EVE-NG Community vs EVE-NG Professional: 8 Key Differences You Need to Know

EVE-NG is known for keeping things simple while still being a powerhouse, and it comes in two main versions: Community and Professional. Both handle network emulation, but they differ in features, capabilities, and licensing. The Community version is free and open-source, making it accessible to almost anyone. The Professional version offers extra features, better performance, and support, targeting larger businesses and experienced users.

To help you choose, here’s a snapshot of their key differences:

In this article, we'll explore the distinctions between EVE-NG Community and Professional. Understanding these differences will help you choose the version that best suits your needs. Whether you're a network admin, a student pursuing certifications, or someone who enjoys network emulation, this article will provide insights to maximize your use of EVE-NG.

The 8 Things That Separate EVE-NG Community and Professional

1. What You Get & What It Costs: EVE-NG Community vs Pro Versions

One of the primary differences between EVE-NG Community and Professional is their licensing and cost, which is crucial when determining the right fit for your budget and objectives.

EVE-NG Community: Limited functionality but completely free to use. Free license, limited to the features it comes with.

EVE-NG Community is free and open-source, under the Apache License 2.0. You can download, use, modify, and share it without any cost, even for commercial purposes (with proper attribution). This makes it a great option for small businesses or freelancers on a tight budget. The Community edition is also appealing to individuals, students, and smaller environments looking to explore network emulation without upfront expenses. It’s an excellent starting point for certification studies like CCNA or CCNP, or for familiarizing yourself with basic setups like LANs or routing protocols.

You can hit up community forums or GitHub to troubleshoot problems or swap custom setups. Just keep in mind, you're mostly relying on yourself here, not official support channels.

EVE-NG Professional: A paid subscription model at around $160/year, offering a wider range of features that cater to advanced users.

EVE-NG Professional requires a commercial license, priced around $160 annually for a single user, with higher costs for multiple users (starting at $300). Prices may vary based on subscription length, number of users, and support options. This unlocks enhanced scalability, exclusive tools, and priority support.

Designed for enterprises, training centers, and users needing more power, the Professional version justifies its cost with features tailored for larger simulations, like modeling entire company networks, and real-world scenarios such as pre-deployment testing of multi-vendor environments. The license fee supports ongoing improvements, updates, and new features, along with access to official documentation and a ticketing system, which is invaluable when time is critical.

2. Usability and User Experience

The user interface (UI) and user experience (UX) significantly affect how you interact with EVE-NG. While EVE-NG Community and Professional share a foundation, their UI and UX differences influence ease of use and customization.

EVE-NG Community: While it's simple, the UI might seem a little dated next to other network tools, like GNS3 or Packet Tracer.

While functional, the UI may appear less modern compared to tools like GNS3 or Packet Tracer. Its straightforward, organized layout, featuring intuitive menus, toolbars, and icons, facilitates navigation and management of network labs. Basic customization options (like color schemes and layouts) are available, but limited, keeping the focus on simplicity for smaller labs or learning environments. This simplicity can be both a pro and a con. It’s easy for beginners, but users accustomed to more advanced tools may find it lacking.

EVE-NG Professional: There are customization options aplenty; you can play with themes, arrange panels, and save layouts to make your workflow better.

The enhanced configuration management options let you save, import, and export device setups easily. Add in detailed docs, tutorials, and dedicated support, and you get a smoother ride.

3. Node Management

The ability to handle a sufficient number of devices and labs is essential for building and simulating complex network topologies. Here, EVE-NG Community and Professional diverge significantly.

Community: Cannot lock open lab nodes.

EVE-NG Community limits you to 63 nodes per lab, which is adequate for smaller simulations but can be restrictive when changes are needed during operation. Modifications require shutting down devices, which can be time-consuming. This limitation is manageable for learning or simpler setups but hinders scalability.

Professional: Allows you to lock specific lab nodes, providing more control over your lab environment.

EVE-NG Professional supports up to 1024 nodes per lab and is designed for enterprise-level simulations and rigorous testing. The "hot links" feature enables real-time connection changes without downtime, boosting efficiency. With hot links, you can make adjustments without restarting devices, saving time during complex simulations—for instance, adding a VLAN or rerouting traffic mid-session.

This scalability accommodates realistic, multi-vendor topologies and concurrent simulations, making it suitable for teams or large-scale projects.

4. Performance and Resource Utilization: EVE-NG Community vs Pro Versions

The performance and resource utilization of EVE-NG Community and Professional greatly affect the user experience, particularly in larger network topologies.

EVE-NG Community: Performance is all about what kind of hardware you're running.

As you approach the 63-node limit, expect slowdowns or resource exhaustion (CPU, RAM). While sufficient for smaller labs, it lacks optimization for heavy workloads. For example, running it on a mid-range laptop with 8GB of RAM and a quad-core CPU might result in lag when pushing 50+ nodes with traffic, especially when using memory-intensive devices like virtual firewalls.

EVE-NG Professional: Fine-tuned for better performance and resource use, Professional is better at memory management, processing packets, and using CPU cores to handle up to 1024 nodes smoothly.

EVE-NG Professional can distribute the workload across multiple machines, exceeding the capacity of a single host. As a result, it handles simulations that would overwhelm a single machine, making it ideal for modeling extensive networks.

5. Real-Time Features

EVE-NG Community: Without real-time tracking of how long a lab's been running, things can get tricky for time-sensitive tasks or learning on your own.

You gotta rely on doing things by hand. Without real-time lab timers, managing time-sensitive tasks or self-paced learning becomes challenging, requiring manual methods. Students timing themselves during a Cisco exam practice lab would need to use an external stopwatch.

EVE-NG Professional: Lab timers are especially useful in training, and "hot-linking" support makes it easy to adjust things during live sessions, making your workflow more flexible.

Instructors could set a 2-hour timer for a class lab, while engineers could swap connections mid-test to mimic failover, all without pausing the environment. It's a total game-changer for testing or teaching.

6. Local Development & Docker Integration: EVE-NG Pro vs Community

Local development and container support are crucial for extending functionality, where Professional excels.

Community: No local workbench or Docker network integration.

EVE-NG Community: This prevents you from incorporating custom tools or apps into your simulations, like network monitoring tools or attack simulations. Customization is a manual process, and the absence of built-in container support limits integration with tools like Wireshark or traffic generators.

Professional: Allows for a localized development environment and has Docker network integration, including Wireshark Docker support.

EVE-NG Professional: You can create custom extensions in a dedicated development mode and deploy Docker containers for tools like HTML5 desktops or traffic analyzers. This streamlines deployment and adds flexibility for complex labs. A developer could build a custom QoS monitoring tool, run it in a container right next to the lab, and use Wireshark to capture live traffic—all inside the same environment.

7. User Management & Customization

Community: Lacks features for user roles, rights, and custom lab image templates.

EVE-NG Community: Limited to one active user session and basic OS-level access control, it’s less suited for teams or secure, multi-user environments, offering minimal administrative flexibility. A single user can lock the lab, but there’s no way to assign roles or secure access beyond basic password protection, making it impractical for shared setups like a classroom.

Professional: Allows admins to set user-specific profiles, define roles and rights, and even customize lab image templates for a more tailored experience.

EVE-NG Professional: Supporting multiple concurrent sessions (license-dependent), it includes robust RBAC, MFA, LDAP/RADIUS integration, and encryption for secure, scalable collaboration—perfect for enterprises with strict requirements. Admins can create profiles for “view-only” trainees, “edit” engineers, and “admin” managers, integrate with corporate LDAP for SSO, and use pre-built templates to standardize lab setups across a team.

8. Integration and Automation

EVE-NG Community: Basic automation is possible, but it requires lots of manual effort, and doesn't integrate directly into modern network management or orchestration tools. You could script lab creation via CLI, but integrating with Ansible or a CI/CD pipeline requires significant manual effort.

EVE-NG Professional: Excels with comprehensive APIs and SDKs for integration with tools like Ansible or CI/CD pipelines.

It allows you to automate lab provisioning, configuration, and testing, which adds teamwork and keeps things consistent. All of these reasons make Professional the top choice for organizations already using modern Automation Platforms for the network. A DevOps team could use APIs to spin up a lab, apply configs via Ansible, and run automated tests in a Jenkins pipeline—streamlining pre-production validation of network changes.

Why CloudMyLab is the Game-Changer You’ve Been Waiting For

After considering the choices between EVE-NG Community and Professional, you might wonder if there's an easier solution. Well, there is.

CloudMyLab offers a hassle-free experience by delivering both EVE-NG versions right at your fingertips, hosted on either a cloud VM or bare metal.

No More Installation Headaches

Forget the cumbersome task of downloading and configuring software on your laptop or PC. CloudMyLab offers a pre-installed and hosted software environment, so you can jump right into what really matters - your lab.

Your Lab, Your Rules

Whether you’re eyeing the free Community version or contemplating the Professional’s enhanced features, CloudMyLab has got you covered. And it’s all available on robust cloud infrastructure or bare-metal options, designed to scale with your needs.

Try Before You Buy

Worried about making a commitment? Take advantage of a 1-day free trial for EVE Pro, courtesy of CloudMyLab. It’s a risk-free way to get a taste of what’s on offer.

Rock-Solid Support

With a Class Apart SLA of 99.1% and 24x7 support, you’ll never find yourself stranded. Whether you’re a newbie needing guidance or an expert facing an intricate issue, CloudMyLab’s dedicated team is always ready to assist.

Choosing Between EVE-NG Community vs EVE-NG Professional

EVE-NG stands out with its Community and Professional versions, each providing unique features for different users. Whether you're a hobbyist or a professional, EVE-NG offers valuable options.

CloudMyLab simplifies the process by providing pre-installed, hosted environments, allowing you to focus on your lab. With excellent support and flexible options, CloudMyLab is a partner in mastering network design and testing.