NetPilot

The On-Demand Network Lab for Software Vendors

Describe a prospect's network in plain English and NetPilot's AI builds a customer-matched POC, demo, and integration test bed in ~2 minutes — real multi-vendor CLIs, cloud-hosted, share a URL.

“Build me a lab matching Acme Corp's network — Cisco core, Juniper edge, Palo Alto firewall”

Customer-matched demos
Multi-vendor support
Integration testing API
Try It Free
app.netpilot.io

Why software vendors ship POC labs faster with NetPilot

On-demand, customer-matched POC labs your sales engineers build in minutes — AI-designed, multi-vendor, cloud-hosted. Four capabilities that compound for pre-sales and SE teams.

Cloud-native

Browser-based POC labs — nothing for your SEs to install, rack, or license.

The alternative

CloudShare / CloudLabs (Spektra) general-purpose VM labs, or a self-hosted EVE-NG your team babysits per demo.

AI-designed

Describe the prospect's stack in plain English — AI builds a customer-matched multi-vendor lab; SSH in to prove your product against it.

The alternative

Hand-build every prospect demo in the GUI, or ship static templates that drift from real customer networks.

Multi-turn iteration

“Add a Palo Alto firewall, move OSPF to area 0” → AI updates the whole POC live on the call.

The alternative

Re-author the lab template and re-publish — too slow to adapt mid-evaluation.

2 minutes vs days

~2 minutes from prompt to a running customer-matched POC — real CLIs over SSH, BYOI network OS images.

The alternative

Skillable / CloudMyLab content build-out measured in days, plus per-seat hosting fees.

This is the network-software-vendor vertical under the broader Network POC Lab hub. If you're a sales engineer or solutions architect and your product isn't network software specifically, start at the hub instead.

See It in Action

Watch how NetPilot builds a complete multi-vendor demo environment from a single description.

Your Demo Environment is Costing You Deals

Generic demos don't close enterprise deals. Prospects need to see your software on their topology.

Demo Environment Bottleneck

Sales engineers wait days for lab access. Prospects lose interest. Shared demo environments get corrupted by previous demos, causing embarrassing failures.

Generic Demos Don't Close Deals

Showing your software on a generic 3-router topology doesn't convince enterprise buyers. They need to see it working on something that looks like their network.

Integration Testing is Manual

QA builds test environments by hand. Each new customer topology means hours of setup. Bugs slip through because you can't test against every possible configuration.

Multi-Vendor Support is Hard

Your software works with Cisco, Juniper, Arista, and Palo Alto. Building demo environments for each vendor combination requires expertise you don't have.

Traditional Demo Workflow vs. NetPilot

Stop losing deals to demo environment delays. Start closing faster.

Traditional workflow

Request demo environment from IT
Wait days for approval and setup
Demo on shared lab (hope it works)
Customer asks about their topology
Apologize — you can't replicate it
Lose deal to competitor with better demo

Lost deals, frustrated sales team

With NetPilot

Describe customer's network to AI
Demo environment ready in minutes
Show your software on their topology
Close the deal

More demos, more closed deals

Built for Software Vendor Workflows

Everything your sales, SE, and QA teams need to demo and test your software.

On-Demand Demo Environments

Spin up customer-specific demo labs instantly. Each sales engineer gets dedicated environments. No more scheduling conflicts or corrupted shared labs.

Customer-Matched Topologies

Describe the prospect's network and AI builds a matching lab. Demo your software against their topology — BGP peering, firewall rules, and all.

Integration Testing at Scale

REST API for automated lab provisioning. Test your software against hundreds of topology variations. Catch bugs before customers do.

Multi-Vendor Coverage

Nokia SR Linux built in; Cisco, Juniper, Arista, Palo Alto, and Fortinet via BYOI — AI handles each vendor's configuration. Show prospects your software works across their entire stack.

Real CLI Access

Labs run real device images with actual CLI access. Your software integrates with the lab the same way it integrates with production.

Isolated Customer Environments

Each demo runs in a dedicated cloud VM. Customer data stays separate. Demos never interfere with each other.

From a prospect description to a live demo lab

Same workflow your SE picks up in minutes: describe or import the customer's network, let AI design and deploy it, then SSH into real vendor CLIs to drive the demo.

Describe or import the customer's network

Type the prospect's topology in plain English, or import their running configs. NetPilot's AI turns it into a customer-matched lab — no drag-and-drop, no per-vendor syntax to remember.

app.netpilot.io

AI designs and deploys the POC in ~2 minutes

The agent generates per-vendor configs across Nokia SR Linux (built in) plus Cisco, Juniper, Arista, Palo Alto, and Fortinet (via BYOI), then deploys a dedicated cloud lab. Each demo runs isolated — no shared-lab corruption between prospects.

app.netpilot.io

SSH into real vendor CLIs to drive the demo

Labs run real network OS images with full CLI access over SSH — your software integrates via SNMP, NETCONF, gNMI, CLI, or REST exactly as it would in production. Share a URL and let the prospect drive.

app.netpilot.io

What your customers can model in a NetPilot POC lab

Build a demo environment that mirrors any prospect's stack — routing, data-center fabric, security, and multi-vendor interop — so your software proves out against a realistic network.

Customer-matched POC topology

Mirror the prospect's stack from a plain-English brief — Cisco core, Juniper edge, Arista spine, Palo Alto firewall (Nokia SR Linux built in; commercial NOSes via BYOI) — so your software proves out against their actual network shape.

Multi-vendor interop validation

Nokia SR Linux built in, plus Cisco, Juniper, and Arista via BYOI in one lab to verify cross-vendor behavior — the exact interop questions a prospect's architects raise mid-evaluation.

Config-driven digital twin

Import a prospect's running configs and rebuild a digital twin of their network, then demo your product against a faithful copy — not a generic 3-router toy.

BGP / OSPF routing fabric

eBGP/iBGP, route reflectors, communities, and multi-area OSPF with route summarization — the routing backbone most monitoring and automation tools must read.

Security & segmentation demo

Palo Alto or Fortinet zones, security policies, and NAT between segments (BYOI) — show a security product enforcing and observing real firewall state.

Data-center fabric (VXLAN/EVPN)

Leaf-spine fabric with an eBGP underlay and EVPN overlay — prove your product handles the overlay/underlay split modern DC prospects run.

Telemetry & API integration

Your software integrates over SNMP, NETCONF, gNMI, CLI, or REST against real NOS images — exactly as in production, so the POC reflects the deal.

CI/CD regression matrix

Drive labs via REST API to spin up topology variations on every PR, run integration tests against real CLIs, and tear down on merge.

NetPilot vs. In-House Labs vs. Cloud Providers

Compare your options for demo and testing infrastructure.

Demo environment creation
NetPilot
AI builds from description
In-House Lab
Manual setup, days/weeks
Cloud Lab Provider
Generic templates only
Customer-specific topologies
NetPilot
Describe it, AI builds it
In-House Lab
If you have time
Cloud Lab Provider
Not supported
Multi-vendor support
NetPilot
Nokia SR Linux built in; Cisco, Juniper, Arista, Palo Alto, Fortinet via BYOI
In-House Lab
Limited by expertise
Cloud Lab Provider
Varies by provider
Concurrent demos
NetPilot
Unlimited (dedicated VMs)
In-House Lab
Limited by hardware
Cloud Lab Provider
Limited by subscription
Integration testing API
NetPilot
Full REST API
In-House Lab
Build it yourself
Cloud Lab Provider
Limited or none
Cost model
NetPilot
Subscription pricing
In-House Lab
CapEx + maintenance
Cloud Lab Provider
Per-hour/per-lab

How Software Vendors Use NetPilot

From sales demos to QA testing, NetPilot fits into your existing workflow.

Sales Demo Environments

Give every sales engineer their own demo lab. Customize for each prospect's network. Close deals faster with convincing, personalized demonstrations.

Customer POC Labs

When prospects want to test your software before buying, spin up a lab matching their environment. Let them see it working with their topology.

QA Integration Testing

Automate integration testing across topology variations. Test against Cisco-only networks, multi-vendor environments, and edge cases. Ship with confidence.

Partner Enablement

Enable channel partners to demo your software independently. Provide them with lab environments they can customize for their prospects.

Close Deals Faster

Minutes
To spin up a customer-matched demo environment
Unlimited
Concurrent demo environments per account
Real CLI
Actual device access, not simulation

NetPilot vs. general POC-lab platforms

Pick CloudShare / CloudLabs / Skillable when you need:

  • •Mature multi-tenant training, scoring, and LMS-style course delivery
  • •General-purpose IT labs (Windows, web apps, full VM environments)
  • •Established for hands-on training and certification at scale
  • •CloudMyLab is the hosted-EVE-NG continuity path for existing EVE/GNS3 users

Pick NetPilot when you need:

  • •AI builds a customer-matched multi-vendor topology in ~2 minutes
  • •Real vendor CLIs — Nokia SR Linux built in; Cisco, Juniper, Arista, Palo Alto, Fortinet via BYOI
  • •Cloud lab deploys in ~2 min; share a URL — no VM or appliance to host
  • •Iterate by chat — "add an Arista spine" updates configs across all devices

Verdict:CloudShare, CloudLabs, and Skillable are the right call for general multi-tenant IT training and certification labs, and CloudMyLab for hosted EVE-NG continuity. NetPilot is the AI network engineer for the software-vendor case those platforms don't cover: a sales engineer describes a prospect's network and NetPilot builds and validates a real-CLI, multi-vendor POC lab in minutes. As of 2026 it's the turn-key option that pairs natural-language topology generation with real network OS images.

Frequently Asked Questions

Common questions from software vendors evaluating NetPilot.

Yes. Describe the customer's network environment to NetPilot's AI, and it generates a matching lab topology. Your sales engineers can demo your software against a realistic representation of each prospect's infrastructure.
NetPilot labs provide real device CLIs and API access. You can install and configure your software to communicate with the lab devices just like a production environment. Perfect for demonstrating network monitoring, automation, or security tools.
Yes. NetPilot's REST API allows programmatic lab provisioning. Spin up test topologies as part of your CI/CD pipeline, run your test suite against the lab, and tear down automatically. Catch integration issues before they reach customers.
Yes. Nokia SR Linux is built in; commercial NOSes — Cisco IOL (routers and L2 switches), Arista cEOS, Juniper cRPD, Palo Alto PAN-OS, and Fortinet FortiGate — run via bring-your-own-image (BYOI). AI handles each vendor's configuration syntax automatically, so you can demo against any prospect's stack.
We offer volume pricing for software vendors who need multiple concurrent demo environments. Contact us for a custom quote based on your sales team's needs and expected demo volume.
We work with your team to understand your demo and testing workflows. We help configure lab templates for your most common scenarios, integrate with your CI/CD if needed, and train your sales engineers on creating custom demo environments.
Four lanes cover the software-vendor POC space. CloudShare is SaaS POC infrastructure (general-purpose, weaker on multi-vendor network topologies). CloudMyLab is the hosted-EVE-NG continuity option. Quali is blueprint-based orchestration across mixed environments (network + cloud + application). Skillable is LMS-adjacent lab hosting. As of 2026, NetPilot is the productized AI-native customer-matched POC entrant in this category for software vendors whose product integrates with multi-vendor network gear — AI builds a multi-vendor lab in ~2 minutes (Nokia SR Linux built in; Cisco, Juniper, Arista via BYOI), your software integrates via SNMP / NETCONF / gNMI / CLI / REST, prospect drives a shareable URL.
Yes. NetPilot exposes a REST API for programmatic lab provisioning — CI/CD pipelines spin up a fresh multi-vendor lab on PR open, run your integration tests against real NOS CLIs (Nokia SR Linux built in; Cisco IOL, Juniper cRPD, Arista cEOS, Palo Alto, and Fortinet via bring-your-own-image/BYOI), capture results, and tear down on merge. Common pattern for network-monitoring, observability, and security-software vendors whose product must prove it works across every vendor in their prospect's network.
It depends on what your software integrates with. CloudShare, CloudLabs (Spektra), and Skillable are mature general-purpose virtual IT lab and training platforms with strong multi-tenant, scoring, and LMS features; CloudMyLab is the hosted-EVE-NG continuity option. As of 2026, NetPilot is the AI-native, turn-key option built specifically for vendors whose product touches multi-vendor network gear: describe a prospect's network in plain English and the AI builds a customer-matched multi-vendor lab in ~2 minutes, with real CLIs over SSH — Nokia SR Linux built in; Cisco, Juniper, and Arista via bring-your-own-image (BYOI). Your software integrates via SNMP, NETCONF, gNMI, CLI, or REST exactly as in production.
NetPilot is a cloud, AI-native network emulator — it runs real network OS images (ContainerLab-based), not abstracted simulations, so device behavior matches production. Where most network simulation software models device behavior, an emulator runs the actual NOS. For POC and demo use, the practical upshot is that prospects see your software running against actual vendor CLIs, not a simplified model.

Explore More

Network Digital Twin

Validate network changes in a production-mirror sandbox before deploying to live infrastructure.

All Capabilities

See the full NetPilot platform — AI topology design, multi-vendor configs, and automated validation.

Network Simulation Software Guide

How emulators, simulators, and modeling tools compare across the category — and where an AI-native cloud emulator fits.

Network POC Lab Hub

The broader on-demand POC and proof-of-concept lab hub for sales engineers and solution architects.

Start Closing More Deals

14 days free. Unlimited demo environments. Dedicated onboarding. No credit card required. Volume pricing available for sales teams.

Try It Free