For engineers, there are certainly many development boards at hand. However, to be honest, development boards are not cheap, and during use, it is inevitable to burn one or two, which can be quite painful.
Even excluding economic reasons, when learning a piece of hardware, there are many scenarios where one has to buy hardware or make mistakes, so in such cases, using electronic simulators to indulge in the virtual world is a good idea.
EEWorld (ID: EEWorldbbs)｜Produced
Universal Online Simulator for Development Boards 
Recently, EEWorld’s moderator dcexpert discovered a great chip simulation website that has attracted the attention of forum members. The original post can be found at:https://bbs.eeworld.com.cn/thread-1280582-1-1.html.
dcexpert stated that the forum is conducting a RUST learning activity and found an online rust simulator to share with everyone.
https://wokwi.com
You can develop and simulate microcontroller programs in the browser without installing any software, simulating various common peripherals and sensors, and seeing the running effect in real-time.
Example of Arduino development board:
This website is powerful, supporting development boards including Arduino (Uno, Mega, Nano), ESP32, STM32, Pi Pico, and programming languages such as MicroPython and Rust. The electronic component library includes almost all commonly used components.
Free Microcontroller and Circuit Simulation Software SimulIDE 
SimulIDE is a circuit simulation software that can simulate analog circuits, LCD displays, stepper or servo motors, programmable PIC or AVR microcontrollers, and Arduino. It is very powerful.
It also includes options for microcontrollers and sensors, similar to the aforementioned online simulation tool Wokwi.
Theoretically, SimulIDE can meet the basic simulation needs of digital and analog circuits. The operation logic of the entire tool is very intuitive and easy to use. The process of building circuits is similar to drawing circuit schematics.
According to engineers, using SimulIDE as a temporary substitute for real hardware setup is more than sufficient. This tool provides seamless integration with compilers, allowing you to write your own program and install the corresponding compiler to execute compilation and upload to the corresponding simulated chip, which is very convenient.
SimulIDE supports Arduino, 51, PIC, and theoretically, it should be able to achieve such a toolchain. However, Arduino is still more convenient with Wokwi.
Classic Software Fritzing 
As an open-source electronic design software, Fritzing has become a powerful tool for simplifying circuit design and PCB layout.
Recently, downloading the latest version seems to require a donation to obtain the download link. However, using some unconventional methods, version 0.9.10 can still be downloaded.
https://fritzing.org/
Fritzing is a super simple and straightforward hardware wiring drawing tool, and the software interface visually and intuitively shows how the various hardware modules are connected.
This circuit design software is widely used by individual makers, providing three views: breadboard, schematic, and PCB. When designing in any one of these views, the software automatically synchronizes the other two views.
The simulation capabilities of this software are noticeably weaker than the previous two, but it is still sufficient for enjoyment.
[1] https://bbs.eeworld.com.cn/thread-1280582-1-1.html
[2] https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/P3yONNmWz_qJi8_3YMnfDA
[3] https://zhuanlan.zhihu.com/p/676388750
