Tool index
All 9 tools, filed by line
Each tool is filed under the troubleshooting question it answers best. Most of them help with more than one — Wireshark sits on all three lines, PingPlotter on three, mtr on two — so each line’s diagram shows every tool compared on it, with interchange pips for the other lines a tool also serves.
Latency & Path Analysis
“Where along the path does it go wrong?”
Full comparison, how to choose and FAQ →Latency line6 stops
- PingPlotterAlso on Throughput line and Reachability line
- mtrAlso on Throughput line
- SmokePingAlso on Reachability line
- Obkio Network Performance MonitoringAlso on Throughput line
- Angry IP ScannerAlso on Reachability line
- WiresharkAlso on Throughput line and Reachability line
Filed primarily on this line:
On: Latency line, Throughput line, Reachability lineCommercialPingPlotterA graphical traceroute that keeps sampling every hop and turns an intermittent fault into a timeline you can show someone.Evidence Timeline graphs of latency and loss per hop that can be shared or exportedOn: Latency line, Throughput lineOpen sourcemtrThe terminal classic that merges traceroute and ping into one live table of loss and latency per hop.Evidence A plain-text report (--report) of loss and latency per hop, easy to paste into a ticketOn: Latency line, Reachability lineOpen sourceSmokePingA self-hosted latency logger whose smoky graphs show the spread of round-trip times over weeks.Evidence Weeks of latency and loss history drawn as "smoke" graphs, one per targetOn: Latency line, Throughput lineSaaSObkio Network Performance MonitoringA hosted monitoring service that places agents at your sites and measures the paths between them around the clock.Evidence Agent-to-agent loss, latency, jitter and VoIP quality history across sites
Throughput & Packet Inspection
“How much gets through, and what is on the wire?”
Full comparison, how to choose and FAQ →Throughput line6 stops
- iPerf3
- WiresharkAlso on Latency line and Reachability line
- TCPViewAlso on Reachability line
- Obkio Network Performance MonitoringAlso on Latency line
- PingPlotterAlso on Latency line and Reachability line
- mtrAlso on Latency line
Filed primarily on this line:
On: Throughput lineOpen sourceiPerf3A client/server bandwidth tester that measures what a link really carries, in either direction.Evidence Per-interval throughput, retransmits and UDP loss/jitter figures, with JSON outputOn: Throughput line, Latency line, Reachability lineOpen sourceWiresharkThe protocol analyser for reading traffic on your own segment frame by frame, and saving the capture as proof.Evidence A pcap file plus expert-info and TCP analysis (retransmissions, zero windows, resets)On: Throughput line, Reachability lineFreewareTCPViewA small Sysinternals utility that shows every connection on a Windows machine next to the process behind it.Evidence A live list of every TCP/UDP endpoint with its owning process, savable as text
Host & Connection Checks
“Is it up, and who is it talking to?”
Full comparison, how to choose and FAQ →Reachability line6 stops
- Angry IP ScannerAlso on Latency line
- LizardSystems Network Scanner
- TCPViewAlso on Throughput line
- SmokePingAlso on Latency line
- PingPlotterAlso on Latency line and Throughput line
- WiresharkAlso on Throughput line and Latency line
Filed primarily on this line:
On: Reachability line, Latency lineOpen sourceAngry IP ScannerA cross-platform, open-source range scanner that tells you which of your hosts answer, and how fast.Evidence A CSV/TXT/XML list of which addresses answered, with ping time and hostnameOn: Reachability linePaid for businessLizardSystems Network ScannerA Windows range scanner that checks which machines answer and lists their shared folders with access rights; last updated in 2021.Evidence An HTML/TXT/XML export of hosts, their shares and read/write access