Multisim Live Lab Manuals
Multisim Live Lab Manuals After the Shutdown
Updated August 11, 2026 · By Britt at CircuitSim · 6 min read
Plenty of circuits courses run on a lab manual that assigns Multisim Live by name: sign in at multisim.com, build the circuit in Figure 3, measure the node voltages. Digilent, which manages Multisim Live today, retires the service on September 15, 2026, and after that every one of those pages points at a tool that no longer exists.
Some of these manuals are homegrown lab handouts, refined over years of sections. At least one is a published textbook: Massimo Mitolo's Simulation-based Labs for Circuit Analysis (2024) builds an entire course of lab exercises on Multisim Live and Tinkercad. The manual is still good. The tool half of it needs a new home.
CircuitSim is a browser-based circuit simulator with a SPICE engine, and CircuitSim opens the files you download from Multisim Live. Sam and I ran Multisim Live's cloud software at NI before leaving to build CircuitSim, which makes us biased, and also familiar with what your manual asks students to do. Here is what carries over and what needs a small edit.
The retirement dates
The dates Digilent has published
- August 1, 2026. Last day Digilent offered new monthly Multisim Live subscriptions. Yearly subscriptions were withdrawn before that.
- September 15, 2026. Multisim Live is retired. After this date Digilent does not guarantee access to saved designs.
- October 1, 2026. End of the courtesy access Digilent offered to NI Circuit Design Suite for affected subscribers.
Fall sections that begin in August will still have Multisim Live for the first few weeks, then lose it mid-course. If your manual leans on it, the switch is worth making before the first lab rather than at week four.
Get the manual's circuits out now
Most lab manuals come with prepared circuits: instructor solutions, starting-point schematics, graded templates. Download each one from Multisim Live as a file while the service is still up. Digilent's end-of-life notice is blunt: after September 15, 2026, the company "does not guarantee the continued access" to Multisim Live data, saved designs included. The screenshot walkthrough is at Save your Multisim Live circuits, and it is ten minutes of work you will not get a second chance at.
What carries over, page by page
| In your manual | After September 15 | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| Links to circuits on multisim.com | Stop working | Download the files now; CircuitSim opens them |
| Multisim Live screenshots | Show a UI that no longer exists | The schematics read the same; the toolbar differs. One screenshot swap per lab, or a one-page "where things moved" handout |
| Assigned analyses (DC operating point, transient, AC sweep) | Unchanged as concepts | All three run in CircuitSim, plus DC sweep and parameter sweep on Standard and above |
| Tinkercad exercises | Unaffected; Tinkercad is not retiring | Keep them exactly as written |
| Student Multisim Live accounts | Gone with the service | CircuitSim group licenses use private seats, so students work from a link with no account at all |
Running the labs in CircuitSim
The circuits import as working circuits. CircuitSim rebuilds a downloaded Multisim Live file into an editable schematic, and the probes come along with it. That last part matters for a lab manual, because the measurement setup is usually the point of the exercise: if lab 5 asks for the voltage across R2, the imported circuit already has the probe on R2.
The parts your labs use are in the catalog. Resistor networks, capacitors and inductors, op amps, diodes and transistors for the analog labs; logic gates, latches and flip-flops, 555 timers, and seven-segment displays for the digital ones. The catalog holds 3,000+ parts, and the custom component studio accepts SPICE model text from a datasheet, or a KiCad symbol, for anything unusual your manual calls for.
The class does not need accounts. With a CircuitSim group license, each student gets a private seat behind a link. No sign-up, no email address collected, and the classroom stays FERPA and COPPA compliant. Details at CircuitSim for educators and CircuitSim for schools.
Before you assign a lab, run it once yourself in CircuitSim and compare the numbers against your answer key. The importer is labeled experimental in the app, and a manual is only as good as its known-correct results. If a circuit imports wrong, send us the file and we will look at it.
Questions from instructors
Will the simulation results match my manual's answer key?
They should land on the same numbers. Multisim Live ran a SPICE engine and CircuitSim runs a SPICE engine, so the same netlist produces the same operating points and waveforms within normal tolerance. Run each lab once against your key before assigning it, which is good practice with any tool change.
Does CircuitSim open the circuit files from my manual?
Yes, once they are downloaded from Multisim Live. CircuitSim opens .csim, .ms14, and .msjs files, and a .zip of a whole folder, and rebuilds each one as an editable, simulating circuit with its probes intact.
My manual's screenshots show Multisim Live. Will students be lost?
The schematic symbols and the analysis names are the familiar part, and those read the same in CircuitSim. The toolbar and menus differ. Most instructors handle this with a short "where things moved" note for week one rather than reshooting every figure.
What about the Tinkercad half of the manual?
Nothing changes. Tinkercad is an Autodesk product and is not retiring. The Multisim Live shutdown affects only the Multisim Live exercises.
Do students need accounts?
Not with a group license. Students open a private seat from a link, with no account creation and no email address collected. CircuitSim for schools covers how seats work.
What does it cost for a class?
The Basic tier is free for individual use. Classes run on group licenses with bulk seat pricing, which comes out well under retail seat by seat. Standard is $2.99 per month or $30 per year for individuals, and Premium is $8.99 per month or $90 per year.
More from CircuitSim: Save your Multisim Live circuits · How to open Multisim files online · Best Multisim alternative in 2026 · CircuitSim for educators · CircuitSim for schools
Multisim and Multisim Live are trademarks of National Instruments (Emerson). Tinkercad is a trademark of Autodesk. Simulation-based Labs for Circuit Analysis is published by River Publishers/Routledge. CircuitSim is not affiliated with National Instruments, Digilent, Autodesk, or the book's author or publisher. Retirement dates reflect Digilent's public announcements as of August 2026; confirm details on Digilent's site.