Raspberry Pi 5 Simulator
The fastest Pi, emulated with its own CPU profile
Simulate a Raspberry Pi 5 online. Write Python against the 40-pin header on a live canvas, run OpenCV on a virtual camera, or open a shell in a 64-bit ARM Linux guest with a Cortex-A76 profile.
Three free 15-minute trial sessions · Then Maker and Pro plans · Runs in your browser
Raspberry Pi 5 at a glance
The Pi 5 moved the GPIO behind the RP1 I/O controller, and that is the reason to prototype on this page rather than on a Pi 4: libraries that changed with the Pi 5 (gpiozero over lgpio, the new camera stack) are the ones the examples use. The guest boots with the Pi 5's Cortex-A76 profile; the canvas keeps the same header every Pi has.
- Processor
- BCM2712, quad-core Cortex-A76 at 2.4 GHz, RP1 I/O controller
- Memory
- 2 to 16 GB LPDDR4X
- Emulation
- Python in the browser + QEMU Linux guest (64-bit ARM)
- Languages
- Python 3
- Made by
- Raspberry Pi
- Plan
- Trial, then Maker or Pro
What you can do with the Raspberry Pi 5 simulator
The board on the canvas is the real thing as far as your code is concerned: the same pins, the same buses, the same peripherals, wired to the same 100+ sensors, displays and actuators every other Velxio board talks to.
Python 3 with the real libraries
RPi.GPIO, gpiozero, smbus2, spidev and pyserial work as they do on the bench. Scripts start in seconds on the in-browser engine; third-party packages come from a requirements.txt.
GPIO, PWM and ADC
Drive LEDs, relays and servos, read buttons and potentiometers, dim with PWM. Every pin follows the board's real pin map, so what works here works on the hardware.
I2C, SPI and UART
Talk to OLEDs, IMUs, ADCs, RTCs and SD cards over the buses the board really has. Bus traffic runs through emulated peripherals, not through a shortcut.
Camera
The camera is emulated: point it at an image or a synthetic scene and the sketch receives real frames, so vision and streaming projects run end to end.
A Linux shell when you need one
Linux mode boots an Alpine guest under QEMU on our servers with a real terminal and python3. It is not Raspberry Pi OS: no apt, no desktop, no network from inside the guest.
Multi-board canvas
Mix this board with an Arduino, an ESP32 or a Pico on the same canvas and let them talk over serial or I2C, each running its own firmware.
Try it before you subscribe
A free account gets three 15-minute trial sessions on this board family; every run inside a session is free. Unlimited runs are part of the Maker and Pro plans and of Velxio Desktop.
Raspberry Pi 5 examples
Ready-to-run projects for this board from the gallery. Open one, read the sketch, press Run.
[Pi 5] PIR Motion AlarmRaspberry Pi 5 lights an LED on GPIO17 whenever a PIR motion sensor on GPIO4 detects movement (gpiozero MotionSensor). Start the Pi, Upload, run python3 /home/pi/script.py, then trigger the PIR.
[Pi 5] Traffic LightRaspberry Pi 5 runs a red/yellow/green traffic-light state machine on GPIO17/27/22 with gpiozero. Start the Pi, Upload, then run: python3 /home/pi/script.py
[Pi 5] OpenCV: shapes and text on a wired screenThe Raspberry Pi 5 opens two images from the editor, finds the geometric shapes in one (contours, then a name from the corner count) and locates the text areas in the other, and draws the boxes on an ILI9341 panel wired to the SPI header. Two LEDs blink along with each detection. Runs right away — no boot to wait for. Note that OpenCV is not available in Linux mode; the panel and the GPIO pins work there just the same.
[Pi 5] Two DS18B20 probes switching a fan relayTwo 1-Wire probes share GPIO4 with the 4.7k pull-up; w1thermsensor reads both from /sys/bus/w1 and the hotter one decides whether the fan relay is on. Drag either probe while it runs.
[Pi 5] SSD1306 OLED with CircuitPython (Blinka)A Raspberry Pi 5 drives an SSD1306 OLED the Adafruit way: board and busio from Blinka, and the adafruit_ssd1306 driver, with Pillow rendering the text. This is the stack behind every Adafruit learn guide for the Pi.
Related simulators
Frequently asked questions
- Why does RPi.GPIO matter on the Pi 5?
- On a real Pi 5 the legacy RPi.GPIO library does not work because the GPIO moved to the RP1 chip; gpiozero with the lgpio backend does. The simulator follows the same convention, so a script that runs here runs on the board.
- Does the Pi 5 simulator support OpenCV?
- Yes. The vision example runs OpenCV on frames from the emulated camera. Packages are declared in requirements.txt and installed into the project.
- How much RAM does the emulated Pi 5 have?
- The guest is sized for scripts, not for a desktop: enough for Python, OpenCV and your project files. The real board ships with 2 to 16 GB; the simulator is not the place to benchmark memory.
- Is the Pi 5 in the free plan?
- Building and saving is free. Running draws on the Raspberry Pi trial (three 15-minute sessions on a free account), then the Maker or Pro plan.
- Is the Raspberry Pi 5 simulator free?
- Partly. You can build and save a Raspberry Pi 5 circuit with any account, and a free account gets three 15-minute trial sessions to run it; every run inside a session is free. Unlimited runs boot a Linux guest on our servers, so they are part of the Maker and Pro plans, or of Velxio Desktop with a paid licence.
- Which languages can I use on the Raspberry Pi 5?
- Python 3. The language is switched from the toolbar; the circuit on the canvas stays the same.
Ready to simulate the Raspberry Pi 5?
Open the editor, place the Raspberry Pi 5 from the picker, wire what you need and press Run.
Launch the Raspberry Pi 5 simulator →