And the sources are limited to voltage sources-no current sources. It only contains models of passive components, voltage sources, and logic gates. The listĪDS 1.00– This one seems to be of most value to students, and first-semester students at that, rather than working engineers. They are provided alphabetically along with the most notable benefits and drawbacks we uncovered. We’ve listed all the simulators we found -the good, the bad, and the ugly-that actually did perform circuit simulation in some fashion. Some of the most useful are optimized specific kinds of analog circuits such as those for power supplies or passive filters. We uncovered a handful of relatively powerful free packages that seemingly have few strings attached. In one case, we tried a simulator that not only wouldn’t allow saving, but also posted publicly any circuits created by users on the free service.įortunately, not all free simulators suffer from such drawbacks. There may also be limitations on saving your work. Usually the free version has far fewer device models built in than the paid version. Nevertheless, we’ve included these simulators on our list if they still function-they may be enough if the goal is just to get a quick idea of how a circuit topology behaves.Īnother class of free simulator is actually a stripped-down variant of a program offered for sale.
It’s easy to find simulators whose last update predates the invention of the iPhone.Īcademic simulators also tend to support only basic generic device models forget about probing any part-number-specific behaviors.
A number of programs do, in fact, perform analog circuit simulation but were created by university researchers who seem to have lost interest in supporting them. Other packages labeled as circuit simulators are, in fact, just schematic capture programs augmented with some printed circuit board layout facilities. We came up with 30 packages and online apps that seemed to offer benefits of use in actual circuit work.Ī few overall impressions: Sometimes open-source simulators mentioned in older blog posts have just disappeared. To help find the most useful packages from amongst the sea of online debris, we surveyed the field of free circuit simulators mentioned in posts and forums. It particularly excels in modeling high-power circuits.
is among the more powerful free analog simulators. The LTspice program from Analog Devices Inc.
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