Question 1

Do I need to install anything?

Accepted Answer

No. The simulator runs entirely in the browser and works offline once the page has loaded. There is no plugin, no download and no virtual machine.

Question 2

Is this a simulator or an emulator?

Accepted Answer

Both, in two halves. This page is the simulator: protocol behaviour is reimplemented in JavaScript rather than running vendor software, which is why it opens instantly and costs nothing — and why what it knows has an edge. Anything it does not implement is refused with the reason rather than silently accepted. The other half is emulation: your own licensed images booted on a lab server, where the command line is the vendor's own because the software is.

Question 3

Can I run real Cisco IOS images?

Accepted Answer

Not in the browser — an IOS image needs a machine emulator and gigabytes of RAM. The lab platform runs open-source devices from our library, and your own licensed images uploaded under My images. zNetLaB does not distribute vendor images.

Question 4

Does the free plan do anything useful?

Accepted Answer

It is the whole simulator, not a sample of it. Unlimited graded attempts, every track and every level, topologies up to sixty devices, unlimited saved labs, the full CLI with TAB completion, packet capture with .pcap export, automation, SD-WAN, fault injection and the subnetting tools. Nothing in the simulator is held back for a paying account, because it runs in your own browser and costs nothing to serve. What the paid plans buy is image devices on a lab server.

Question 5

Which vendors are supported?

Accepted Answer

The simulator imitates many vendor CLIs on one topology: Cisco IOS, IOS-XE, NX-OS and ASA, Juniper Junos, Arista EOS and FRRouting, with FortiGate, Palo Alto PAN-OS, Huawei VRP, MikroTik RouterOS, Aruba, Nokia SR OS, Check Point and VyOS besides. A Junos router and a Cisco router form an OSPF adjacency and pass traffic, because the configuration language differs but the protocol does not. A command a real device supports but the simulator does not yet simulate says so and points you to the real labs.

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