EVE-NG (Emulated Virtual Environment – Next Generation) is a network emulation platform that runs real vendor operating systems (Cisco IOS, Juniper Junos, Palo Alto PAN-OS, Fortinet FortiGate, and more) inside a browser-based interface. Network engineers, IT teams, and training programs use it to build, test, and validate network designs without physical hardware.
Getting your hands dirty with real networking stuff can be tough. Building a physical lab with routers, switches, and firewalls? That's often pricey, eats up a ton of power, and is a beast to manage. Virtual network labs, powered by emulators like EVE-NG (Emulated Virtual Environment - Next Generation), offer a much better way.
EVE-NG lets you mimic real-world network setups using actual operating system images from the vendors, and you can get to it all from your web browser. You can build and test complicated setups with virtual Cisco, Juniper, Fortinet, Palo Alto Networks, and other devices. It's great for getting ready for certifications (like CCNA, CCNP, CCIE), testing out new ideas for your company, or just learning new tech.
EVE-NG is pretty powerful, but setting it up and managing it on your own machine needs some serious hardware and technical know-how. That's where CloudMyLab comes in. We offer hosted EVE-NG environments that are already built, tuned up, and supported. This means you can skip all the setup headaches and just focus on learning, testing, and innovating.
Table of contents:For business and IT leaders, putting money into tools for network training, testing, and making sure things work is important for keeping things running smoothly, cutting down on risks, and sparking new ideas. EVE-NG, especially when you get it through a managed service like CloudMyLab, is a really strong business move.
Lets see how EVE-NG compares head-to-head with other popular tools especially for big, multi-vendor enterprise deployments:
| Strengths | Downsides |
| Real Vendor OS Emulation: EVE-NG runs unmodified Cisco IOS/IOS-XE, Juniper Junos, Palo Alto PAN-OS, Fortinet FortiGate, Arista EOS, and more inside QEMU, Docker, or IOL/IOU containers. | Hardware Needs: To smoothly run 50 simultaneous virtual devices, plan for at least 16 vCPUs, 64 GB RAM, and NVMe storage on your virtualization host. Going bigger often means clustering multiple hosts. |
| Scalability: EVE-NG supports topologies of 50–200+ nodes on a single virtual host (depending on hardware). The Pro edition lets you cluster multiple servers to handle hundreds of nodes and get high availability. | Scalability Requires Pro: The free Community Edition is limited to a single host with no clustering. Pushing past 50–100 concurrent nodes typically needs the Pro edition with multi-server clustering, which adds licensing cost. |
| Browser-Based GUI: No chunky client software needed. Users connect via any modern browser, simplifying remote access and onboarding. Teams in different locations can log in immediately. | Image Licensing & Management: You're responsible for getting legal OS images, formatting them correctly, and keeping your image library organized. Frequent version updates mean ongoing tracking and replacement. |
| Multi-Tenant Resource Controls: Admins can set CPU, RAM, and storage limits per lab, stopping one team's huge POC from starving others. | |
| Advanced Features (Pro Edition): Includes snapshots for quick rollbacks, lab sharing for collaboration, and multi-server clustering for distributed resources. |
| Strengths | Things to Consider |
| Community: GNS3 has been around for over a decade, so there's a huge library of tutorials, pre-built topologies, and an active user forum. Many Cisco-focused network engineers love it. Running GNS3 on a dedicated server typically means setting up a GNS3 VM to handle the backend processing. | Limited Multi-Vendor Support: While you can run Juniper vJunos or Palo Alto images, it's often less smooth and needs more manual tweaking than EVE-NG. |
| Open-Source & Free: No licensing fees for the software itself. | Scalability Limits: For labs over 50 nodes, GNS3 can hit performance bottlenecks, especially when mixing QEMU and Dynamips nodes. The community edition doesn't have built-in clustering. |
| Cisco IOL & IOU Support: Works well with older Cisco IOS images, which can be useful if your environment still uses legacy gear. | Needs a Local Client: Users have to install the GNS3 GUI on their workstations (Windows, macOS, or Linux), which adds complexity for remote collaboration. |
| Strengths | Things to Consider |
| Cisco-Designed & Free for Students: Made for CCNA/CCNP learning, Cisco gives it away free to Networking Academy students. It's lightweight and easy to install. | Cisco-Only Simulation: Packet Tracer uses a simplified simulation engine, not real IOS or NX-OS code. Advanced features (like BFD, EVPN-VXLAN, advanced QoS) simply aren't there. You can't import third-party OS images. |
| Simple Interface: Drag-and-drop simulation helps beginners quickly visualize traffic flows and basic routing. | Not for Enterprise POCs: Since it doesn't run real vendor code, anything beyond basic topology design or entry-level configs won't accurately translate to a production environment. |
| Strengths | Things to Consider |
| Official Cisco Solution: Runs sanctioned Cisco IOS/XE/XR, NX-OS, and SD-WAN images with active support directly from Cisco. Integrates well with Cisco's DevNet tools and APIs. | Cisco-Only: CML only uses Cisco images. If you need to test multi-vendor interoperability, you'll need another tool. |
| High Availability & Clustering: Enterprise CML versions support clustering across multiple servers with central management. This makes it a direct competitor to EVE-NG Pro for Cisco-heavy environments. | License Cost: CML's licensing is pretty pricey compared to open-source EVE-NG Community. You pay for Cisco's official support and recurring renewals. |
| Automation Integration: Exposes REST APIs for automatically building, configuring, and tearing down labs. It is great for CI/CD pipelines in Cisco-heavy infrastructures. | Hardware Overhead: Like EVE-NG, CML needs beefy servers (typically 16+ vCPUs, 64 GB+ RAM, fast SSDs). Testing non-Cisco devices needs additional emulators. |
For enterprises needing real multi-vendor emulation, huge scalability, and a single, browser-based management interface, EVE-NG is a top contender. Its ability to host hundreds of real vendor OS instances, combined with advanced multi-tenant controls and clustered hypervisors (in the Pro edition), makes it a strong choice for corporate labs, training departments, and important POC environments.
EVE-NG comes in two main editions, and the right choice depends on how many people need access and what features your team requires. Here's a quick comparison to help you decide before installing.
| Feature | Community Edition | Professional Edition |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Paid (annual license) |
| Max Users | Single user | Multi-user with role-based access |
| Node Support | QEMU, IOL, Dynamips | QEMU, IOL, Dynamips, Docker |
| Lab Sharing | Not available | Share labs between users |
| Snapshots | Not available | Save and restore lab states |
| Clustering | Single host only | Multi-server clustering for HA |
| Topology Export | Limited | Full export/import capabilities |
| Console Access | HTML5, native | HTML5, native, RDP, VNC |
| Support | Community forums | Official vendor support |
| Best For | Individual learners, CCNA/CCNP prep | Teams, enterprises, training departments |
Bottom line: If you're studying for certifications on your own, the Community Edition handles most scenarios. If your team needs shared labs, snapshots for rollbacks, or you're running labs for more than a handful of people, go Pro. For a more detailed breakdown, see our EVE-NG Community vs Professional comparison.
Running EVE-NG effectively on your own is demanding (think multi-core CPU, 16GB+ RAM, fast SSD). Getting and legally managing device images also takes effort. CloudMyLab's hosted EVE-NG gets rid of these headaches.
Download EVE-NG Head over to the EVE-NG website and download the Community or Professional version. The Community Edition is free and great for most users starting out, while the Pro version offers extra features like team collaboration and advanced node management.
Read more: For a detailed comparison, see our support article on EVE-NG Community vs. EVE-NG Pro.
You'll need to install EVE-NG on either a bare-metal server or as a virtual machine using something like VMware ESXi or VMware Workstation. Installation isn't super complicated, but you'll want to follow the official guide closely to get everything configured right.
Hardware Sizing (Example for a 50-Node Lab):
You'll need to upload and configure images for the devices you want to emulate (Cisco IOS, Juniper, Palo Alto, etc.). Get legal, licensed images for your network devices, format them correctly, and upload them to EVE-NG.
Once the base setup is complete, you'll set up EVE-NG's networking, licensing (for Pro), and performance settings. See our support documentation on EVE-NG console options for accessing your devices.
Or, you could just use CloudMyLab's hosted EVE-NG environments for an instant, pre-configured solution.
After a fresh EVE-NG installation, you'll need these default credentials to access the platform. Change them immediately after your first login.
| Access Method | Username | Default Password |
|---|---|---|
| Web UI (browser) | admin | eve |
| SSH / Console (CLI) | root | eve |
https://your-eve-ng-ip, go to Management > Users, and update the admin password.passwd to set a new root password./etc/hosts.allow.With CloudMyLab's hosted EVE-NG, credentials are provisioned securely during setup.
Hosting EVE-NG yourself gives you control, but it comes with a lot of overhead. CloudMyLab's managed EVE-NG service is a really attractive alternative.
Using EVE-NG should give you real returns. Track these key things:
EVE-NG gives you a flexible and affordable way to do network testing, training, and validation. Your EVE-NG implementation roadmap:
CloudMyLab gets rid of the roadblocks to using powerful network emulation. Our managed EVE-NG environments give you instant access, expert support, and scalable resources, so you can focus on hitting your network engineering and business goals. Whether it's for individual certification, education, or enterprise validation, CloudMyLab's EVE-NG solutions are an ideal platform.
Want help getting started? Book a free consultation with CloudMyLab. Or start a free trial to test our hosted EVE-NG environments right away.
If you're running it locally, then yes. CloudMyLab's hosted EVE-NG means you don't have to worry about hardware.
EVE-NG has a free Community Edition. There's also a Professional Edition with more features that you have to pay for.
Yes, CloudMyLab offers setup and consultation services. We can even build custom lab topologies and help you with image uploads.
Yep, EVE-NG's browser interface is made for remote access. CloudMyLab's hosted solution gives you secure, high-performance remote access.
CloudMyLab has flexible subscription plans for individuals and custom packages for businesses and schools. Get in touch for a custom quote.
We provide managed support for our EVE-NG environments, with options from standard help to 24/7 premium support.
Yes, book a trial to see how CloudMyLab makes EVE-NG simple.
The default username and password for the EVE-NG web interface is admin / eve. For SSH/console access, the default is root / eve. You should change both passwords immediately after your first login for security reasons.
EVE-NG itself runs on Ubuntu Linux, but you can run it inside a virtual machine on Windows using VMware Workstation or VirtualBox. You access your labs through a web browser, so Windows, macOS, and Linux users all get the same experience. CloudMyLab's hosted EVE-NG eliminates the VM setup entirely, just open your browser and start labbing.
On a single well-spec'd host (16+ vCPUs, 64 GB+ RAM, NVMe storage), EVE-NG can run 50–200+ virtual nodes depending on the image types. Lightweight IOL/IOU nodes use far less resources than full QEMU images like ASAv or vMX. The Professional Edition supports multi-server clustering for even larger topologies across hundreds of nodes.
Both are excellent network emulators, and the "better" choice depends on your needs. EVE-NG's advantages include native browser-based access (no client install needed), stronger multi-vendor support, and built-in multi-tenant controls. GNS3 has a larger community, more tutorials, and a longer track record. For a detailed comparison, see our EVE-NG vs GNS3 breakdown. If you'd rather not choose, CloudMyLab hosts both platforms.