might move in a weird way. It would sometimes even the connection.

When you get used to these bugs, they don’t bother you as much.

TLDR

Upverter is free a colaborative PCB running in your browser. It has a newer feel compared to other circuit software. It has a large database of verified parts ready to use which might make you more confident about your design. It has some bugs, but overall I like it a lot and highly recommend it.

If someone is interested I could give my perspective in some other aspect of it.