Source: https://mokxi.com/learn/multisim-live-alternative Updated: 2026-09-28 Learn # Multisim Live is gone. Here is how to move a digital electronics class to the browser Written by the Mokxi team, updated September 28, 2026 Sign up free or see every lesson - 192 parts on the bench - 25 boards running now - 1.00x real time, on every board Click to open it in the editor An NE555 astable at about 1.9 Hz clocks a 74HC74 wired as a two-bit counter, with a logic analyzer on the clock and both bits. Multisim Live, the browser version of NI Multisim, reached end of life on September 15, 2026. Digilent announced the date in an end-of-life notice, and Project Lead The Way’s software page says its Digital Electronics course will use Multisim Desktop as its primary circuit software from now on. Multisim Desktop is a Windows program. If your students work on Chromebooks, that leaves a gap in the middle of a semester. This page is for the teacher in that gap. It says what changed, what your options are, and which topics of a typical high school digital electronics course you can run in Mokxi today, in a Chrome tab, for free. It also says what Mokxi does not do, because a tool that oversells itself costs you a week in October. The circuit running above is a fair sample of the course: a 555 timer wired as a clock, feeding a 74HC74 wired as a two-bit counter, with a logic analyzer on the clock and both bits. Nothing in it is scripted. The 555 is timed by its resistors and capacitor, the flip-flops count real edges, and the analyzer records what happened. ## What changed on September 15, 2026 According to Digilent’s end-of-life notice, Multisim Live stopped on September 15, 2026, and access to anything saved in it is not guaranteed after that date. The same notice says designs downloaded before the shutdown can be imported into Multisim Desktop, though some details, such as comments, may not carry over. Project Lead The Way’s software page gives the same date and says the Digital Electronics course will use Multisim Desktop as its primary circuit design software. NI’s readme for Circuit Design Suite 14.3, the current desktop release, lists Windows 10 and Windows Server 2012 R2 as its supported operating systems. There is no ChromeOS or macOS version. All three sources are linked at the bottom of this page, and we checked them on September 23, 2026. If you have designs you never downloaded, ask your Digilent or PLTW contact directly. Mokxi cannot recover them, and no other tool can either. ## Your three options, honestly Multisim Desktop on Windows machines. If your room, or a lab down the hall, has Windows PCs, this is the path your course materials were written for. It is also the most complete: full SPICE simulation, the virtual instruments your activities describe, and the ability to open the files your students exported from Multisim Live. Nothing on this page beats that for fidelity to the curriculum. Windows streamed to a Chromebook. Some districts already run a virtual desktop or a remote app service. If yours does, IT may be able to publish Multisim Desktop through it. That keeps the curriculum files intact, but it depends on licensing, bandwidth and your IT department’s calendar. A browser simulator. This is where Mokxi fits. Students open a link and build on a breadboard with real 74HC chips, a 555, switches, LEDs, a seven-segment display, an oscilloscope, a logic analyzer and microcontroller boards like the Arduino Uno. It will not open a Multisim file, and your activity sheets will need small translations, which the next section maps out. Other browser tools exist too; our comparison pages cover the ones we know. ## Topic by topic: what runs in Mokxi today Logic gates and truth tables. The 74HC00 (NAND), 74HC04 (NOT), 74HC08 (AND), 74HC32 (OR) and 74HC86 (XOR) are real 14-pin parts with supply pins that have to be wired, so a missing ground behaves the way it does on a bench. There are also ideal gates, with no power pins, for sketching logic before building it. Boolean algebra and Karnaugh maps. Mokxi has no Karnaugh map solver yet. What students can do is build the simplified expression and check it against the truth table by flipping switches, which is the step that proves the algebra. The course companion linked below has a worked majority-vote circuit that does exactly this. Adders, latches, flip-flops and counters. A full adder from three 74HC chips, an SR latch from a 74HC00, the two D flip-flops in a 74HC74, and ripple counters built from them, like the one above. The 555 runs as an astable and as a monostable, timed by the parts you choose. Microcontrollers. The Arduino Uno, Nano and Mega, the Raspberry Pi Pico and several ESP32 boards run real compiled C++ in the tab, so a control unit can stay in the same tool. Also in the catalog: the CD4511 BCD-to-seven-segment decoder, the 74HC138 decoder, the 74HC161 and 74HC193 counters, the 74HC165 shift register, the CD4017 decade counter, the 74HC02 NOR and the 74HC14 Schmitt inverter. What Mokxi does not have is programmable logic or an HDL, so if your sequence leans on those this semester, plan around them. ## Reading the counter above The 555 is an astable with R1 = 10 kilohms, R2 = 33 kilohms and C = 10 microfarads, so f = 1.44 / ((R1 + 2 R2) C), about 1.9 Hz. We ran it and timed bit 0: it changes every 0.53 seconds, one clock period, which is the formula’s answer. Each flip-flop in the 74HC74 has its D input tied to its own Q-bar, so every rising clock edge flips it. The first one divides the clock by two, and the second, clocked from the first one’s Q-bar, divides it by two again. Read the yellow and green LEDs as bits and they count 00, 01, 10, 11 and around. Open it in the editor and look at the logic analyzer. Channel D0 is the clock, D1 is bit 0 and D2 is bit 1. The trace shows each bit changing on an edge of the stage before it, which is the thing students miss when they only watch LEDs. Change C to 1 microfarad and the whole picture runs ten times faster. One detail in the wiring: a 10 kilohm resistor holds the clock line at 0 V before the 555 starts, so the flip-flop sees a clean first edge. On a bench it does no harm. ## Running it with a class on Chromebooks Mokxi is a web page, and the simulation runs on the student’s own machine, so a Chromebook works as well as a lab PC. There is nothing to install and no extension. A student can open the editor and run a circuit without an account; saving work and joining a class need one. If your web filter gets in the way, the IT setup page lists the domains to allow. For a whole class, the Teacher plan is $129 a year for up to 40 students, and a 30-day classroom trial runs one class of up to 40 students free, once per account. You assign a starter circuit, students build on it, and they submit it for you to check. None of that is required to use this page: every circuit here is free to open and run. ## What Mokxi does not do It does not import Multisim Live or Multisim Desktop files, so students rebuild circuits rather than open old ones. Analog parts on the canvas are solved by nodal analysis, which is accurate for the RC timing and logic levels of a digital course, and SPICE decks run on an engine checked against ngspice, but there are no Monte Carlo runs. And it is not affiliated with Project Lead The Way, NI or Digilent, and does not reproduce their activities. The circuits on this page are ours. ## Questions Is Multisim Live coming back? Nothing NI, Digilent or Project Lead The Way has published says so. If that changes, this page will say so, with a date. Can I open my Multisim Live designs in Mokxi? No. Mokxi cannot read Multisim files. If you downloaded your designs before September 15, 2026, Multisim Desktop is the tool that can import them. In Mokxi the circuits are rebuilt, which for a digital course is usually a few minutes of wiring per circuit. Does it work on school Chromebooks? Yes. It runs in Chrome with nothing to install, and the simulation runs on the Chromebook itself. If a web filter blocks it, the IT setup page lists the domains to allow. Is it free? Opening, building and running circuits is free, and a student can do it without an account. The paid plans add more saved projects and class tools such as rosters, submissions and checks. Related ## Keep going Digital Electronics on Chromebooks: Labs by Unit Flip-Flops Explained: SR Latch, D and JK Flip-Flops Half Adder and Full Adder: Truth Table to Breadboard The 555 Monostable: One Press, One Timed Pulse Online SPICE Simulator: Run and Export Netlists Mokxi and Multisim, compared Logic gate simulator For teachers IT setup for schools Sources ## Where the facts on this page come from - Digilent: Multisim Live end-of-life letter (checked September 23, 2026) - Project Lead The Way: software and hardware, Multisim Live sunset (checked September 23, 2026) - NI: Circuit Design Suite 14.3 readme, supported operating systems (checked September 23, 2026) ## Build this for real Open the editor, change a value and watch the number move with it. Nothing to install, and no account needed. Start building Open the editor