This pressure eventually provided the incentive for Altium to release a simplified and more user friendly version of their professional EDA software package and flagship product, Altium Designer, targeted at less complex circuit board projects. The rise of KiCAD further fragmented the market. Several initiatives such as Eagle have attempted to fill this void, releasing restricted versions of semi-professional EDA tools. This resulted in high piracy rates for professional software packages, or users sticking to outdated software, including CircuitMaker 2000. The leading EDA software vendors traditionally lack free versions, and professional licenses are unaffordable for amateurs.

Open source hardware and easy-to-use development boards such as the Arduino and the Raspberry Pi have increased community interest in electronics, particularly in fablabs, hackerspaces and makerspaces. This popularity has been observed by Altium, and the most successful features of CircuitMaker 2000 have since been integrated in DXP2004 and later were incorporated into Altium Designer. Due to its new status as abandonware, CircuitMaker 2000 remained popular among hobby users and students. When Protel was acquired by Altium Limited in the early 2000s, engineering efforts were redirected towards the development of DXP2004, and CircuitMaker 2000 was eventually discontinued. The wide availability of plug-ins and component libraries have accelerated adoption, and quickly amassed a worldwide community.

Its ease of use and comparatively low cost quickly gained it popularity among students, and the software suite was commonly used to teach circuit board design to engineering students in universities. Electronic design automation software (EDA) developer Protel marketed CircuitMaker 2000 as a schematic capture tool, together with Traxmaker as its PCB layout counterpart, as a powerful yet affordable solution for circuit board needs.

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