Some people like the autorouter, but I've met no one who can tolerate the schematic capture package. The library management is TERRIBLE, mostly provided by end users and the package outlines that are provided by bEAGLE are often quite wrong, and the part numbers used are seldom linked back to a manufacturer's part number, hence they're essentially unusable.

I don't use it unless someone insists. A half-hour job with other software takes as much as two weeks in bEAGLE, and, no matter how hard you try, it's often impossible to draw something correctly, nor is it possible to generate a correct package outline (footprint).

My own preference is for the free DOS-OrCad (not Windows!!!) software, which I've been using since back when it wasn't free, available on the www.

The bEAGLE autorouter compares very well in it's 2-layer version for very small boards, as compared with other free 2-layer packages. However, the paid-in-full (>>$1kUS) version still has the same crappy library management, and utterly amateurish schematic capture software. The multilayer router is only a half-assed tool, requiring considerable manual routing after it has done all it will do.

The bEAGLE schematic package is awful.

RE