Kathará vs QuNetSim
Kathará
kathara.orgQuNetSim
github.comSide by side
| Figure | Kathará | QuNetSim |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | Free | Free |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Free trial | — | — |
| Open source | — | — |
| Windows | Yes | Yes |
| macOS | Yes | Yes |
| Linux | Yes | Yes |
| API | Yes | — |
| Self-hosted | Yes | Yes |
| Plans published | 1 | 1 |
| Spec score · Network Simulation Software | 8.0 (#9) | 7.5 (#22) |
| Intended users | The project says it is used in courses and projects and describes use in teaching, production-network sandbox testing, and protocol development. | The documentation describes students and instructors, especially people relatively new to quantum networks, as its intended users. |
| Operating systems | The download page lists Linux distributions, macOS with Intel or Apple Silicon, and Windows 10 and 11 as supported platforms. | The installation guide provides instructions for Linux, Mac OS X, and Windows and requires Python 3.5 or greater for its platform-specific setup instructions. |
| Purpose | Kathará is an open-source container-based network emulation system for interactive lessons and demos, sandbox testing of production networks, and network protocol development. | QuNetSim is a Python framework for developing and testing quantum networking applications and protocols. |
Plans
In their own words
Kathará
Kathará is a free, open-source system for emulating networks in interactive lessons, demos, production-network sandbox tests, and protocol development. It represents network devices with containers connected through virtual Layer-2 LANs, and scenarios can use Docker or Kubernetes as their virtualization backend. Built-in images include Quagga, FRRouting, Bind, P4, and OpenVSwitch; users can also supply their own container images. A Python package exposes APIs for custom code. Kathará supports Linux, macOS on Intel or Apple Silicon, and Windows 10 and 11. Debian and Ubuntu installations are available through apt, with precompiled packages for other listed distributions. Settings cover IPv6, terminal behavior, volume mounts, and remote Docker or Kubernetes connections. The software depends on Docker by default, and rootless Docker and Podman are unsupported. The project lists version 3.8.3 as covered by security patches. It is free, with a listed price of free.
QuNetSim
QuNetSim is a free, MIT-licensed Python framework for developing and testing quantum networking applications and protocols. It includes built-in exercises for qubit teleportation, entanglement distribution, superdense coding, and quantum key distribution. Multi-hop networks use entanglement swapping to create links between distant hosts. You can define routing functions from classical and quantum network states, represented with NetworkX graphs. The event-driven model gives packets sequence numbers and lets them wait for acknowledgements. Host, Protocols, and Network components correspond to application, transport, and network layers. Supported backends include SimulaQron, ProjectQ, and EQSN, with SimulaQron listed as the default; custom network and qubit backends can also be imported. Installation uses pip and includes an example-generating template. Linux, macOS, and Windows setup instructions require Python 3.5 or newer. It is intended for students and instructors, especially newcomers, and is described as educational rather than a full quantum-physics simulator.