9 Free Network Security Labs.
No Installs. No Licences.
Browser-based practice for CCNA · CCNP · PCNSE · NSE 4, plus multi-vendor firewall, ISE, SD-WAN, and SOC scenarios. 300+ lab scenarios across 9 simulators. Industry equivalents cost ₹50,000–₹2L per learner per year. These are ₹0, forever.
All 9 simulators are open-source on the Networkers Home GitHub organisation — code transparent, no enterprise contracts, no time-limited evaluation keys. You don't need to enrol in any course to use them. You don't need to register. You don't even need to give an email address.
The premise: real lab time is the highest-cost barrier in Indian IT training. A student preparing for CCNP Security or PCNSE without lab access has two options — pay ₹50,000+/year for vendor VMs, or skip practice. Both fail. These 9 simulators remove that barrier. They're not a marketing demo; they're the practice rail Networkers Home students actually use as the on-ramp before joining the institute's 8-month placement-guarantee programme.
- Total simulators
- 9
- Lab scenarios cumulative
- 300+
- Vendors covered
- Cisco, Palo Alto, Fortinet, Zscaler
- Cost
- ₹0
- Industry equivalent cost
- ₹50,000–₹2L/yr
- Login required
- No
Click any card. The lab opens immediately.
No login screen. No registration form. Each simulator runs in the browser; you should be issuing commands within 10 seconds of clicking. Source code for every simulator is on the Networkers Home GitHub organisation — fork it, run it locally, modify it, contribute scenarios.
Source: github.com/NETWORKERS-HOME-123
Cisco IOS CLI Simulator →
OSPF, ACLs, NAT, DHCP, STP, IPv6, VLANs
Palo Alto PAN-OS Simulator →
Zones, security policies, NAT, App-ID, User-ID, Threat Prevention
Fortinet FortiGate Simulator →
Policy, SD-WAN, VPN, UTM features
Cisco ISE Simulator →
802.1X, MAB, TrustSec, guest flows, policy sets
Cisco DNA Center Simulator →
SD-Access fabric, device onboarding, assurance, automation
SD-WAN Simulator →
Overlay tunnels, SLA-aware routing, branch-to-hub designs
Zscaler ZIA Simulator →
URL filtering, SSL inspection, DLP, sandbox policies
Cyber Attack & Defense Simulator →
Ransomware, DDoS, insider-threat, phishing scenarios
Network Packet Flow Simulator →
Packet traversal across switches, routers, firewalls — encapsulation, ACL drops, NAT translation in real time
Real lab time is the most expensive thing in Indian IT training.
Networking and security certifications fail at the practice stage, not the theory stage. A student can read the entire OCG for CCNA in two months. They cannot pass the exam without 200+ hours on actual Cisco gear or a high-fidelity simulator. The same is true for PCNSE, NSE 4, CCNP Security, CEH — every single certification in the firewall and network-security space.
Cisco Modeling Labs personal edition: ₹35,000–₹85,000/year. Palo Alto VM-Series: ₹1.2L–₹2L/year. FortiGate VM: ₹50,000–₹1L/year. Cisco ISE evaluation: ₹30,000+/year. Stack two or three of those and you're at ₹2L+/year — before you've paid for a single hour of instruction. For most Indian students, that's the entire training budget. Most don't pay it. They skip practice. They fail.
A self-studying student replacing five paid tools with these simulators saves a conservative ₹1.5L–₹2L per year. Multiply across 1,000+ active users on the simulators monthly and the cumulative subsidy to Indian learners is in the crores annually.
Three study plans by certification target.
The simulators are general-purpose enough to support multiple paths. These three are the highest-leverage groupings — the ones the institute's own students cycle through during the first 4–8 weeks of preparation.
Plan 1 — CCNA (8-week study rail)
Weeks 1–2: Network Packet Flow Simulator daily for OSI/encapsulation intuition. Weeks 3–6: Cisco IOS CLI Simulator for VLANs, OSPF single-area, ACLs, NAT, and IPv6. Weeks 7–8: revisit Network Packet Flow with troubleshooting scenarios + take CCNA practice exams.
Plan 2 — Multi-vendor firewall fluency (PCNSE + NSE 4)
Weeks 1–4: Palo Alto PAN-OS Simulator daily — zones, App-ID, User-ID, security policies, NAT, threat prevention. Weeks 5–8: Fortinet FortiGate Simulator alongside — same concepts in FortiGate's policy language, plus SD-WAN module and UTM features. Weeks 9–12: alternate between the two daily — this is the multi-vendor fluency Bangalore product companies actually interview against.
Plan 3 — SOC analyst readiness (Security+ / CEH track)
Weeks 1–2: Cyber Attack & Defense Simulator — work through ransomware, DDoS, insider-threat, phishing scenarios. Weeks 3–4: add Cisco ISE for identity and access control mechanics. Weeks 5–6: Zscaler ZIA for SASE, URL filtering, SSL inspection, DLP. Weeks 7–8: revisit Attack & Defense with the controls now in mental model.
When the simulators stop being enough
Honest constraint: these are simulators, not vendor-grade emulators. They build concept fluency and command syntax recall. They don't fully model behaviour at scale, edge cases in the actual hardware, or the specific failure modes a CCIE-level lab tests for. For the final 4–6 weeks of CCNP Security, PCNSE, or any CCIE-level prep, supplement with paid resources or — if Bangalore-based — the institute's 8-month programme uses real Cisco / Palo Alto / Check Point / Fortinet hardware on the HSR Sector 6 rack via 24×7 remote access.
Code transparent. Forkable. Auditable.
Every simulator's source code is published on github.com/NETWORKERS-HOME-123. You can verify what each simulator actually models versus what the marketing claims it models — no black-box vendor demo. Pull requests, issue reports, forks, and self-hosting are open.
This matters because most "free practice tools" in the IT-training space are time-limited evaluation builds, browser ports of paid products, or marketing decoys with hidden registration walls. These are none of those. They're public-good infrastructure with permissive licensing. Run them locally if you want to. Embed them in your own learning platform if you want to. Modify them to add scenarios specific to your curriculum.
- · cisco-ios-cli-simulator
- · palo-alto-firewall-simulator
- · fortigate-firewall-simulator
- · cisco-ise-simulator
- · cisco-dna-center-simulator
- · sd-wan-simulator
- · zscaler-zia-simulator
- · cyber-attack-defense-simulator
- · network-packet-flow-simulator
Plus the index repo awesome-networking-simulators and the org profile .github.
Every simulator on this page returns HTTP 200 right now.
Linkrot is the standard failure mode for free-resource pages. The pre-deploy build for this page runs curl --max-time 8 -o /dev/null -w '%{http_code}' against every simulator URL. If any returns anything other than 200, the page does not deploy. This means: every link below is live as of the latest deploy. You can audit them yourself.
The simulators get you 70% of the way. The last 30% is real hardware.
Used as the primary practice rail, these labs reliably get a self-studying candidate to CCNA-level fluency, working multi-vendor firewall knowledge, and Security+ / CEH-level threat-response intuition. That's enough for entry-level NOC and SOC L1 roles in Bangalore (₹3.5–6 LPA fresher band).
For PCNSE, NSE 4 / NSE 7, CCNP Security, or CCIE-level outcomes — and for the placement bands above ₹8 LPA — the gap closes only with real hardware time. The institute's 8-month placement-guarantee programme exists for that gap: 4 months training + 4 months paid internship on real Cisco / Palo Alto / Check Point / Fortinet rack hardware via 24×7 remote VPN. Total fee ₹96,000 (after 20% discount, GST included).
All 9 free simulators stay free regardless of whether you enrol. They're not a lead magnet — they're public-good infrastructure.
Frequently asked.
Same Q&A appears in the FAQPage JSON-LD schema for Google's rich-result rendering.
Are these network security labs really free? +
Yes — fully free, no payment, no card details, no login, no time limit. The 9 simulators are open-source on the Networkers Home GitHub organisation (github.com/NETWORKERS-HOME-123) and hosted on Networkers Home subdomains. They run in the browser. No installation, no virtual machine licence, no vendor evaluation key.
What certifications do these labs prepare me for? +
Across the 9 simulators: CCNA (Cisco IOS CLI + Network Packet Flow), CCNP Enterprise (Cisco IOS + DNA Center + SD-WAN), CCNP Security and CCIE Security (Cisco ISE + multi-vendor firewall practice), PCNSA / PCNSE (Palo Alto PAN-OS), NSE 4 / NSE 7 (Fortinet FortiGate), CompTIA Security+ and CEH (Cyber Attack & Defense), and SASE / ZDTA (Zscaler ZIA). Cumulative coverage runs to 300+ distinct lab scenarios.
How do these labs compare to Cisco Modeling Labs or Packet Tracer? +
Cisco Modeling Labs is paid (₹35,000–₹85,000/year for the personal edition) and requires installation. Cisco Packet Tracer is free but limited to Cisco equipment only and requires installation. Networkers Home labs are free, browser-based, and span all major vendor stacks (Cisco, Palo Alto, Fortinet, Zscaler) with no install. The trade-off: simulators are simulator-grade not vendor-grade — they're for learning concepts and command syntax, not certification-grade enterprise emulation. Most students use them as the primary practice rail and add a paid resource only for the final 4–6 weeks of certification preparation.
Why is Networkers Home giving these away for free? +
The institute's stated position: real enterprise lab time is the highest-cost barrier in Indian IT training. A student preparing for CCNP Security or PCNSE without lab access has to either (a) pay ₹50,000–₹2L/year for vendor VMs and modeling labs, or (b) skip practice and hope theory is enough. Both fail. Releasing the simulators as a public good removes the barrier — and signals the institute's actual quality posture (you don't give away the lab if the lab is the value proposition).
Can I contribute to or modify these simulators? +
Yes — every simulator is open-source on github.com/NETWORKERS-HOME-123. Pull requests, issue reports, and forks are open. Each simulator has its own repo with the full source code. Code-transparent means anyone can verify what the simulator actually models versus what it claims to model — no black-box vendor demos.
Do I need to enrol in a Networkers Home course to use these? +
No. The labs are public — anyone with a browser can use them, indefinitely, without payment or registration. They're available 24×7 from any browser worldwide. The institute does run an 8-month placement-guarantee programme in Bangalore (₹96,000 all-inclusive) where students train on real production hardware in addition to these simulators — but enrolment is fully optional.
What's the realistic learning outcome from these labs alone? +
Used as the primary practice rail for 6–8 weeks: CCNA-level proficiency on Cisco IOS, working knowledge of one or two firewall vendors (Palo Alto + FortiGate is the highest-leverage pair), and Security+ / CEH-level threat-response intuition. Used cumulatively over 4–6 months alongside theory study: PCNSE / NSE 4 exam-ready on the firewall side. They will not replace 8 months of guided instruction with hardware access — but they're the highest-quality free starting rail available in this category in India.
Are the labs maintained and updated? +
All 9 simulators are active on the Networkers Home GitHub organisation. Maintenance cadence varies by simulator — the Cisco IOS, Palo Alto, and FortiGate simulators (highest student usage) are updated on a quarterly cycle minimum. Issue reports filed against any repo are visible to the public; response time is typically within 1–2 weeks. The simulator URLs are monitored on the production Cloudflare Pages account; uptime tracking is internal but the build process for our SEO pages verifies HTTP 200 status on every simulator URL at deploy time.
Practice now. Free. No barriers.
Start with whichever simulator matches the certification you're chasing. Cisco IOS for CCNA. Palo Alto / FortiGate for firewall fluency. Attack & Defense for SOC. They're all one click away. The companion page /free-cyber-security-labs/ orders the same 9 simulators around cyber-security and SOC career angles if that's your path.