The PNETLab alternative
for people who want the unlimited part without the fork.
PNETLab is free and has no node cap, and that is a genuinely good deal. It gets there by forking EVE-NG Community - a codebase its own upstream disowns and that reached end of life in June 2026. netplex. gives you the same no-limit lab on code written from scratch, with a signed update channel and someone to answer the phone.
PNETLab's headline feature is real. Its foundation is the problem. PNETLab is an unauthorised fork of EVE-NG Community. That is not an insult, it is the situation: EVE-NG's team has publicly disowned it, so nothing PNETLab ships flows back upstream and nothing upstream flows down. In June 2026 EVE-NG Community itself was retired and replaced by the 7-node Freemium build, which means the code PNETLab forked no longer has a maintainer at all. Everything you run on it - the web stack, the hypervisor glue, the console plumbing - is now maintained by whoever in the PNETLab community feels like it, on a codebase with no security pipeline behind it. If you are labbing on a laptop for a weekend, fine. If you are putting it on a company network, that is the part to think about.
Free and unlimited is the easy half.
Supported and current is the hard half.
A fork of a codebase that no longer has an upstream
PNETLab is built on EVE-NG Community, which EVE-NG retired in June 2026 in favour of the 7-node Freemium build. There is no upstream to pull fixes from any more. Every kernel, QEMU, PHP and web-stack CVE from here on is somebody in the community's side project, or nobody's.
The console still wants software on your machine
Like EVE-NG, PNETLab hands your browser a telnet:// or vnc:// link and expects a client integration pack on the desktop to catch it. That is a per-machine install, a per-machine set of file associations, and a support ticket every time somebody's PuTTY path moves. netplex. renders the console in the browser tab itself - nothing to install, nothing to associate.
The lab store is a stranger's disk image
The community lab store is genuinely PNETLab's nicest idea - thousands of ready-made labs, one click. It is also thousands of files from unverified accounts, landing on a box that runs them as root. There is no signing, no provenance, no review. Convenience and supply chain are the same feature here.
No documented API, so no automation you can trust
PNETLab inherited EVE-NG's HTTP interface, undocumented and unversioned, and changed parts of it. Anything you script against it is scripted against an implementation detail. netplex. ships a documented, versioned REST API plus a CLI, a Terraform provider and Ansible modules, all built on the same endpoints the UI uses.
PNETLab and netplex.,
line by line.
| Feature | PNETLab community fork |
netplex. Associate, free |
|---|---|---|
| Node limit | None | None, on every tier |
| Price to start | Free | Free (Associate tier) |
| Codebase | Unauthorised fork of EVE-NG Community | Written from scratch |
| Upstream still maintained | No - EVE-NG Community EOL June 2026 | Yes |
| Signed, verified updates | No | Yes - ed25519 signed manifest |
| Console access | Client integration pack on each desktop | In the browser tab |
| Works on a locked-down laptop | No - needs local installs | Yes - a URL is enough |
| Ready-made labs | Large community lab store | Import EVE-NG, GNS3 and Containerlab labs |
| Lab content provenance | Unsigned, unreviewed uploads | Your own files, in your own storage |
| Per-user resource quotas | Yes - RAM, CPU and disk caps | Yes - per user, per lab and per node |
| Documented public API | No - inherited and undocumented | Yes - versioned REST, CLI, Terraform, Ansible |
| Labs in git | No | Yes - .npx is plain, diffable JSON |
| Packet capture | Wireshark through the client pack | In-browser capture, or straight into Wireshark |
| Real-time multi-user editing | No | Yes - shared canvas and lab chat |
| Commercial support | Community forum and Telegram | Vendor support on paid tiers |
| Licensing position | Disowned by the project it forked | Our own code, our own licence |
Sources: EVE-NG's public statements on the fork, EVE-NG's June 2026 move from Community to the 7-node Freemium build, and PNETLab's own documentation for the client integration pack and lab store. If any row here goes stale, tell us and we will fix it.
The short version: you can have unlimited without the orphan codebase.
PNETLab exists because EVE-NG's free build was too small and its paid build was too locked down. That is a fair complaint - it is the same one that started netplex. The difference is where the answer came from: a fork of somebody else's abandoned code, or a platform built from scratch with no node cap, a signed update channel, an API you can automate, and a company behind it. The free tier has no node limit either.
Straight with you - where PNETLab still wins
PNETLab is free forever with no node cap and no licence at all, and if price is the only axis you care about, nothing here beats zero. Its community lab store is genuinely enormous - if you want a ready-made CCIE lab tonight, that is the fastest route in the industry, and netplex. has nothing like that catalogue yet. It has years of accumulated community knowledge and a large Telegram community that answers questions fast. And it runs entirely on your own hardware with no account, no telemetry and no vendor at all, which some people specifically want. What you are trading is provenance, signed updates, a documented API and anyone accountable when it breaks.
Same freedom. Different foundation.
No node cap, no fork, no client software on anybody's laptop.
No node limit, free tier included
The cap is your hardware, not a licence file. The free Associate tier does not have a node ceiling.
Nothing to install on the client
Console, canvas, packet capture and file transfer all run in the browser tab. A URL is the whole client.
Signed update channel
Updates arrive as an ed25519-signed manifest your box verifies before it applies anything.
Import what you already have
EVE-NG and GNS3 topologies and Containerlab YAML import directly, so a move is not a rebuild.
Labs that live in git
The .npx format is plain JSON. Branch a topology, review it in a pull request, roll it back.
An API that is meant to be used
Versioned REST, a CLI, a Terraform provider and Ansible modules - the same endpoints the UI runs on.
PNETLab questions,
answered honestly.
Weighing up another tool? Read the side-by-side.
vs EVE-NG
The 7-node Freemium cap, the fixpermissions ritual, the MAC-locked Pro licence - and what changes without them.
EVE-NG 7 & Freemium
Free went from 63 nodes to 7 in June 2026. What your options actually are now.
vs GNS3
The desktop GUI plus a separate VM, versus one browser tab that anyone on your network can open.
The EVE-NG node limit
7 nodes on Freemium, 1,024 on Pro, none here - and why the cap exists at all.
vs Containerlab
YAML in a terminal versus a canvas - and why you don't have to choose, because netplex. imports the YAML.
vs Cisco CML
Cisco's own images and per-seat licence, next to a multi-vendor platform with a free tier.
Unlimited nodes,
on code with a maintainer.
Free tier, no node cap, nothing to install on the client. Import your existing PNETLab and EVE-NG labs and see how they run.
Last reviewed September 2026 · Spotted something out of date? Tell us.