Simscuit vs Proteus
Proteus, from Labcenter Electronics, is professional desktop software for schematic capture, mixed-mode SPICE simulation with microcontroller co-simulation, and PCB layout. Simscuit is a browser platform for learning and building electronics. They overlap on microcontroller circuits and PCBs but serve different needs, and this page compares them using Labcenter’s own website for Proteus.
Where Simscuit leads
Proteus is a professional suite with a professional price. Simscuit leads on access, learning and breadth of the project.
- Free to start and nothing to install: it runs in a browser on a Chromebook, tablet or phone, and offline once installed as an app. Proteus is paid desktop software, and its demo cannot save your work.
- The whole project in one browser tab: circuit, code, simulation, a two-layer PCB, a 3D-printable enclosure, a robot, a phone app (App Builder) and courses, all from the same project, with nothing to install. Labcenter’s site describes neither mechanical CAD nor robot simulation.
- Real electrical consequences: parts pushed past the limits in their datasheet records glow, smoke and burn out, and the Problems panel shows the exact figure that was exceeded and the rating it broke. Hover over any pin or wire to read its voltage and current.
- More than 1,000 components drawn at real size, each spec linked to its datasheet source or marked "no source yet", and parts without a simulation model honestly labelled Visual only.
- Robots with real physics (arms, walkers and a hexapod on MuJoCo; rovers with mass, grip and slip) programmed with ordinary Arduino sketches.
- Python courses that run real CPython (Pyodide) and C++ courses that compile with real Clang, in the browser, with certificates. Organisation workspaces give a school student accounts and control over which tools are on.
- Manufacturing files from the same circuit: Gerber X2, Excellon drill, BOM and pick-and-place, plus a KiCad 7 project, checked with an independent Gerber reader and by loading them in KiCad 7.
What Proteus is
The Proteus Design Suite has been developed for more than 35 years. Proteus VSM (Virtual System Modelling) combines mixed-mode SPICE circuit simulation with simulation of a microcontroller running your object code, just like a real chip, including its I/O ports, interrupts, timers, USARTs and other peripherals. Labcenter lists over 750 supported microcontroller variants, including PIC, ARM, AVR, 8051 and MSP430 families, and many thousands of SPICE models.
Around the simulator it provides virtual instruments (a system oscilloscope, logic analyser, function and pattern generators, SPI and I2C protocol analysers), debugging with breakpoints and single stepping in source code, and hardware breakpoints set on the schematic. Visual Designer adds flowchart or C++ programming for Arduino and Raspberry Pi, and the PCB Design module is a professional layout tool.
What Proteus does especially well
- Co-simulation of firmware and analogue electronics in one SPICE-based simulation, down to waveform level.
- Breadth of microcontroller support, across many families beyond Arduino.
- Debugging that links code and circuit: single-step the code and watch the whole design respond.
- Professional PCB layout: constraint-driven design rules, a shape-based autorouter, push-and-shove routing, differential pairs and HDI stack-ups.
- Perpetual licences, so a purchased version keeps working, with network and cloud licensing for teams and colleges.
- Long use in education and industry, with direct technical support.
Feature by feature
| Simscuit | Proteus | |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free to start; paid Plus, Pro and Institution plans | Paid perpetual licences: custom packages from £150, Enterprise £4,225 and Platinum £5,225 on Labcenter’s price list; maintenance for upgrades; education pricing on request |
| Free version | Free plan with Circuit Studio, simulation and the learning tools | Professional demo: PCB layout without a time limit, 14 days of microcontroller simulation, no saving, and simulation of the sample designs only |
| Platform | Web browser on a computer, tablet or phone; installable as an app | Desktop software, downloaded and installed |
| Boards and chips | About 20 boards: Arduino Uno, Uno R4 WiFi, Nano, Nano ESP32, Nano 33 BLE Sense, Mega, Leonardo, Due, MKR WiFi 1010, ESP32 DevKit, ESP32-S3, XIAO ESP32C3, NodeMCU ESP8266, Raspberry Pi Pico W, XIAO RP2040, STM32 Nucleo and Blue Pill, Teensy 4.1, micro:bit, Circuit Playground Express, plus bare ATmega and ATtiny chips | Over 750 microcontroller variants (PIC, ARM, AVR, 8051, MSP430 and more); Arduino and Raspberry Pi through Visual Designer |
| Simulation approach | Works out the circuit’s voltages and currents (nodal analysis with Newton iteration); sketches run in Simscuit’s own Arduino interpreter | Mixed-mode SPICE with the microcontroller’s object code executed as on the real chip, peripherals included |
| Analysis | Live voltages and currents; no AC or noise analysis | Virtual instruments; graph-based analyses (frequency, distortion, noise, sweeps) in the Advanced Simulation option |
| PCB design | Two-layer PCB Design Studio: autorouter, live design rule checks, Gerber X2, Excellon, BOM and placement files, KiCad 7 export | Professional PCB layout: design rule rooms, shape-based autorouter, push-and-shove routing, differential pairs, HDI |
| 3D design | 3D Design Studio: parametric CAD, assemblies, engineering drawings, STL, 3MF and OpenSCAD export | Not a mechanical CAD tool; Labcenter describes MCAD integration for boards |
| Robotics | Robotics simulator: rovers, arms, walkers, drones and an underwater ROV programmed with Arduino sketches | Not described on the Labcenter pages checked |
| Courses | Free Python and C++ for Beginners courses with certificates, games, quizzes and a 3D Explorer | Tutorials, videos, a blog and a Visual Designer coursework book |
| Offline use | Installable app with offline support; work is kept on the device and, when signed in, in the account | Yes, as installed desktop software |
| Accounts and licences | Free account; organisation workspaces with student accounts made by administrators | Single-user, network (USB dongle) and cloud licences managed by an administrator |
| What each lacks | No interrupts, classes, structs, pointers or other #include libraries in sketches yet; no Wi-Fi or Bluetooth simulation; compiling and uploading to a board are not available yet; parts without a model are Visual only | No browser version; a significant cost for individuals; the demo cannot save or simulate your own microcontroller designs; no mechanical CAD or robot simulation |
What Simscuit does not do yet
- Sketches run in Simscuit’s own Arduino interpreter, which covers the common Arduino functions and a documented list of libraries; interrupts, classes, structs, pointers and other #include libraries are not supported yet.
- Wi-Fi and Bluetooth are not simulated.
- Compiling and uploading to a physical board are not available yet; sketches are exported as .ino files for the Arduino IDE.
- Parts without a simulation model can be placed and wired but are marked Visual only and left out of the simulation.
- There is no SPICE netlist, AC analysis or custom SPICE model import.
Verdict: who should pick which
- Pick Simscuit to learn electronics and Arduino on any device without a licence, to teach a class in the browser, or to take a project from breadboard to a two-layer board, an enclosure, a robot and an app in one place. For students, teachers and makers it is the clear choice on cost and access.
- Pick Proteus for professional embedded development: firmware co-simulated with analogue circuitry, microcontrollers beyond Arduino, source-level debugging against the circuit, and production PCB layout. It is also the right choice when your course or employer already uses it.
- A student can reasonably learn in Simscuit and move to Proteus, KiCad or another professional tool for advanced or commercial work.
Moving a project between them
There is no direct file exchange between the two. An Arduino sketch is standard code, so an .ino exported from Simscuit (File, Export, Code (.ino)) can be used in Proteus’s Arduino projects, and the other way round, provided it uses only what Simscuit’s interpreter supports. The circuit itself has to be redrawn. For board layout, Simscuit’s PCB Design Studio exports a KiCad 7 project as well as Gerber and drill files, which suits any tool or board maker that reads those formats.
Sources
Checked 6 November 2026. Products change: follow the links for the current details, and tell us if anything here is out of date.
Questions
Is there a free alternative to Proteus?
For learning microcontroller circuits in a browser, Simscuit is free to start. For free SPICE simulation and PCB layout on the desktop, KiCad includes an ngspice simulator.
Can Simscuit simulate PIC microcontrollers like Proteus?
No. Simscuit simulates Arduino-programmed boards such as the Uno, ESP32, Pico and STM32 boards, and a few bare AVR chips; PIC, 8051 and MSP430 are not simulated.