mininet/mininet

Health v2 · maintenance only

Adoption not part of the score

5849 stars · 1803 forks observed · 2026-08-28

What it is AI-extracted, prompt v1, taxonomy v1, 2026-08-29, confidence not recorded

Mininet is a network emulator that creates realistic virtual networks of hosts, switches, and links on a single Linux machine using process-based virtualization and network namespaces. It is designed for rapid prototyping, testing, teaching, and research of Software Defined Networks (SDN) using OpenFlow and P4.

Use cases

• emulate a software defined network on a laptop
• prototype and test an OpenFlow SDN controller
• create custom network topologies for experiments
• teach networking concepts with a virtual network lab
• run ping and iperf tests between virtual hosts
• demo network applications before deploying to hardware

When to choose

• you need a fast, lightweight virtual network on a single Linux machine
• you are developing or testing SDN controllers with OpenFlow or P4
• you want a teaching or research tool for networking experiments
• you need a Python API to script custom network topologies

When to avoid

• you need full OS virtualization or emulation of non-Linux hosts
• you require accurate hardware performance or line-rate testing on real switches
• you are not running Linux, since Mininet depends on Linux kernel network namespaces
• you need to emulate wireless or highly specialized link-layer behavior

Facets

application · maturity stable

simulation networking cli developer-tools networking developer-tools education python cli sdn openflow network-emulator network-namespaces virtual-network openvswitch linux

Member repositories

For agents

markdown · JSON · MCP: product_card(name="mininet/mininet")