Is CircuitLab abandoned?

I don’t see any new functionality or blog posts. Has the developers jumped ship or have I missed something?

by SynthMan
April 22, 2018

I am brand new to circuitlab. So far it has been extremely helpful and easy to use. I am eager also to know if support will continue. I do note that the community certainly still seems to be active. Over in Electronics Q&A there is plenty of activity in 2019.

by sonnenfeldtechenterprises
February 07, 2019

CircuitLab developer here!

2018 was our biggest year ever on many metrics.

Much of the active work going on is on the textbook, which is a massive amount of effort per page. If you haven't seen that yet, please take a look.

by mrobbins
February 12, 2019

I have sent you email several times about the renewal of my account. This is why I wonder if there is something wrong. Would you reply to my email, please?

by Alvin.WY.Su
March 02, 2019

I am delighted to hear that you are still a going concern. Appreciating it more every day. In addition to it being the quickest way to get to sims, it is one of the most straightforward schematic editors I have ever encountered.

by sonnenfeldtechenterprises
March 03, 2019

I am not delighted to hear that my subscription fee provides the means for authoring a textbook about electronics. I understand that the textbook is really innovative because of the integrated simulation, however, I'd prefer to see more progress in the development of the online simulator itself. Further, it would be another sign of life if the blog received more postings. The last is posting is dated 2015. Reporting new features or changes once or twice a year would be awesome. Blog URL: www.circuitlab.com/blog/

by Dan.Ka
November 12, 2019

The developers have obviously jumped ship. Just raking in the subscription money while they can. Very disappointing because there was so much potential. The textbook is incomplete hasn't been updated is a long long time, so that's a terrible excuse. CircuitLab in itself is half-baked and with zero sign of any future development I won't be renewing my subscription.

by Fenton_Bresler
November 17, 2019

It's never the developer's fault if a service becomes abandoned. I think the developers have done a magnificent job. Circuit labs editing tool is so intuitive and easy. It allows for time or frequency domain analysis including parameter sweep with just a few clicks. It's fun to use. Compare this to pspice. I tried spice once and its user interface is (out)dated and very awkward to use. If you stop using CL, what else do you plan to use?

by Dan.Ka
November 17, 2019

I don't understand how it's not the developer's fault if they abandon development.

The graphing and plot capability is one of those half-baked features, the auto scaling is a complete nightmare. Making useful comparisons is impossible.

by Fenton_Bresler
November 20, 2019

Fenton, e.g., the developers might have been moved to another project or task by management. Think about it, there are various possibilities, but it's usually the managers who decide about the developers' tasks.

by Dan.Ka
November 26, 2019

(CircuitLab developer here. Apologies for the delayed response.)

Hi @Fenton_Bresler, I don't know if anything I can say will assuage your concerns, but I'd like to try nonetheless. It sounds like you're passionate about making better electronics tools available, and that's exactly how we got started. I'd love to be able to dedicate more of my time and energy to working on CircuitLab, but the reality is that CircuitLab is a niche product, and so I currently have a day job to better support my family. This leaves only limited "nights and weekends" time to work on CircuitLab, and much of that goes to technical maintenance and business operations tasks to keep the lights on and the servers running smoothly!

The blog has been largely ignored because almost nobody ever read it :P

@Dan.Ka The idea for the textbook came directly from user feedback. Most of the feedback we get is trouble getting started using the software and understanding how to use it in different situations, and a lot of those issues originate from common questions asked by those just learning electronics. The feedback on the textbook content itself has been mostly positive, and it seems to be addressing one of the top long-time user concerns about CircuitLab.

I am curious to know if there are other areas for feature development that you would prioritize instead.

Apologies again. Thanks for your patience. - Mike

by mrobbins
December 08, 2019

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