If you built your EVE-NG labs on the free Community Edition, the ground just shifted under you.
In June 2026, EVE-NG released version 7, and with it a new free tier called Freemium. Freemium caps you at 7 nodes. The old Community Edition is now marked End of Support & End of Life on EVE-NG's own download page. That's the free build that gave you 63 nodes, the one nearly every EVE-NG tutorial still points you toward.
If your labs were living comfortably inside 63 nodes, you've just gone from "plenty of room" to "seven real devices, plus as many VPCS endpoints as you like." Here's what changed, what your options actually are now, and roughly what each one costs.
Three facts, all of them from EVE-NG's own pages, matter here:
First, Freemium replaced Community as the free path. Freemium isn't a separate download — it's the Professional (or Learning Center) ISO running without a license. Per EVE-NG's release notes, unlicensed you get 7 nodes, unlimited VPCS, and admin-only access. Everything past that needs a paid license.
Second, Community Edition is end-of-life. EVE-NG's download page marks the Community build "EOS-EOL — End of Support & End of Life June, 2026." The ISO still downloads, and the software still runs. It just won't get another update or support response. If you're weighing whether that build is still worth running, our Community vs Professional breakdown, updated for v7, goes deeper.
Third, the platform moved to Ubuntu 24.04 LTS, with a new installer, a first-boot UI, and a v6-to-v7 upgrade assistant.
One thing worth flagging, because it trips people up: EVE-NG is still updating its site for v7. As of this writing, the features-comparison page lists Community as a "Free / 63 nodes" edition, while the download page marks that edition end-of-life. If you've read conflicting numbers over the past few weeks, you weren't misreading anything; the pages are being brought up to date after a major release.
For your labs, it comes down to one number: the free, supported node count dropped from 63 to 7.
Seven nodes sounds less drastic than it is, because VPCS (the lightweight virtual PC endpoints) are unlimited. So for pure fundamentals (a couple of routers, a switch, some endpoints hanging off VPCS), Freemium is fine.
The problem shows up the moment your topology needs real devices in the middle. What does a modest study lab actually consume?
| Lab scenario | Real nodes needed | Fits in Freemium (7)? |
| Basic OSPF, 3 routers + a switch | ~4 | Yes |
| Inter-VLAN routing, 2 switches + router + firewall | ~4–5 | Tight, but yes |
| CCNP multi-area OSPF with redistribution | ~8–12 | No |
| Multi-vendor lab (Cisco + Arista + Palo Alto) | ~10+ | No |
| CCIE-scale topology | 15–20+ | Not close |
A CCNA candidate can mostly live inside 7 real nodes. A CCNP candidate will hit the ceiling on the first serious redistribution or multi-area lab. A CCIE candidate never had a chance at 7.
With v7, the free tier covers fundamentals rather than full self-study topologies. If those bottom three rows look like your labs, your realistic paths are a Pro license on your own hardware or a hosted EVE-NG Pro environment where the license and infrastructure come bundled — both covered in the options below.
Here's the honest landscape, cheapest first. None of these is automatically right; it depends on how many nodes you need and how much risk and maintenance you're willing to carry.
If your labs fit in 7 real nodes, this is the path of least resistance. It's current, it's supported, and it's free. You'll lean heavily on VPCS for endpoints, which is fine. You'll outgrow it faster than you expect if you're on a CCNP or CCIE track, but for fundamentals and quick config tests it does the job.
Best for: CCNA fundamentals, solo learners, quick protocol tests.
The Community ISO still downloads and still runs at 63 nodes. If you need that headroom today and can't spend anything, it's a legitimate stopgap. The catch is that you're now building on an end-of-life foundation: nothing gets fixed, and nobody answers if something breaks. Treat it as a bridge, not a home, especially for anything production-adjacent. (If your research keeps surfacing PNETLab as the "free, no node limit" answer, we cover why that tradeoff is more complicated than it looks in PNETLab vs EVE-NG.)
Best for: existing Community users who need 63 nodes short-term and accept the EOL risk.
Professional is listed at 150 EUR on eve-ng.net and lifts you to 1024 nodes per lab, plus hot-linking, Docker, RBAC, and official support. If you've outgrown the free tier and you already have the hardware to run it, this is the straightforward answer. The cost you don't see on the price tag is the machine underneath it, plus the time to install and upgrade EVE-NG yourself (the v7 migration is now part of that deal).
Best for: engineers with capable hardware who want the full feature set and don't mind managing the box.
If the node ceiling is your problem but buying a server and managing the v7 upgrade yourself isn't appealing, hosted EVE-NG solves both at once. CloudMyLab's hosted EVE-NG runs the Professional edition on cloud VMs or bare metal, with the license bundled and the infrastructure managed. You skip the hardware purchase and the upgrade cycle entirely: you log in and lab.
This is the "safe to fail" path: you get Pro-scale topologies without risking your own machine or your own time on setup, and you can size the environment to the lab instead of the other way around. There's a 1-day free trial if you want to see whether the node headroom actually matters for your labs before committing.
Best for: anyone who needs Pro-scale labs but doesn't want to own, tune, or upgrade the hardware.
| You are… | Recommended path |
| A CCNA candidate doing fundamentals | Freemium (free, 7 nodes) |
| A CCNP/CCIE candidate | Pro: self-hosted if you have the hardware, hosted if you don't |
| An existing Community user, no budget, need 63 nodes now | Community 6.x as a stopgap, plan your exit |
| Running multi-vendor or team labs | Pro or hosted Pro; Freemium can't do multi-user |
| Testing before a hardware purchase | Hosted, with the free trial |
If you're still weighing EVE-NG against other emulators entirely, our deeper comparisons cover EVE-NG vs GNS3 and EVE-NG vs CML.
The free EVE-NG tier didn't disappear — it shrank, from 63 nodes to 7. For fundamentals that's survivable. For anything at CCNP scale or above, you now have a real decision: run an end-of-life build unsupported, pay for Pro and manage the hardware, or move the whole thing somewhere the license and the infrastructure come included.
If you want to skip the math entirely and just see whether Pro-scale headroom changes how you lab, the free trial is the fastest way to find out.
Yes, but the free tier is much smaller than it was. EVE-NG v7 (June 2026) introduced Freemium, the Professional ISO running unlicensed, capped at 7 nodes with unlimited VPCS and admin-only access. The older 63-node Community Edition is marked End of Support & End of Life as of June 2026, though its ISO is still downloadable from eve-ng.net.
7 nodes, plus unlimited VPCS endpoints, with admin-only access. Full features and the 1024-node limit require a paid Professional or Learning Center license.
Yes. The Community ISO still downloads from eve-ng.net despite being marked end-of-life. It runs at its original 63-node limit, but it won't receive updates, fixes, or support going forward. Note that EVE-NG's features-comparison page still lists Community as a free 63-node edition while the site is updated for v7, which is why you may see conflicting information.
For CCNA fundamentals, 7 real nodes plus unlimited VPCS is tight but workable. For CCNP labs (multi-area OSPF, redistribution, multi-vendor scenarios), 7 nodes is generally not enough, and CCIE isn't close. At CCNP level and above you're choosing between an end-of-life Community build, a Pro license, or hosted EVE-NG Pro.
EVE-NG lists Professional at 150 EUR, with Learning Center/Corporate at 150 EUR plus added roles. Both support up to 1024 nodes per lab. Pricing can vary by subscription length and support tier, so check eve-ng.net for current terms — or use a hosted EVE-NG Pro service that bundles the license with the infrastructure.