Two things up front, because you would find them anyway. First, price: Requirements Portal ships in Altium Develop, advertised with unlimited requirements and collaborators for $995 a year¹, and every collaborator can author requirements¹⁰. That is cheaper than Reqlio. Second, if you read that the API was gone after the acquisition: it was, and Altium added a REST API back on 6 August 2026⁵.
When Valispace or Requirements Portal is the right answer
- Your board design lives in Altium. Requirements Portal links requirements to PCB design projects and shows them inside Altium Designer³. Reqlio has no ECAD integration. If the loop you need closed is requirement to schematic, buy the tool next to the schematic.
- You think in parameters, not sentences. Valis are calculated values with units and formulas. They can reference other Valis across projects and sum up a block tree with functions like "sum of children"⁴. Rules can check a requirement against a value automatically³. Reqlio has structured budgets with margins, but no general formula engine inside requirement text.
- You need enterprise IT boxes ticked today. The Valispace plan lists SSO, MFA and IP allow-listing, and an Enterprise plan with optional on-premises deployment¹. Altium 365 is SOC 2 Type 2 certified⁸. Reqlio offers Google sign-in and TOTP 2FA, no SAML or Microsoft SSO yet, self-hosting only as an Enterprise conversation, and no security certification of its own; the hosting provider holds ISO 27001.
- Price is the deciding factor. See above. At list price, one Altium workspace costs less than three Reqlio editors.
The comparison
Claims in the Altium column are sourced; references are at the bottom of the page. Checked October 2026. Altium releases Requirements Portal updates every few weeks⁵, so check the date before you rely on it.
| Valispace / Altium Requirements Portal | Reqlio | |
|---|---|---|
| What it is part of | A module of Altium 365, sold in Altium Develop, Agile Teams and Agile Enterprise, and described as "purpose-built for electronics teams"³. Altium has been owned by Renesas since August 2024¹¹ | A standalone requirements and systems engineering tool. No EDA, PLM or chip vendor behind it |
| Getting a price | Published. $995 per year for Altium Develop with unlimited collaborators¹. The legacy Valispace plan is $999 per user per year, minimum 3 users¹ | Published. €59 and €99 per editor per month, billed annually |
| Parameters and technical budgets | Strong. Valis with formulas, units, matrices and datasets; roll-ups such as sum of children; cross-project references⁴ | Mass, power and cost budgets as a tree, with maturity growth allowance, system margin, a phase margin target and variants. Requirements carry a bound that budget lines are checked against. No general formula engine |
| Verification | Yes. V&V module with activities, steps, runs and test campaigns, plus rule-based verification⁶ | Yes. Four methods, activities, campaigns, runs, coverage matrix and model philosophy |
| Risk register, FMEA, lifecycle gates | Not among the four documented modules (Project, Blocks, Requirements, V&V)² | In the base product. 5×5 risk register, AIAG-VDA FMEA, gates with readiness and evidence |
| Baselines | Reported as not supported in December 2025, with a return planned for 2026¹⁰. The release notes up to 1 October 2026 do not announce them⁵. Ask for a demo | Baselines with drift against the active baseline and side-by-side compare |
| Formal reviews | The Valispace plan lists "Collaboration & Review Features"¹. Requirements Portal documents commenting, ownership, notifications and tags⁷; we found no review rounds with separate approver sign-off described. Ask for a demo | Review rounds, reviewer and approver roles, verdicts anchored to the reviewed version |
| AI assistance | Included. Engineering Assistant can create, change and delete requirements on request; it replaced ValiAssistant in August 2026⁵ | Included. Quality checks and 13 AI actions, plus an MCP server for Claude and other agents |
| API | Yes. REST API with token access and a Python package⁹ | MCP server with personal access tokens. No documented public REST API |
| Data residency | Altium 365 runs on AWS; you pick the region at workspace activation, and EMEA is Frankfurt with backup in Paris¹² | Frankfurt, Germany. creoline GmbH (ISO/IEC 27001:2022, TÜV SÜD) in firstcolo FRA4. One PostgreSQL database per customer |
| Interchange | Word export from templates¹³; CSV/Excel import and export on the Valispace plan¹; REST API⁹ | ReqIF round trip; CSV import; CSV, XLSX, Word and PDF export |
What the table actually says. This is not a price argument. Altium wins that one. It is an argument about scope and ownership. Requirements Portal is the requirements end of an electronics platform, and it is very good at parameters. Reqlio is the whole systems engineering record of a hardware programme: risks, FMEA, gates, interfaces, reviews and baselines next to the requirements and budgets, with an ECSS project template. None of it depends on which PCB tool you use.
How you actually move
We found no ReqIF export in the Requirements Portal documentation. If your workspace has one, use it; Reqlio imports ReqIF. Otherwise the path is a file. Requirements Portal exports Word documents from templates¹³, the Valispace plan lists a CSV/Excel exporter¹, and the REST API reads requirements, blocks and Valis⁹. Reqlio imports requirements from CSV with a column mapping step, and can extract requirements from a PDF with AI.
- What comes across: requirement IDs, titles, text, status and verification method and status, into the specification you choose.
- What does not: Valis as live formulas. A parameter in a requirement arrives as text. Rebuild the numbers in a Reqlio budget, importing the budget lines from CSV, and attach the requirement bound there.
- Trace links and the block tree are not in a requirements CSV. Plan a second pass for links.
Move one subsystem first. Check the preview before you apply it.
Pricing, side by side
Altium: $995 a year for an Altium Develop workspace with unlimited collaborators¹, which includes one Altium Designer seat¹⁴. Valispace plan: $999 per user per year, minimum three users¹. Reqlio Team: €59 per editor per month billed annually, 3-editor minimum (€69 monthly, 2-editor minimum); Business €99 (€119 monthly); Enterprise by quote. Reviewers, approvers, viewers and portal guests are free. Thirty-day trial, or a €1,500 pilot over 90 days for regulated teams. If you only need requirements and parameters and already pay for Altium, stay there.
Questions people ask before switching
We rely on Valis. What replaces them?
Partly, the budget module: mass, power and cost trees with growth allowance, margins and variants, and requirement bounds that budget lines are checked against. What it does not replace is a general formula engine inside requirement text. If your workflow is built on Vali formulas across many projects, try that part first before deciding.
What counts as an editor?
Anyone who creates or edits requirements, specs, activities, risks, FMEA rows or budgets, logs test runs, runs AI actions, or manages baselines and reviews. Reviewers, viewers and supplier portal guests are free. Sign-off is not a seat.
Can we migrate from Requirements Portal?
Over CSV. Export your requirements, map the columns on import, and check the preview. Parameters arrive as text, so rebuild budgets in the budget module. Run one subsystem through before you move the programme.
You are one engineer. What happens if you stop?
It is the right question. The answer is written down rather than promised: ReqIF, XLSX and CSV export on every plan at any time; read-only access to your data for twelve months after cancellation; source-code escrow on Enterprise.
Sources
Every claim above about Valispace, Altium and Requirements Portal, with where it came from. Checked 3 October 2026.
- Valispace, Pricing — "Valispace is now Requirements Portal", in Altium Develop; unlimited requirements and collaborators for $995 a year; acquired by Altium February 2024; Valispace plan $999 per user per year, minimum 3, with collaboration and review features, SSO, MFA, IP whitelisting, API, CSV/Excel import and export; Enterprise with optional on-premises.
- Altium Documentation, Requirements Portal — Features Explained — modules: Project, Blocks, Requirements, Verification & Validation.
- Altium Documentation, Requirements Portal — "purpose-built for electronics teams"; in Develop, Agile Teams and Agile Enterprise; PCB traceability, parametric requirements, verification rules.
- Altium Documentation, Valis and Calculations — formulas, units, matrices, datasets, cross-project references, sum of children.
- Altium Documentation, New in Requirements Portal — REST API added 6 Aug 2026; Engineering Assistant edits requirements from 23 Jun 2026; ValiAssistant deprecated 20 Aug 2026; comments added 10 Jun 2026. No baseline feature announced from 30 Sep 2025 to 1 Oct 2026.
- Altium Documentation, Verification & Validation Module — activities, steps, runs, test campaigns, rules verification.
- Altium Documentation, Collaborative Features — commenting, ownerships, notifications, tags.
- Altium, Altium 365 SOC 2 Type 2 — "Altium 365 is officially SOC 2 Type 2 certified."
- Altium Documentation, REST API and Python API — token access, Swagger endpoints, pip install valispace.
- Michael Jastram, SE-Trends, Valispace reloaded: Altium Requirements Portal, 11 December 2025 — all workspace collaborators are also authors (€960 a year); "Altium does not currently support baselines (any more), but these will be possible again next year (2026)"; API then missing (since added, see ⁵).
- Altium, Renesas completes acquisition of Altium — completed 1 August 2024.
- Altium 365 Trust Center, Where is Altium 365 data stored? — AWS; region chosen at activation; EMEA in Frankfurt, backup in Paris.
- Altium Documentation, Document Export — requirements exported to editable .docx from templates.
- Altium, Altium Develop pricing — includes one Altium Designer author, one workspace and unlimited workspace users; requirements traceability and AI requirements assistant out of the box.
Valispace is a trademark of Valispace GmbH. Altium, Altium 365, Altium Develop and Altium Designer are trademarks of Altium LLC. Reqlio is not affiliated with or endorsed by Valispace, Altium or Renesas. Comparisons reflect publicly documented information on the date shown; check the sources before relying on them for a purchasing decision.
Try it against a real specification
Thirty days, every module and the AI included, no card. Bring one subsystem's requirements and its mass budget, and see whether it holds up.