The potential of increasing use of soft water in a circulating cooling water system can solve scaling problem and improve water conservation efficiency; however, it will bring corrosion to equipment and pipelines. In this study, isothioureaterminated pentaerythritol core dendrimers with 0−2 generations (PETA/4ITU-0G, PETA/8ITU-1G, and PETA/16ITU-2G) were developed as phosphorus-free corrosion inhibitors for carbon steel in soft water. The corrosion inhibition performance and mechanism of these dendrimers were studied by weight loss analysis and electrochemical measurements, surface morphology analysis, and molecular dynamics (MD) simulations. The results show that the corrosion inhibition efficiency isand they can spontaneously adsorb on the carbon steel surface to form a protective film. The sulfur and nitrogen atoms in the terminal isothiourea of the dendritic polymers bound with iron through physical and chemical processes. The performance of isothiourea-terminated pentaerythritol core dendrimers was better than that of isothiourea-terminated pentitol core dendrimers. PETA/8ITU-1G was the most cost-effective inhibitor and showed a better inhibition performance than PETA/4ITU-0G owing to its numerous terminal isothiourea groups in the molecular structure, which helps form a stronger protective film. The central core and number of terminated groups of dendrimers both play a role in the corrosion inhibition performance.