Open-Source Network Simulators (2026 Edition)

Brian Linkletter published an updated overview of open-source network simulators and emulators.

containerlab and GNS3 are clear leaders (no surprise there) with the original vrnetlab becoming abandonware (fortunately, we have Roman Dodin’s fork), which makes me think we should focus on using netlab primarily with containerlab and slowly sunset the Vagrant support, particularly considering some people actively hate the license change.

Also, if anyone feels like writing an interface (provider module) between netlab and GNS3, the pull request would be most welcome 😎

Any thoughts? Please leave a comment!

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