How Simulations Labs lets you run world-class cybersecurity competitions — without touching a single line of code.
Let's be honest. If you've ever tried to set up CTFd from scratch, you know the experience all too well. First, you clone the repo. Then you install Python dependencies, configure a database, figure out Docker, set up reverse proxies, and spend half a day troubleshooting port conflicts — before you've even created a single challenge.
And that's just the setup. When competition day arrives, you're the one watching server logs, hoping nobody DDoS's your infrastructure, and praying the scoreboard doesn't go down during the final hour.
Sound familiar? You're not alone. This is the reality for thousands of security educators, corporate trainers, and event organizers who wanted to run a great CTF and ended up running a mini DevOps project instead.
Here's the thing: it doesn't have to be this way.
The CTFd Setup Problem No One Talks About
CTFd is a solid open-source framework — we respect what they've built. But open-source comes with a catch: you own the infrastructure, you own the uptime, and you own every configuration decision along the way.
Here's a quick look at what getting CTFd running actually involves:
| ❌ CTFd (Self-Hosted) | ✅ Simulations Labs |
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| Install Python + pip dependencies manually | Log in and start building — no setup required |
| Configure and manage your own database | Fully managed cloud database, handled for you |
| Set up and maintain Docker containers | No containers to think about — it's all managed SaaS |
| Handle SSL certificates & reverse proxies | HTTPS is included out of the box |
| Monitor server health on competition day | Our team monitors uptime so you can focus on the event |
| Scale infrastructure when traffic spikes | Auto-scalable infrastructure built for peak traffic |
| No built-in challenge library — build everything from scratch | Pre-built library: Web Security, Crypto, Network Security & more |
| No AI assistance for content discovery | Simulations AI Copilot finds the perfect challenge in seconds |
| Zero support during live events (open-source tier) | 24/7 live support from real humans |
| Pricing increases announced in 2025 for the managed tier | Transparent, free-forever tier — no surprises |
What Simulations Labs Does Differently
Simulations Labs was built from the ground up with one question in mind: what would a CTF platform look like if it was designed for the people running events, not the engineers configuring them?
The answer is a fully managed, no-code platform that covers everything — from challenge creation to live analytics — without a single terminal command.
1. Get Up and Running in Minutes
There's no installation, no Docker Compose files, no nginx configs. You create an account, and your competition environment is ready. You can have a fully functioning CTF live before you finish your morning coffee.
2. Build Challenges Without Writing Code
Creating challenges in Simulations Labs is genuinely intuitive. You choose from Jeopardy-style formats, set difficulty levels, assign categories, and define flags — all through a clean, visual interface.
Need Web Security challenges? Network forensics? Cryptography? You can pull from a pre-existing library of professionally designed challenges, or bring your own. No Python scripting. No database entries. Just point, click, and compete.
Meet Simulations AI Copilot: Your AI-Powered Challenge Builder
This is where things get genuinely exciting. Simulations Labs includes an AI assistant we call Simulations AI Copilot — and it changes how you think about building CTF content.
| How Simulations AI Copilot Works 1. Describe your scenario — tools, skills, category, difficulty level, target audience. 2. The AI instantly surfaces top-ranked matches from the challenge library. 3. Preview, select, and deploy — challenges are ready to go in your event. |
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Think about what this replaces. Instead of spending days designing challenges, testing flags, and setting up infrastructure, you describe what you want in plain language and the AI does the heavy lifting.
Planning a CTF for junior SOC analysts? Describe that. Running a red-team focused event for senior pentesters? Describe that too. The Copilot finds challenges that actually match your goals — not just generic fill-in-the-blanks.
CTFd has no equivalent to this. If you want challenges, you build them — or you go hunting across the internet for CTF writeups and reverse-engineer them. With Simulations Labs, your entire challenge discovery workflow is intelligent and instant.
Run Your Competition Your Way
Simulations Labs supports both internal and public CTF formats — with flexibility that CTFd's self-hosted version simply can't match out of the box.
Internal CTFs
The competition is not visible on your site. Only participants who have the direct link can access and enroll, making it ideal for private assessments, internal training, or team-building activities.
Public CTFs
The competition is publicly listed on your site. Anyone browsing your site who meets the competition conditions can view and participate, making it suitable for open events and broader engagement.
Individual or Team-Based
Whether you want solo competition or team dynamics, both formats are supported. You configure it, invite participants with a link, and go.
![Simulations Labs CTFs and Competitions Dashboard][image5]
Real-Time Monitoring — Without Babysitting Servers
On competition day, you should be focused on your participants — not your uptime. Simulations Labs gives you a live Hub Dashboard where you can track:
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Live leaderboard updates in real time
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Submission tracking across all challenges
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Participation stats and team progress
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Post-competition analytics and exportable reports
And if anything goes sideways? Our 24/7 support team is there. Not a ticket queue. Not a forum post. A real team that picks up when you need them. That alone is something CTFd's open-source version simply cannot offer.
| What our customers say: "Simulations Labs has made it very easy to host a CTF. We only focus on creating and uploading the challenges, and everything else gets taken care of. On the CTF day, we didn’t need to worry about the site going down or getting attacked." — Henock Negash, Community Lead, Yekolo Temari |
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Flexible Deployment — Not Just One-Size-Fits-All
Not every organization is comfortable putting their training data in the cloud. We get it. That's why Simulations Labs offers three deployment models:
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SaaS (Cloud-Hosted): Fully managed, instantly available, zero maintenance.
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Private Hosting: Your own branded subdomain with complete data isolation — no infrastructure management required on your end.
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On-Premises: Full control over your data and environment, ideal for government entities or regulated industries.
CTFd's managed tier gives you one option with increasing pricing. Simulations Labs gives you flexibility that actually scales with your organization's needs.
A Free Plan That Actually Lets You Try Before You Buy
Simulations Labs has a genuine free plan — not a 14-day trial that disappears. You get access to unlimited competitions and unlimited challenges from day one, so you can see exactly what the platform can do before spending a cent.
| Free Plan Includes: ✓ Up to 10 participants/month ✓ Unlimited competitions ✓ Unlimited hosted challenges ✓ Analytics dashboard ✓ No credit card required |
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Paid plans start at $191/month (billed annually) with up to 40 participants, scaling up to enterprise tiers for large organizations with hundreds of participants and custom content needs.
The Bottom Line
CTFd built the category. But the question you need to ask is: do you want to manage a platform, or do you want to run great competitions?
Simulations Labs is for the security educator who wants their next CTF to run like a well-oiled machine. It's for the corporate L&D team that needs real skills data without a DevOps headache. It's for the event organizer who wants AI to do the challenge research so they can focus on the experience.
No configuration. No server anxiety. No developer required.
| Ready to host your first competition — today? Get started for free at simulationslabs.com — no credit card, no setup, no code. |
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