I use (and have used, for a number of years) the free LTSpice, Tina and the free version of SIMetrix regularly.
Both LT and TINA are provided from silicon vendors Linear Technology and Texas Instruments respectively, so come from reputable sources.
Some circuits may simulate better in one piece of software than others.
If you have calculated your circuit correctly, simulation may not show this. It depends entirely on the accuracy of the model and the parts its made from. And circuit complexity may run up against software limitations or speed of convergence.
My process, and it's probably not that different to what most other do, is to design the circuit, simulate it, build it and debug, then adjust the simulation model to match.
I find this makes you think more about implementation-induced parasitics, and part selection choices.
Both IRL and simulation-land.