15 BEST Network Testing Tools & Software (2021 Update)
Network Testing Tools are a collection of software used for measuring various aspects of a network. These tools range from ping monitoring tool, SNMP ping tool, query tool, and more. Network testing tools help network admins to make quick and informed decisions for network troubleshooting.
Following is a handpicked list of Top Network Testing tools, their popular features, and website links. The list contains both open source (free) and commercial (paid) software.
Best Network Testing Performance Testing Tools & Software
| Name | Platform | Link |
|---|---|---|
| SolarWinds |
• Windows (10, 8, 7, Vista) • Windows Server • macOS • IBM AIX 7.1 TL3, 7.2 TL1, and later • Linux • Oracle® Solaris 10 and later |
Learn More |
| PRTG Network Monitor |
• Windows Server2019 • Windows Server 2016 • Windows Server 2012 |
Learn More |
| Network Monitor |
• Windows • Linux Red Hat Enterprise OS |
Learn More |
1) SolarWinds Security Event Manager
SolarWinds Security Event Manager is a tool that helps you to improve your computer security. This application can automatically detect threats, monitor security policies, and protect your network. Solar Winds allow you to keep tabs on your log files with ease and receive instant alerts if anything suspicious happens.
Features:
- This one of the best network testing tool offers inbuilt integrity monitoring.
- Easily reduces network downtime.
- Helps you to manage your memory stick storage.
- It has an intuitive user interface and dashboard.
- Quickly troubleshoots connectivity issues
- SolarWinds contains integrated compliance reporting tools.
- Accelerates time to resolution
- It has a centralized log collection.
- This tool can find and respond to threats faster.
- Comprehensive fault monitoring and performance management of your network.
- Provides root cause quicker with intelligence, dependency, and topology.
- Analysis of cloud or on-premises applications or services.
2) Paessler Security
Paessler security vulnerability assessment tool has an advanced infrastructure management capability. This tool monitors IT infrastructure using technologies like WMI, SNMP, Sniffing, REST APIS, SQL, etc. You can get the numbers, statistics, and graphs for the data you are going to monitor or configuration.
Features:
- Allows you to monitor jFlow, sFlow, IP SLA, Firewall, IP, LAN, Wi-Fi, Jitter, and IPFIX.
- It provides alerts via email, plays alarm via audio files, or triggers HTTP requests.
- This one of the best network testing tools offers multiple user web interfaces.
- It has automated fail-over handling.
- Offers centralized monitoring solution.
- You can visualize your network using maps.
- Paessler allows you to monitor networks in various locations.
3) Network Monitor
Network Monitor from Spiceworks is one of the best free network testing tools which offers real-time status and alerts for your critical devices. It is simple to install and has an easy to set up network monitoring system.
Features:
- You can adjust alert thresholds for in-app notifications or emails.
- Provide real-time up/down status and alerts about critical web applications and services.
- Starts monitoring in minutes.
- Get alert when you need them.
- Distributed HTTP check
- This network testing software offers fully integration with the Spiceworks IT management cloud tools suite
- Support is entirely free. Online as well as on the phone or chat.
- Get quick insights and spot slow, sluggish, or overwhelmed systems.
Link: https://www.spiceworks.com/free-network-monitoring-management-software/
4) NGENIUSONE
NETGENIUSONE is a network monitoring tool that uses traffic data to gain visibility into user communities, services, strategic IT assets, and how they are performing. It is one of the best network performance testing tools that offers the most comprehensive interfaces with easy-to-understand charts, graphs, and reports to speed accurate problem solving.
Features:
- Real-time user experience and transaction monitoring
- Network auto-discovery and service dependency mapping
- Network topology dashboards, alerts, and historical look-ups
- Real-time configurable threshold alerting back-in-time views for the root cause of problems that arise intermittently.
- Application, server, and network performance data
Link:https://www.netscout.com/network-monitoring
5) Dynatrace
Dynatrace’s all-in-one approach seamlessly integrates all kinds of monitoring, from user-experience and application monitoring to server and network monitoring.
Features:
- Monitor process-specific network performance metrics like requests and retransmissions.
- This one of the best testing tools ensures high-quality process communications over networks
- Allows you to understand your network topology in dynamic environments
- Process-level network capacity monitoring made easy
- See integrated network health monitoring
Link: https://www.dynatrace.com/platform/network-monitoring/
6) Ixla
Ixla is a comprehensive network infrastructure performance testing solution. It scales to handle the most powerful devices and largest networks, from routing and switching to data center ethernet and software-defined networking.
Features:
- Monitors High-performing networks and applications
- Test networks, clouds, applications, and services with traffic simulators and protocol that offer load test systems.
- This one of the best network testing tools helps you validate your network to defend against breach and attack simulation.
- It helps you to monitor user experience with real-time network monitoring and synthetic traffic simulators.
- You can generate traffic flows that allow you to mimic real user applications and scenarios
- Delivers end-to-end test system automation
- Offers rapid isolation of service violations, including thorough traffic-flow analysis
Link: https://www.keysight.com/in/en/cmp/2020/network-visibility-network-test.html
7) Zabbix
Zabbix is a network monitoring tool that offers IT infrastructure, services, applications, and resources. It is one of the best network testing software that offers a network server, cloud, application, and service monitoring.
Features:
- Highly automated metric collection
- Advanced problem detection
- Flexible escalation scenarios
- Remote command execution
- Agents for most platforms
- Out of the box templates
Link: https://www.zabbix.com/
8) OP5 Monitor
OP5 Monitor is a network monitoring tool for the server, network monitoring, and management based on the open source project called Nagios. The OP5 Monitor displays the status, health, and performance of the IT network.
Features:
- Log server monitoring
- Fully customizable and interactive dashboards
- It offers unparalleled scalability across distributed environments
- This network testing tool allows you to read, process, and generate alerts from SNMP traps.
- Automatic Self-Healing.
Link: https://www.itrsgroup.com/products/op5-monitor
9) Nagios XI
Nagios network is a network monitoring tool that allows organizations to identify and resolve IT infrastructure problems. It helps you to determine the issues before they affect critical business processes. Nagios is one of the best network testing tools that offer complete ping monitoring capabilities, including packet loss and reachability.
Features:
- Comprehensive dashboard
- Allows you to keep track of specific subsets of network flow information
- Select devices you want to ping
- It provides results in ribbon, bar, column, step, or area charts.
- Network diagnostics with Engineer’s toolset.
- Provides complete insights on network traffic, bandwidth, and overall network health
- Receive alerts when any abnormal activity takes place.
- It has advanced users feature that allow IT teams to work together efficiently.
- It helps you to determine the threshold level to get notifications.
- It helps you to discover network devices as well as map network topology.
- Track device availability, CPU load, interface statistics, performance & latency of network paths.
- Troubleshoot your network with enhanced ping capabilities, and it also offers packet route tracing.
Link: https://www.nagios.com/products/nagios-xi/
10) Forti Tester
This is a powerful tool that allows user to measure the performance of network devices. This network performance tester helps you to perform TCP connection testing, HTTP/HTTPS testing, CPS testing, UDP PPS testing, and CAPWAP and throughout testing. Forti Tester allows you to set performance standards and run audits to ensure your network continuously meets them.
Features:
- Offers attack replay test
- HTTP/HTTPS requests per second test
- TCP throughput test
- TCP concurrent connections test
- Mixed traffic test
Link: https://www.fortinet.com/products/network-testing/fortitester
11) Logic Monitor
LogicMonitor is an automated SaaS network testing tool. It is one of the best network monitoring tools that offer customisable dashboards, alerts, and reports. The tool can identify incoming issues by providing predictive alerts and trend analysis.
Features:
- It is one of the best network testing tools that help you to discover all network devices & interfaces
- Monitors CPU, memory, temperature, fan, and other hardware
- Track OSPF adjacencies and BGP sessions
- Wireless access-point monitoring.
Link: https://www.logicmonitor.com/
12) AggreGate
AggreGate Network Manager is an enterprise-grade IT infrastructure management and monitoring Platform. It is built on a strong and flexible foundation. It is considered as the ultimate solution for taking care of your network, applications, and services.
Features:
- AggreGate Network Manager scans your network and discovers the routers, switches, workstations, servers.
- Helps to build dynamic network maps.
- Syslog messages and Windows Event Log events are converted into the system events and stored centrally.
- Offers unparalleled flexibility.
- Built on a strong and flexible foundation. This Network manager software is a one-stop solution for network monitoring.
- The distribution package includes numerous configurable built-in alerts for a typical network, server and application.
Link: https://aggregate.tibbo.com/solutions/network-management.html
13) WhatsUp Gold
WhatsUp Gold, shortly known as WUG, is one of the best network testing tool. It has user friendly and visually attractive dashboards. It can be customized to monitor and display the IT infrastructure and alerts as per your needs.
Features:
- Automatically find and map your entire network
- Continuously monitors your network’s health with customizable alerts.
- Monitor network performance with customizable alerts
- Drill-down reports from customized dashboards
- Reporting and alert dashboards
- Discovery & Network Mapping
Link: https://www.ipswitch.com/network-monitoring
14) perfSONAR
perfSONAR is a network measurement toolkit designed to provide federated coverage of paths and establish end-to-end usage expectations. You can identify and isolate problems as they happen, making the role of supporting network users.
Features:
- perfSONAR provides a uniform interface that helps to schedule the measurements, storage of data in uniform formats
- Provides efficient and reliable exchange of data needed for world-class scientific collaborations
- It enables you to identify and correct the source of trouble, as problems can occur across multiple networks.
Link: https://www.perfsonar.net/
15) IPerf
iPerf is a network testing tool used for active measurements of the maximum achievable bandwidth on IP networks. It helps and supports the tuning of different parameters related to timing, buffers, and protocols like UDP, TCP, SCTP, IPv4, and IPv6. Client and server both are able to handle various simultaneous connections.
Features:
- Cross-platform: Windows, Linux, Android, MacOS X, NetBSD, VxWorks, Solaris.
- It has a Server that handles multiple connections instead of quitting after a single test.
- It helps you for a specified time instead of an amount for data transferring.
- Print periodic, intermediate bandwidth and loss reports at specified intervals
- Allows you to use representative streams to test out how link layer compression affects your bandwidth
- A server accepts a single client or multiple clients simultaneously
- It helps to set target bandwidth, IPv6 flow label and set congestion control algorithm
Link: https://iperf.fr
FAQ:
❓ What is Network Testing?
Network testing is a process of investigating and measuring the performance of a network or IT infrastructure. The main goal of network monitoring is to identify faults or defects in the network and immediately fix them to get the network running smoothly. It helps network admins to make quick and informed decisions for network troubleshooting.
⚡ What is Network Latency?
Network latency is the time taken for data or a request to go from the source to the destination. It is measured in milliseconds. The closer is the latency to zero the better it reflects the performance for your website.
Some common warnings of high latency include:
- Your data takes a long time to send. For example: An email with a large attachment.
- Servers or web-based applications are slow
- Websites do not load.
💻 What are Network Testing Tools?
Network Testing Tools are a collection of software used for measuring various aspects of a network. These tools range from ping monitoring tool, SNMP ping tool, query tool, and more. Network testing tools help network admins make quick and informed decisions for network troubleshooting to get the network up and running.
❗ Why are Network Testing Tools important?
Network testing tools help businesses immediately identify network threats and solve them. It also helps network admins get accurate data about defects and make quick and informed decisions to solve them. It helps businesses save a huge amount of cost, time, and resources to fix such network issues.
⚡ Types of Network Testing tools
There are many types of network testing tools available in the market:
- Network Device Monitoring tools
- Network Uptime Monitoring tools
- Network Packet Loss Monitor
- Network Interface Monitoring tools
- Network Assessment tools
👉 How to choose the best Network Performance Testing Tool?
Here are the factors you should consider while choosing the best network performance testing tool:
- Product price
- Easy to set up and use
- Quality of Customer support
- Network testing tool should be able to provide real-time performance monitoring and visualization
- Hardware/Software requirements of the tool
- It should offer quick troubleshooting options
- Comprehensive fault monitoring and performance management with a single view dashboard
- Consider the security options offered by software providers
- Product features meet your requirements or not
- Integration with other software
🚀 Which are the Best Network Testing Tools?
Here are some of the best network testing tools:
- SolarWinds Security Event Manager
- Paessler Security
- SpiceWorks Network Monitor
- NGeniusOne
- Dynatrace
- Zabbix
- OP5 Monitor
- Nagios XI
