Pingplotter is a powerful monitoring and diagnostic tool for your network.
This tool runs in the background collecting information about your network, and presents the same in a intuitive graphical format when you need.
This information can be particularly useful for identifying and fixing problems in your network.
Though it is a useful tool, it comes with some shortcomings, especially when compared to other alternative choices available in the market.
Some of the prominent shortcomings are:
- Many other tools are graphically more impressive than Pingplotter
- Doesn’t have a map interface
- Communication uses TCP port 9636 only
Due to these drawbacks, Pingplotter may not always be effective.
But the good news is that there are other software that would do the job for you in a better way.
Here’s the Top Pingplotter Alternatives of 2019:
Methodology for selecting the Best Pingplotter Alternative Tools
In order to evaluate network performance, PingPlotter collects data about your network’s performance and displays it in a graphical format. No doubt, it is one of the popular network monitoring tools but has certain limitations. Outdated graphics, no map interface, and limited features are a few limitations due to which organizations look for its alternatives. When selecting Pingplotter Alternative Tools make sure you follow our shared methodology:
- Make sure it has all the features supported by PingPlotter or more than it
- Does it offer any better port than PingPlotter?
- Does it offer a user-friendly interface with illustrative graphics that display real-time results?
- Does it support scanning an entire network?
- Does it support integration with other tools?
- Any free trial or assessment period is available with your selected tool?
Let’s take a look at each of these tools in depth and have a look at their interfaces as well below.
1. TraceRoute NG
TraceRoute NG comes from SolarWinds, a company well-known for its top-quality monitoring and diagnostic tools.
As with the SolarWinds’ line of products, this product performs accurate network path analysis.
Features
Below are its important features.
- It is a standalone tool
- Known for its fast network path analysis. In fact, it can return results within mere seconds.
- Uses TCP and ICMP probing
- Leverages SolarWinds powerful NetPath technology
- Delivers deep insights from source connection to any external destination service or site.
- Simple to use. All that you have to do is download this tool and click on the exe file to get started.
- Help screen gives detailed explanation on the different options available with TraceRoute NG
- Provides hop-by-hop path that can be particularly useful for identifying the root cause of a problem.
- Yields data through CLI single-path analysis
- Displays IP address, fully qualified domain name (FQDN), packet loss as a percentage, current latency, average latency, probe run time, probe type used and any issues such as path change or inability to reach a destination. This information is comprehensive and can help to detect issues quickly.
- Works for networks of all sizes.
- Detects path changes immediately
- Crates a text log file for easy reference
- Supports IPv4 and IPv6.
- Supports continuous probing, so you can always stay on top of what’s going on.
Pros:
- Offers IPv4 and IPv6 support as well as allows spotting path changes
- Free and lightweight tool works for all types of networks
- Allows connecting to any external target service or site and transmits deep insights from the source
- Provides a hop-by-hop route that helps locate a problem’s underlying cause.
- Runs CLI single-path analysis to produce data
Cons:
- Does not support network monitoring and alert features
Pricing
This tool is 100% FREE
Download
https://www.solarwinds.com/free-tools/traceroute-ng/registration
EDITOR'S CHOICE
TraceRoute NG has a well-designed console that provides all the necessary route details and allows users to follow data packets as they travel across an IP network. It sends alerts on detecting a path change instantly. Further, the hops, or intermediate locations, that data packets pass through en route from the source to the destination are identified using sophisticated algorithms. Additionally, it supports working with IPv4 and IPv6 addresses. It is a free, lightweight tool with a user-friendly interface. Another reason you must choose TraceRoute NG over other tools is it offers a list of all the routers’ IP addresses that control the connection to a specified location.
2. WinMTR
WinMTR is a diagnostic tool that combines the functions of a traceroute and ping program into the same software. MTR stands for My traceroute, though it was originally named Matt’s traceroute to honor Matt Kimball, the person who originally wrote this program. In fact, this program is a Windows alternate to Matt’s traceroute that was available only on Unix/Linux.
Features
The features of WinMTR are:
- MTR is based on ICMPO Time Exceeded packets or ICMP Echo Reply packets.
- It also supports UDP mode that sends UDP packets with TTL field in the header.
- Supports IPv6 as well.
- Displays a list of routers traversed by the packet, average time for the round-trip and packet loss of each router.
- Helps users to identify links between two routers
- Makes it easy to identify network overuse problems.
- Works by keeping track of response times of the packet hops along the path.
- Ideal for 32-bit and 64-bit Windows versions.
- It is an open-source and cross-platform tool.
- Installation is simple and the user interface is intuitive.
- “Clear history” features removes all the hosts that the program has traced previously.
- Ideal if you want to document or file a complaint with your ISP.
- Works well with command line.
Pros:
- Lists all of the routers that the packet has passed through, along with their average round-trip duration as well as packet loss.
- It has an intuitive user interface that is easy to use and supports IPv6
- Helps identify overuse issues and connections between routers
- Monitors the duration of each packet hop along the route to determine how quickly it responds.
- All of the hosts that the program has previously traced can be removed using the “clear history” function.
Cons:
- Simple but extremely constrained and outdated-looking interface
Pricing
It is licensed under GPL v2, which means, it is free to use.
Download
You can download it from http://winmtr.net/download-winmtr/
3. SmokePing
SmokePing is a tool that keeps track of network latency.
Features
SmokePing comes with the following features.
- Its interactive graph explorer gives you a visual representation of your network.
- Supports a wide range of latency measurement plug-ins.
- Has a master slave system that makes it ideal for a distributed system.
- The alerting system is highly configurable.
- Offers live latency charts to give you a real-time view of your network performance.
- You can run it in debug mode at any time to identify any problems associated with it.
- It detects issues automatically as they happen.
- Provides support for your own mail server
- Stores issues and keeps the history, so you can view it at any time or even analyze them later.
Pros:
- You can access different latency measurement plugins
- A highly configurable alert system is supported
- Use debug mode to execute it and find any issues with it
- You can store issues in the history and view them later for analysis
- Provides real-time updates on your network performance by providing live latency charts.
Cons:
- SmokePing works well with Linux and BSD only
Pricing
It is 100% Free
Download
SmokePing can be downloaded from https://oss.oetiker.ch/smokeping/pub/
4. Open Visual Traceroute
Open Visual Traceroute is an open-source and cross platform traceroute software and packet sniffer. It was created by Leo Lewis.
Features
Open Visual Traceroute comes with the following features.
- Comes with 3D and 2D map visualization to give you information and analysis just the way you want.
- You can export the data from this tool to an image or text
- It also gives you a Gantt view of the data for quick interpretation and easy analysis.
- Works well across multiple operating systems like Windows, Linux and Unix.
- You can easily plot the network traffic on a 3D map.
- Allows to start with a Whois option
- It analyzes your network, measures packet’s transit delays and display network route.
- It is fast and convenient.
- Easy to install.
Pros:
- Generates data and performs analysis with 3D and 2D map visualization
- The fast and convenient tool allows exporting data
- You can run it on Windows, Linux, and Unix operating systems
- Helps examine the data in a Gantt chart for quick interpretation
- Allows tracking packet’s transit delays
Cons:
- An outdated tool that lacks enterprise features
Pricing
This is also 100% Free
Download
You can download Open Visual traceroute from https://sourceforge.net/projects/openvisualtrace/files/latest/download
5. MTR
MTR stands for My Traceroute. It was originally called Matt’s Traceroute, after the person who developed it. Essentially, this program combines the functionalities of traceroute and ping programs.
Features
Here’s a look at some of the important features of MTR.
- You can specify the destination host.
- As soon as it starts, this program will analyze the network connection between the host on which MTR runs and the destination host.
- It sends running statistics about each machine as the probe keeps happening.
- It is compatible with most major operating systems.
- It can limit the number of hops a particular packet takes in a network to reach the destination.
- Supports IPv6
- Setup and use is simple and easy
Pros:
- Perform remote server polling to gauge how latency has changed over time.
- Analyzes ICMP packets to check device availability and track hop-to-hop travel time
- Allows tracking packet loss and jitter
- Collect data from the network and generates insightful reports to analyze performance data
- Helps troubleshoot issues before they cause any effect on performance
Cons:
- Only compatible with Unix-like operating systems and does not support Windows or macOS
Pricing
This tool is open-source and is free to use.
Download
You can download from https://github.com/traviscross/mtr
Conclusion
In short, the above alternatives to PingPlotter can give you more options and flexibility than PingPlotter itself. So, the next time you want to avoid the shortcomings of PingPlotter, try one of these that are listed above. Many of them have very similar functions that PingPlotter have but with some added benefits.
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