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netplex./Alternatives/The EVE-NG node limit
EVE-NG node limit 63 → 7, June 2026 netplex: no limit Scale by RAM

EVE-NG just cut free to 7 nodes.
netplex. free has no limit at all.

EVE-NG's V7 release (24 June 2026) replaced the 63-node Community Edition with a 7-node Freemium tier - the free ceiling dropped by 89%, and the CEO has said Community is headed for EOL. netplex. moved the opposite direction: Associate and Professional both had a 1,000-node cap, and as of 28 July 2026 that cap is gone. The only ceiling left is your host's RAM.

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EVE-NG's own V7 announcement confirms it: free dropped from 63 nodes to 7, and the old Community Edition is going end-of-life. That's EVE-NG's call, made in its own release notes - not netplex's opinion of it. netplex.'s Associate and Professional tiers both have no node limit: not a bigger number to hit, no ceiling to hit at all.

EVE-NG's free tier just got smaller

Their ceiling dropped. Ours disappeared.
netplex. has no node limit.

Point 01

63 became 7, in one release

EVE-NG's V7 (24 June 2026) retired the 63-node Community Edition and replaced it with Freemium: a single-admin, 7-node free tier. Per EVE-NG's own release notes, Community is on its way to EOL.

Point 02

Pro still exists - and still costs

EVE-NG Pro (~150 EUR) lifts the ceiling to 1,024, licensed to your install. That's still the only supported way past a EVE-NG free-tier cap - it just starts from a smaller number now.

Point 03

That cap is gone on netplex. too

Associate and Professional used to top out at 1,000 nodes each. As of 28 July 2026, that cap is gone on both. Every tier runs as many nodes as your host's RAM allows - no purchase, no upgrade, no licence line.

Point 04

Scale across hosts

Big topologies can stitch across multiple hosts with a VXLAN fabric, so a single machine's RAM isn't the hard stop either.

Feature comparison

EVE-NG vs netplex.
The short version.

Comparison of EVE-NG Freemium and Pro node limits against netplex., which has no node cap on any tier.
Feature EVE-NG
Freemium (free) / Pro		 netplex.
Tier shown per row
Nodes per lab - free tier 7 No node limit
Past the cap Buy Pro → 1,024 Nothing to buy - already uncapped
What bounds scale Your licence tier Host RAM - a hardware choice
Multi-host scale-out Not the model VXLAN fabric across hosts · roadmap, beta
Cost to go past 7 ~150 EUR (Pro) Free
Modern UI at scale Dated console React canvas - handles large topologies
Setup Install + size the server Under 5 minutes

EVE-NG facts from eve-ng.net documentation and community sources (2026). netplex. rows are code-verified.

Straight with you

7 nodes is tight - even a basic three-tier campus topology can bump into it, and you're on a single admin login until you pay for Pro's multi-user too. 63 nodes, back when that was the free number, was genuinely plenty for most cert study; that headroom is what's gone. netplex. doesn't ask you to buy anything to get past a small number - past a single host's RAM you're into multi-host territory, which is real work on any platform.

More EVE-NG comparisons

Researching EVE-NG? Start wherever your problem is.

EVE-NG alternativeThe full side-by-side EVE-NG onlineRun it in your browser EVE-NG without VMwareNo hypervisor to install EVE-NG on MacApple Silicon included EVE-NG Pro alternativeNo node limit, free EVE-NG 7 / FreemiumFree tier cut to 7 nodes
Questions

Node limit questions,
answered plainly.

What is the EVE-NG node limit?
It depends on the edition. Freemium, the current free build, allows 7 nodes for the admin user only, plus unlimited VPCS nodes. Pro allows up to 1,024. The retired Community edition allowed 63. Before June 2026 most free users were on that 63-node figure.
Why does EVE-NG limit nodes at all?
It is a commercial decision, not a technical one. The emulator is limited by RAM and CPU like any other, so the cap exists to separate the free build from the paid one. That is a legitimate way to run a business - it just means the number you get is set by a licence file rather than by your hardware.
Does netplex. have a node limit?
No, on any tier including the free Associate tier. The ceiling is the RAM and CPU of the machine you run it on. What does differ by tier is link speed - Associate caps links at 50 Mbps, and Professional and above are uncapped.
How many nodes can my hardware actually run?
Rough arithmetic: a Linux container node costs tens of megabytes, a small virtual router one to two gigabytes, and a full vendor VM like a vMX or a large firewall four to eight. On 64 GB of RAM that is comfortably twenty to thirty real routers, or several hundred containers. The licence stops mattering long before the hardware does.
Do VPCS nodes count toward the limit?
Not on EVE-NG - unlimited VPCS nodes are allowed even on Freemium. That helps for endpoints and ping tests, but VPCS is a simple PC simulator with a handful of commands, so it does not substitute for a real node when you need routing.

Last reviewed September 2026 · Spotted something out of date? Tell us.

7 nodes isn't enough?
netplex. has no limit at all.

Free Associate tier - no node limit in a single lab, bounded by RAM, not a licence. Stitch across hosts when you outgrow one box.

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