NetLogo was designed by Uri Wilensky, in the spirit of the programming language Logo, to be "low threshold and no ceiling".

[2] NetLogo was designed with multiple audiences in mind, in particular: teaching children in the education community, and for domain experts without a programming background to model related phenomena.

[4] NetLogo was designed and authored by Uri Wilensky,[14] director of Northwestern University's Center for Connected Learning and Computer-Based Modeling (CCL).

[16] Books available in print include: Books available online include: As of 2019[update], several massive open online courses are being offered that use NetLogo for assignments and/or demonstrations: NetLogo is free and open-source software, released under a GNU General Public License (GPL).

Using an individual device, such as a networked computer or Texas Instruments graphing calculator, each user acts as a separate, independent agent.