Everything you need to design, build, validate, and automate a network

One platform from the first topology sketch to an automated, validated lab. Every feature below is available on the free Student edition unless marked Enterprise.

Design

Draw the network the way you think about it.

Topology Designer: Drag templates, connect ports, group nodes into nested maps, undo and redo, with physical and derived logical views.
Generate Lab: Paste running-config text and get a lab built from it.
Migrate and import: Bring in lab bundles, or import and export Containerlab YAML with Containerlab Passport.
Guided Labs: Step-by-step labs with progress, checks, and solution playbooks.

VEX-NX Topology Designer in Design mode with a lab on the canvas

Build

Run real network operating systems side by side.

Four runtimes: QEMU/KVM, Docker, Dynamips, and Cisco IOL, using your own images.
VEX-NOS Adaptive Runtime: Choose Exact (vendor QEMU), Native, or Lite (FRR stand-in, labelled as simulation) on supported templates.
Consoles: HTML5 serial, VNC, and Docker shells, docked or maximized, or open in SecureCRT and PuTTY.
Node lifecycle: Start, stop, suspend, restart, and wipe, in bulk, with disk snapshots on supported runtimes.

VEX-NX Operate mode with running nodes and a docked console

Validate

See what the network is doing, not just whether it pings.

Preflight and scored checks: Catch missing images, capacity, and lock problems before Start all, then score the lab against checks.
Traffic Lens: Paint utilization and bandwidth on the canvas, with a conversations dock.
Packet capture: Capture on links, hubs, clouds, or nodes and collect PCAPs in Capture Center.
Link impairment: Delay, jitter, loss, reorder, and rate presets on fabric links.
Packet Journey and Time Machine: Follow a modeled path through the lab, set restore points, and inject faults.
Black Box: Record incident evidence: events plus capture references.

VEX-NX Visualize mode with traffic and protocol lenses

Automate

Treat the lab like infrastructure.

Configuration Studio: Running, startup, candidate, and golden configs with validation, diff, history, and multi-node deploy.
Automation Studio: Playbooks and inventory groups, run live or on a schedule against lab nodes.
REST API and MCP: JWT-authenticated REST API with an OpenAPI reference, plus an MCP tool catalogue for AI agents.
Assist: An LLM assistant that drafts labs and configs, using your own OpenRouter key.

Automation Studio and the API driving a lab

Platform

The apps around your labs.

Images and templates: Library, catalogue, compatibility status, convert-and-add, bulk folder import, and commit a node disk to an image.
Container Image Center: Inventory of the Docker and OCI images your labs use.
Lab Hub: Curated lab packages, with optional remote sync.
Classroom: Share labs with a class. Enterprise adds timers, an instructor dashboard, grading, PDF reports, and Proctor.
Cluster Manager: Add compute agents with a join token and plan image sync for distributed labs.
System Monitor and Infrastructure: Host pulse, services, management network, and cloud uplinks.
Present and Preview: A clean Present lens for teaching and an immersive Design Preview.
Administration: Users and roles, licence, Assist settings, security, backup, updates, and audit.

VEX-NX Home with Launch Budget, host checks, and recent labs

Not included

Vendor OS images, IOL binaries, and Cisco iourc files. Bring your own; catalogue templates are unlocked on both editions.
Kubernetes or Cilium lab orchestration (not shipped yet).
High-availability fencing and automatic failover. Cluster Manager registers agents and syncs images.

Download VEX-NX Feature reference in the docs