Comparison
CircuitSim vs NI Circuit Design Suite: price, platform, and what each one does
Published September 17, 2026 · By Britt at CircuitSim · 9 min read
Since Digilent retired Multisim Live on September 15, 2026, multisim.com has redirected to NI's Multisim product page, and the product on offer there is NI Circuit Design Suite. It is a different kind of product from Multisim Live: a Windows desktop package that bundles Multisim with Ultiboard for PCB layout, sold per license, listed on NI's store from $1,271. CircuitSim is a SPICE simulator that runs in the browser, has a free plan, and opens Multisim Live files. This page puts the two side by side on the questions we get asked: price, platform, analyses, parts, classroom use, and moving Multisim Live work across.
What each product is
NI Circuit Design Suite is NI's desktop electronics design package. Multisim handles schematic capture, SPICE simulation, and analysis; Ultiboard handles board layout and routing out to fabrication files. NI sells it in three editions. Base has interactive simulation, four virtual instruments, and a library NI puts at 47,000+ components. Full has 17 analyses, 23 virtual instruments, 49,000+ components, and LabVIEW instruments and sources. Professional has 20 analyses, 30 virtual instruments, 55,000+ components, and MCU co-simulation. Licenses are perpetual or annual subscription, Windows only. Schools buy Multisim for Education through the NI Academic Volume License; individual students and faculty in the United States can buy a Student Edition through resellers for $69.95, limited to 50 components per schematic. Digilent's guidance to former Multisim Live users is to move to this product, which opens the .msjs files downloaded from Multisim Live as well as its own .ms14 format.
CircuitSim is a browser-based circuit simulator built by Elsewhere Labs. It runs a real SPICE engine in the browser tab, with nothing to install, on Windows, macOS, Linux, and ChromeOS. It has seven analysis types, a catalog of 5,000+ parts with a custom component studio for adding more, oscilloscope-style charts with probes, sharing by link and a public circuit library, and group licenses built for classes. It imports Multisim Live files. The Basic plan is free; Standard is $30 a year and Premium $90 a year. CircuitSim does not do PCB layout or microcontroller simulation, and it has no offline mode.
Price
The numbers below were read from NI's store and CircuitSim's pricing page on September 17, 2026. NI's Academic Volume License pricing is quoted per institution and not published, so for an institution the store list price is the only public figure; the $69.95 Student Edition is the other published price, and it is limited to individual students and faculty in the United States.
| NI Circuit Design Suite | CircuitSim | |
|---|---|---|
| Entry price | Listed "from $1,271.00" on ni.com | Free (Basic plan) |
| Base edition, perpetual | $4,447 per license | |
| Full edition | $2,210 per year, or $7,733 perpetual | |
| Professional edition | $3,287 per year | |
| Individual paid plan | Standard $30 per year, Premium $90 per year | |
| Student pricing | Student Edition $69.95 perpetual, US students and faculty only, 50-component limit, not for classroom or institutional use | Basic plan is free; student seats in a class come from the instructor's group license |
| Institutional pricing | Academic Volume License, quoted | Group licenses with bulk seat pricing, self-serve or quoted |
| Software service | One year included with perpetual; renewable annually | Updates included |
One engineer who wants the Full edition pays NI $2,210 for the year, or $7,733 once plus service renewals. The same person on CircuitSim Premium pays $90 for the year. For a class, the Circuit Design Suite figure depends on an Academic Volume License quote, and the $69.95 Student Edition is licensed for a student's own computer, so it does not substitute for a lab license. CircuitSim prices a class by seat through a group license; 30 Standard seats for a full year come to $900 at the retail annual rate, and the bulk seat ladder brings a class or department below that.
Platform
Circuit Design Suite installs on Windows. NI's store lists Windows as the supported operating system, and there is no macOS, Linux, or browser build. In a teaching lab that means an install and a license on each machine, maintained by IT. A student with a MacBook needs a Windows machine or a virtual machine; a student on a Chromebook needs the lab.
CircuitSim runs in the browser. There is nothing to install, so a school Chromebook or a locked-down lab machine runs it the same way a personal laptop does, and a circuit link opens the same schematic on any of them. Each simulation runs in the student's own browser, so thirty students running at once do not slow one another down. The trade is that CircuitSim needs a browser and a network connection to load; there is no offline mode.
Simulation and analyses
Circuit Design Suite has the deeper analysis set. The Full edition lists 17 analyses and the Professional edition 20, covering the transient, AC, and DC set plus analyses such as Monte Carlo that CircuitSim does not have. Circuit Design Suite also has 23 to 30 virtual instruments by edition, panels that mimic bench equipment such as oscilloscopes, multimeters, and function generators. The Professional edition co-simulates microcontroller code alongside the analog circuit. If your work needs statistical tolerance analysis, bench-style instrument panels, or firmware running against the circuit, Circuit Design Suite is the right tool and CircuitSim will not replace it.
CircuitSim runs seven analysis types: interactive simulation you can adjust while it runs, interactive operating point, transient, AC sweep, DC operating point, DC sweep, and parameter sweep, all on the same SPICE engine, in the browser. Results appear in oscilloscope-style charts fed by probes placed on the schematic. For circuits courses, hobby work, and design checks before layout, that set covers what Multisim Live covered and adds parameter sweep, which Multisim Live did not have. Note that the Base edition of Circuit Design Suite lists interactive simulation only; the formal analyses start at the Full edition.
Parts and models
Circuit Design Suite ships 47,000+ to 55,000+ components depending on edition, which NI describes as manufacturer-verified, with footprints for Ultiboard. For a design team, a part number from a distributor is often already in that library with its model and its footprint.
CircuitSim ships 5,000+ parts, each carrying a SPICE model, plus a custom component studio. Paste model text from a manufacturer datasheet, or import a KiCad symbol, and the part places and simulates like any other. That covers most parts a course or a hobby project needs, and Multisim Live had no way to add a part at all. The CircuitSim catalog is far smaller than a 50,000-part professional library, and its parts carry no footprints because CircuitSim has no layout to feed.
Classroom use
Circuit Design Suite in a school runs through the Academic Volume License. Students work in the lab or install the Student Edition on a Windows machine of their own. Files move as .ms14 attachments. Multisim for Education deploys digital logic designs to Digilent FPGA boards, which matters for a lab built around that hardware.
CircuitSim group licenses were designed around the provisioning problem. An instructor buys seats, and each student opens a link and starts working in a private seat with no account created and no email address collected, which keeps the class FERPA and COPPA compliant. The instructor posts announcements to the group and shares circuits by link. Bulk seat pricing applies from a small class up to a department, and schools that need a purchase order can request a quote from the pricing page. CircuitSim for educators and CircuitSim for schools go into detail.
Moving Multisim Live circuits
Both products open the .msjs files that Multisim Live's Download button produced, and the .ms14 files Multisim Desktop uses. Digilent's own migration guide for Circuit Design Suite notes that some metadata, such as comments, may not transfer.
CircuitSim's importer produces a live, editable circuit: component placement and rotation, wiring and junctions, probes, text labels and comments, and the simulation settings stored in a .msjs file all come across, and each part is mapped to a simulating CircuitSim part. Parts with no mapping yet are placed as marked placeholders so you can see them and swap them. It accepts a .zip for a folder of circuits. The importer is labeled experimental in the app: wires are rebuilt rather than copied, instruments do not import, and multi-sheet designs import the first sheet. Open the imported schematic beside the original and run it once before relying on it. The step-by-step version is at Save your Multisim Live circuits.
If you never downloaded your circuits, neither product can retrieve them. As of September 17, 2026, every multisim.com address redirects to ni.com, and Digilent has said it does not guarantee access to saved designs after September 15. What happened to Multisim Live covers the options that remain.
Side by side
| NI Circuit Design Suite | CircuitSim | |
|---|---|---|
| Runs on | Windows | Any modern browser: Windows, macOS, Linux, ChromeOS |
| Installation | Desktop install, license activation | None |
| Simulation engine | SPICE | SPICE, running in the browser |
| Analyses | Interactive only (Base); 17 (Full); 20 (Professional) | 7, including DC sweep and parameter sweep |
| Virtual instrument panels | 4 to 30 by edition | No; probes and oscilloscope-style charts |
| Component library | 47,000+ to 55,000+ | 5,000+ plus custom component studio |
| Add your own SPICE model | Yes | Yes, paste model text or import a KiCad symbol |
| PCB layout | Yes, Ultiboard | No |
| Microcontroller co-simulation | Professional edition | No |
| Opens Multisim Live files | Yes | Yes, .msjs, .ms14, .csim, .zip |
| Student seats without a login | No | Yes, in group licenses |
| Sharing a circuit | Send the .ms14 file | Link; public library |
| Free plan | No; trial period per Digilent's announcement | Yes, Basic |
| List price | From $1,271; Full $2,210 per year | $0, $30 per year, or $90 per year |
When Circuit Design Suite is the right choice
Circuit Design Suite is the right choice when the work includes board layout and you want schematic and layout in one vendor's toolchain with a 50,000-part library carrying footprints; when a design needs Monte Carlo or other tolerance analyses, bench-style instrument panels, or firmware co-simulation; and when a lab is already built around Digilent FPGA boards, Windows machines, and an Academic Volume License. In those cases the price buys capability CircuitSim does not have.
When CircuitSim is the right choice
CircuitSim is the right choice for the work Multisim Live handled: circuits courses, lab prep, hobby designs, and checking an idea before building it, especially where students or colleagues use Chromebooks, Macs, or machines they cannot install software on, where a circuit needs to travel as a link, or where a class has to be running this week without account provisioning. The cost is $0 to $90 a year against NI's list prices, and CircuitSim opens the .msjs files you already have.
Common questions
Is NI Circuit Design Suite the same thing as Multisim?
Circuit Design Suite is the bundle of Multisim, for schematic capture and simulation, with Ultiboard, for PCB layout. Multisim is also sold on its own. Digilent's announcement calls the bundle Multisim Desktop, as distinct from Multisim Live, the browser product Digilent retired on September 15, 2026.
How much does NI Circuit Design Suite cost?
NI's store listed it from $1,271 on September 17, 2026. Configurations quoted that day: Base perpetual $4,447; Full subscription $2,210 per year; Full perpetual $7,733; Professional subscription $3,287 per year. The Student Edition is $69.95 through resellers for US students and faculty, with a 50-component limit. Institutional pricing is quoted through the NI Academic Volume License.
Does NI Circuit Design Suite run in a browser or on a Mac?
No. NI lists Windows as the supported operating system, and there is no browser edition. Multisim Live was the browser product in the Multisim line, run by Digilent, and Digilent retired it on September 15, 2026.
Is CircuitSim as accurate as Multisim?
Both run SPICE, so a circuit built from the same models produces comparable results in either. Circuit Design Suite has more analysis types and a far larger library. For the seven analyses CircuitSim runs, results depend on the model in use, and you can paste in a manufacturer's model when the catalog part is not the one you want.
Can CircuitSim do PCB layout?
No. CircuitSim is a simulator with a schematic editor. It has no board layout, and therefore no Gerber export or fabrication ordering. For layout you would move to a PCB tool such as KiCad, or to Circuit Design Suite with Ultiboard.
Can both products open my Multisim Live circuits?
Yes. Multisim Live's Download button produced .msjs files. Circuit Design Suite reads them, along with .ms14, with Digilent noting that some metadata such as comments may not transfer. CircuitSim imports both, plus .csim and .zip batches, and turns each one into a circuit you can edit and run; the importer is labeled experimental, so check the result against the original.
Is CircuitSim free for students?
The Basic plan is free for anyone and allows five circuits with five components each, with interactive simulation, interactive operating point, transient, AC sweep, and DC operating point analysis. In a class, students work in seats from the instructor's group license and do not buy anything themselves. Standard is $30 a year and Premium $90 a year for individuals who need more.
Who makes CircuitSim?
Elsewhere Labs, which is Britt and Sam. We worked on Multisim Live at Digilent and left after Emerson acquired NI. CircuitSim is not affiliated with NI, Emerson, or Digilent.
More from CircuitSim: What happened to Multisim Live · The best Multisim alternative · Save your Multisim Live circuits · CircuitSim for schools · What is SPICE simulation
Multisim, Multisim Live, Ultiboard, LabVIEW, and NI are trademarks of National Instruments (Emerson). KiCad is a trademark of the KiCad project. CircuitSim is not affiliated with National Instruments, Emerson, or Digilent. Circuit Design Suite prices, editions, and platform details reflect ni.com, NI's Multisim edition comparison page, and Studica's Student Edition listing as of September 17, 2026, and may have changed since.