Educator Resource

A circuit simulator that actually runs on Chromebooks

Updated August 2026 · By the CircuitSim team · 9 min read

When you teach technology, there is no getting away from laptops, and for students the Chromebook is a great answer: affordable, reliable, and if one gets dropped, the budget survives. Where Chromebooks struggle is anything computationally intensive, and circuits are no exception. LTspice and desktop Multisim are powerful tools, but they will not run on a Chromebook. Web-based tools like EveryCircuit and Tinkercad run on one happily, but they lack a real SPICE engine, so the results stay approximate.

CircuitSim gives you the best of both worlds, and it works on the Chromebooks your students already have. It is a browser-based simulator built on an industry-standard SPICE engine: open circuitsim.com in Chrome and you are simulating. No download, no Android sideloading, no Linux container, no admin rights. The free plan needs no credit card. And if you need private seats without student identifiers, educational groups allow inviting students via a private link, with no personal information collected.

If you are planning labs around a Chromebook cart, this page covers what runs, how fast, how deployment works, and the honest limits, starting with the fact that CircuitSim needs an internet connection.

TL;DR — Chromebooks and CircuitSim

It is a website, not an app. CircuitSim runs in the Chrome browser on any Chromebook — nothing to install, image, or approve.
The simulation is real SPICE, run locally on the Chromebook by an industry-standard engine compiled to WebAssembly — not streamed from a server.
Deployment is a link. Teachers share a join code, and private student seats are available when no student emails should be collected.
Procurement is handled: per-seat term licenses, bulk discounts, card or NET-30 quote and invoice.
Honest limits: an internet connection is required, and there is no LMS or LTI integration today.

Why Chromebooks lock out traditional circuit simulators

The standard tools are excellent and worth naming fairly. LTspice is free, deep, and trusted by working engineers everywhere; Multisim has anchored teaching labs for a generation. Both are desktop installers built for Windows or macOS — and a Chromebook runs neither. The usual workarounds each fail in their own way: Android versions of these tools do not exist, enabling the Linux container is blocked on most school-managed fleets and is a support headache where it is not, and remote-desktop schemes turn a simulation class into an IT project.

Meanwhile the Chromebook is what schools actually have. Districts bought them by the million because they are inexpensive, durable, and centrally managed — and that same managed, locked-down design is exactly what makes "download and install the simulator" impossible as a lab instruction. If the curriculum requires SPICE and the hardware is a Chromebook cart, the tool has to come to the browser.

What actually runs on a Chromebook: all of it

CircuitSim was built browser-first, so the Chromebook version of CircuitSim is not a version at all — it is the whole product. The schematic editor with orthogonal auto-routing wires, keyboard shortcuts, and quick-add component search; the growing component library from resistors to op-amps to logic gates and 7-segment displays; the SPICE netlist panel; the WebGL waveform charts with oscilloscope-style triggering and measurement cursors — all of it runs in Chrome on the machine in front of the student. It works in modern Chrome, Edge, Firefox, and Safari, and requires JavaScript.

All six analyses are available: interactive simulation, interactive operating point, transient, AC sweep with Bode charts, DC operating point, and DC sweep. The interactive analysis matters most in a classroom — students change component values, flip switches, and turn potentiometers while the simulation runs, and the circuit answers back: waveforms update live, LEDs glow, meters move, and 7-segment displays count. That feedback loop, on a $250 laptop, is the demonstration half of us wishes we had in school.

Is a Chromebook fast enough? Yes — because the work stays local

A reasonable worry: Chromebooks are modest machines, so surely the simulation is thin or outsourced. Neither. CircuitSim compiles an industry-standard SPICE engine — the same class of engine used in professional EDA tools — to WebAssembly, and the whole computation runs locally in the browser on the Chromebook itself. Nothing is queued on a server, so 30 students clicking Run at the same moment do not compete for a shared backend; each machine solves its own circuit.

Typical classroom circuits — RC filters, rectifiers, transistor amplifiers, logic exercises — are small by SPICE standards, and a low-end Chromebook handles them without drama. The practical dependency is the network, addressed honestly below.

Deploying to a class: a link, a code, and no student emails

The deployment story is where browser-based stops being a convenience and becomes policy relief. A teacher creates a group, and students join with a link or a join code plus an optional passphrase. Private student seats mean exactly that: no student email address, no student personal data collected — the seat is the identity. Teachers manage the roster, reset a seat when a student leaves, and rotate join codes between terms. For schools weighing student-privacy obligations, the mechanism is the answer: there is no student information to protect because none is collected.

Inside the group, a class gets a shared library of circuits and components, announcements, discussion boards, member roles, and an activity log. A teacher builds the lab circuit once, shares it to the group, and every student opens an identical copy — no file distribution, no "it works on my machine," no USB sticks. Procurement fits school reality too: group licenses are per-seat and term-based with bulk seat discounts, payable by card or through a NET-30 quote and invoice flow built for purchasing departments. The details live on our for-schools page, and the teaching-side view is on for educators.

Try it on a Chromebook in 3 steps

Open circuitsim.com in Chrome on any Chromebook — school-managed is fine — and load a built-in example such as the RC low-pass filter.
Run the interactive simulation and drag a component value while it runs; watch the waveform respond live.
Create a group and generate a join code. Have a colleague or a test student join from a second Chromebook — no email required — and open your shared circuit.

The honest limits

Three things a decision-maker should know before committing a course. First, CircuitSim requires an internet connection — it is not offline-capable, so a room with unreliable Wi-Fi will have a bad lab day; the simulation runs locally once loaded, but loading and saving need the network. Second, there is no LMS or LTI integration today: no Google Classroom or Canvas hookup, no built-in assignments or gradebook. Teachers run grading in the LMS they already have and use CircuitSim for the circuits. Third, the component library is still growing — if a lab depends on a part we do not carry yet, the custom component creator accepts pasted SPICE models, and we prioritize the library from requests to hello@circuitsim.com.

One more boundary worth stating: CircuitSim is not mobile-optimized, so phones and tablets are not the target — a Chromebook, with its keyboard and trackpad, is squarely in the supported range, but do not plan a lesson around students simulating on their phones. And there are no microcontroller parts; a course built on Arduino simulation is better served by tools built for that.

Coming from Multisim Live?

If your Chromebook classroom depended on Multisim Live, your circuits are not lost: CircuitSim imports .ms14 and .msjs files, ZIP batches included, and our Multisim Live import guide walks the migration step by step. Trying CircuitSim costs a class period and nothing else.

CircuitSim is built by Elsewhere Labs — Britt and Sam. We answer teacher email ourselves, and the anonymous-seat design exists because educators told us early that student-account friction, not simulation features, was the thing that killed classroom tools.

Get started free at circuitsim.com →

Frequently asked questions

Does CircuitSim work on school-managed Chromebooks?

Yes. CircuitSim is a website, not an installed app, so it runs in the Chrome browser on managed devices without admin rights, sideloading, or a Linux container. It needs JavaScript enabled and the site reachable through the school's web filter.

Do students need to install anything?

No. Students open circuitsim.com in the browser and start. There is no download, no extension, no Android app to sideload, and no Linux development environment to enable.

Does CircuitSim work offline?

No. CircuitSim needs an internet connection to load and save work — it is not offline-capable. Once a page is loaded, the simulation itself runs locally in the browser, but you should plan classroom use around a working connection.

Is a low-end Chromebook fast enough for circuit simulation?

For typical classroom circuits, yes. The SPICE engine is compiled to WebAssembly and runs on the Chromebook itself, and the circuits in most coursework — filters, amplifiers, logic exercises — are small enough that a modest processor solves them without drama.

Do students need email addresses to use CircuitSim in class?

No. If you need seats without student identifiers, educational groups offer private student seats: students join with a link or join code plus an optional passphrase, and no student email or personal data is collected. Teachers can reset a seat for a new student and rotate join codes.

How do schools pay for CircuitSim?

Group licenses are per-seat and term-based, with bulk seat discounts — email us for a quote. Schools can pay by card or request a NET-30 quote and invoice through a public quote-acceptance flow built for procurement. Individual students and teachers can use the free Basic plan — five circuits, no credit card — forever, with paid plans from $2.99 per month on the pricing page.

Does CircuitSim integrate with Google Classroom or Canvas?

Not today. There is no LMS or LTI integration, and no built-in assignments or gradebook — teachers run grading in their existing LMS and use CircuitSim groups for the circuits, shared libraries, and discussion.

Is browser-based SPICE as accurate as desktop SPICE?

The math is the same. CircuitSim runs an industry-standard SPICE engine — the same class of engine used in professional EDA tools — compiled to WebAssembly. Running in a browser changes where the computation happens, not what it computes.

EveryCircuit is a trademark of MuseMaze, Inc. Tinkercad is a trademark of Autodesk, Inc. Chromebook, Chrome, and Google Classroom are trademarks of Google LLC. LTspice is a trademark of Analog Devices, Inc. Multisim and Multisim Live are trademarks of National Instruments Corporation (Emerson). Canvas is a trademark of Instructure, Inc. CircuitSim is not affiliated with any of these organizations. Capability details reflect each tool's public documentation as of August 2026.