So I decided I'd try Freerouting again and after a bit of googling I also realised there's a new version of Kicad. Specifically Kicad 7.

Couple of cool things:

• The Freerouting plugin just works from inside Kicad now. I had previously also had to do the export to spectra, freeroute, import back into Kicad dance. It still struggled quite a lot with that board I posted above but if I had setup my netlists properly I could probably have persuaded it to do the data traces completely.
• Shift F - Automatically Complete Trace Route. Basically selective, simple auto-routing.
• Pack and Move Tool. Places selected components near each other. Very useful for initially placing components.

Somehow upgrading Kicad major versions is still a pain in the proverbial but 7 seems worth it.

My company (and therefore me) used the Number One Systems Easy PC Pro for five years, but changed to Altium when I retired (and before I returned part-time) so that's what I use now.

Neil

I like the free version of DipTrace which is limited to 200 holes but when I bumped into that limit several years ago they were kind enough to provide me with a 500 hole license. I have not tried KICAD, yet.

Recently I've been using the free browser based EasyEDA package in order to take advantage of JLCPCB's once-per-month $8 coupon for PCB orders from designs created in EasyEDA. With the coupon I pay $1.50, including shipping, for five 4x4 inch PCBs. I'm currently hand routing an EasyEDA version of a simple and relatively inexpensive development SBC with integrated ROM Emulator/Programmer (see below).