Program to monitor network traffic

A wider view of the Site24x7 package shows that the system also monitors other hardware, such as endpoints and servers. It also tracks the performance of applications. A user behavior module in the package is of particular use to businesses that run websites. It includes real user monitoring to analyze typical buyer journeys and also synthetic web transaction monitoring , which simulates access to a website. Site24x7 offers a free network monitoring service.

However, this is just a straightforward Ping-based uptime monitor for up to 50 URLs or servers. The cloud platform offers a range of system monitoring and management tools and these are packaged in editions. There are five editions in total:. All of these packages include the network monitoring service. Each of the Site24x7 plans is available on a day free trial. Checkmk is a system monitoring package that is able to track the performance of networks, servers, and applications.

The network monitor can be used for LANs and wireless networks , so it can also be useful for following activity on networks that use both wired and wireless technology. This network monitoring system starts its service by searching the network and identifying all connected devices. The package also creates a live network map. The base package of Checkmk is completely free to use. There is also a paid version of the system, called Checkmk Enterprise , which has an edition that caters to managed service providers.

As a free tool, the basic service is very attractive to small businesses and companies on a tight budget. The monitor queries switches, routers, and firewalls through the SNMP system.

All of your network devices will already have SNMP agents installed on them but that function might need to be enabled. The Checkmk software polls agents for status reports. The responses get compiled into live reports on network readiness and capacity performance. The dashboard allows network managers to get an overview of all activity and then has a number of options to drill down through to reports on individual devices both live and over time.

The Checkmk package also offers bandwidth monitoring , which gives you indicators on where device and cable capacity is not enough to cope with demand. The paid version of Checkmk is priced on a sliding scale based on the number of hosts that are on the monitored network. Access the free version, which is called Checkmk Raw to assess the package. The Enterprise edition can also be bought on a physical appliance. There is a day free trial available for Checkmk Enterprise.

The flexible pricing system of this software allows you to add on other services, including configuration management, log management, application monitoring, and traffic analysis capabilities.

The WhatsUp Gold system includes an autodiscovery module. This populates the monitoring device inventory at startup and then continues to poll for any changes in the resources on the network. The system will automatically update the network inventory should any devices get added, moved, or removed.

WhatsUp Gold also includes a network topology mapper that uses the device inventory data to automatically create maps of your network. These topology maps also adapt automatically if the device inventory changes.

The network monitoring features of WhatsUp Gold cover LANs, wireless networks, and Internet connections out to remote sites or cloud resources. The exact price you pay depends on the number of servers, applications, and network devices that you have on your network. There are two additions to the system: WhatsUp Gold Premium , which is a network performance monitor.

Customers of WhatsUp Gold Premium can add on any of those extra modules individually for a fee. The software for this monitoring system installs on Windows Server and it is available for a day free trial. Auvik is a cloud-based network monitoring system that includes a number of system management tools.

The package is accessed through a Web browser and when you open an account, the setup process installs collectors on your system.

The Auvik package is able to monitor multiple sites and centralizes their control. This makes the package ideal for monitoring a WAN. The service provided by Auvik begins with a network discovery process. This automatically populates all of the base information needed for the monitor to work. The discovery service is continuous, so it will spot when new devices are added to the network. As a cloud-based system, Auvik is designed for remote system monitoring — even your home network is remote to the processes on the Auvik servers.

Network monitoring works on a system of thresholds. The service tracks a list of metrics on network activity and a threshold for resource usage or system performance is added to each of these conditions. If that threshold level is passed, the Auvik service will generate an alert.

The Auvik service can be expanded through the use of third-party tools for which the network monitor has integrations. There are two plan levels for Auvik — Essential and Performance. The Performance plan is the higher plan and it offers traffic analysis functions and Syslog management on top of the network monitoring services that are available in the Essentials plan.

Scan network segments to discover and add devices to monitor. You can choose between a range of sensors to monitor various segments of your network. For greater visualization, the tool has a customizable dashboard that allows you to produce real-time network maps of your infrastructure.

You can create maps with the drag-and-drop editor and use over map objects to build the map. You can even create your own map objects with custom HTML. The threshold-based alerts system keeps the user updated if the status of a sensor changes, a value changes or a threshold is breached.

PRTG Network Monitor is a must-try for enterprises looking for cost-effective but comprehensive network monitoring tools. The platform is available for free for less than sensors, after which you have to pay. Related post: Network Configuration Management Software. Nagios Core is an open-source network monitor that has a web interface for monitoring network performance. The GUI is color-coded so you can easily see elements that are unavailable or compromised. Track performance events through the alerts system, which sends out notifications by email and SMS.

View the Alert History section to see what alerts were created and when. The list of alerts is also color-coded making it easier to prioritize critical alerts. You can use APIs to integrate other network services. If you require more functions then you can also check the thousands of community plugins available on the Nagios Exchange to help you add additional functions. Nagios Core is an excellent free network monitoring software however the setup can be slightly more hands-on than other products on this list.

Zabbix is an open-source free network monitoring tool that combines network, server, cloud, application, and services monitoring into one unified solution. The autodiscovery feature automatically locates network devices and adds them to be monitored.

The tool can also detect configuration changes automatically so you can tell if a network device has been updated. Network monitoring templates make it easy to configure the program for monitoring. If you require more variety then you can access even more community templates form the Zabbix community site.

To ensure that you can respond to alerts in time, Zabbix has a notification system. Alerts are sent by email, SMS, messenger, jabber, or custom scripts to update you on evolving network security events. The notification content can be customized according to the recipient to make sure that the point of contact has everything they need to reopen intelligently.

Zabbix is one of the top Linux network monitoring tools on the market. Autodiscovery and templates make the program straightforward to deploy. The software for the package is installed on Linux , macOS , and Unix. You can download the software for free. Related post: Nagios vs Zabbix. Icinga is an open-source network monitoring tool that monitors the performance of your network, cloud-service, and data center.

Having the choice between the two gives you the power to monitor however you want. You can log in to the GUI and use the dashboard to view an overview of performance management. The dashboard displays whether there are any problems with performance or availability and color-codes them according to severity. Critical or Down network devices are marked in red.

SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer is a NetFlow analyzer and bandwidth monitoring tool providing bandwidth monitoring, network traffic analysis, application traffic alerting, VMware vSphere distributed switch support, advanced application recognition, and more. This tool collects network traffic data and correlates it to be displayed in a practical format.

Data is then displayed via the web-based interface, which can be accessed from any device with an internet connection, at any time and from anywhere. This empowers users to take rapid and targeted action to remediate issues. This solution also provides a range of advanced reporting tools, allowing you to generate, schedule, and send in-depth bandwidth and traffic analysis reports in typically a couple of clicks.

You can leverage these dynamic and easy-to-interpret reports to review historical trends, which assists with identifying peak bandwidth and adjusting policies to improve network management operations.

This specialized network traffic monitoring tool is suitable for small and large businesses alike, is highly scalable, and requires no training or experience to get started. You can download a day free trial here. SolarWinds NPM is a multi-vendor network monitoring tool designed to scale with your business as it grows and expands to meet the needs of your network. This all-in-one network monitor provides an impressive range of utilities, including Cisco network monitoring, cloud server monitoring, deep packet inspection and analysis, LAN monitoring, link analysis, router traffic monitoring, and much more.

NPM covers, but is by no means limited to, all the key functions listed above, allowing you to monitor network traffic. When it comes to displaying network traffic and other metrics, NPM is particularly impressive because it represents data in the form of graphs and charts when appropriate, for ease of interpretation. I found the dynamic NPM dashboard is easy to navigate and highly intuitive, making this tool easy to use.

Statistics are displayed as widgets, which means you can move them around to reflect your priorities or areas you want to pay attention to. As a network monitor, NPM continuously monitors your network for performance, fault, and availability of all your applications and devices. With this tool, IT professionals can leverage comprehensive monitoring reports to vastly improve the efficiency and success of their troubleshooting activities when issues occur. NPM also features intelligent alerting, keeping you informed of the status of key metrics.

In addition to offering a diverse selection of network tools covering every aspect of network monitoring, NPM also provides a dedicated router traffic monitoring utility. This feature automatically discovers your network routers and displays the connections.

This integration capacity eliminates the need to move between tools, so you can focus your attention on a single dashboard. Other notable SolarWinds NPM features include the ability to analyze latency issues, map network devices, check current hardware health, analyze the network path, and more.

This tool offers advanced scalability, making it the ideal choice for companies anticipating rapid growth. A day free trial of NPM is available for download. A fully functional day free trial is available. Paessler PRTG Network Monitor takes a sensor-based approach to network monitoring, enabling you to create a solution to suit your individual needs. It will enable you to analyze incoming and outgoing data to monitor and evaluate requests and responses before they send to the browser.

Splunk is a monitoring tool which allows you to simplify and modernize IT to increase uptime and a competitive edge. It is one of the best network monitoring tools that enables you to get seamless monitoring and troubleshooting. Pandora FMS is an enterprise-ready monitoring solution. It offers you greater flexibility to address both immediate and unanticipated operational issues, including infrastructure and IT processes. It can scan IP addresses in any range as well as any their ports.

Angry IP scanner pings each IP address and checks whether it is alive or not. It is one of the best free network monitoring tools that helps you to access shared folders, remote controlling of computers and can even switch your computers off. Capsa is a free network monitoring software. It can be used for network performance troubleshooting, Ethernet monitoring, and analysis. It helps users to learn how to monitor network activities, find network issues, enhance network security.

Nagios network monitoring tool allows organizations to identify and resolve IT infrastructure problems before they affect critical business processes. The Dude network monitor is a network monitoring tool which automatically scans all devices within specified subnets.

You can draw layout and map of your networks. It also gives you an alert when some equipment is not working correctly. It is an open source network solution which is designed for building network monitoring solutions. This tool comes with discovery engine to automatically configure and manage network devices without any human intervention.

It starts with SNMP-capable hardware and ending with applications on servers. Total network solution provides solutions for monitoring LAN, computers, and services that needed careful attention and thorough control. Zenoss is a hybrid IT monitoring tool. It allows you to analytics software, offer total visibility for the cloud, virtual and real IT environments. WirelessNetView is a small network monitoring program which can run in the background of your desktop or laptop.

It monitors the activity of wireless networks around you. Monitis helps you to optimize your network and avoid system downtimes. It also constantly health of your network. The tool provides agent-based and agentless monitoring for various network devices like switches, phone systems, and windows.

Nmap is one of the best network monitoring softwares for network discovery and security auditing. This free network monitoring software allows you to perform tasks such as network inventory, maintaining service upgrade schedules. Ntop offers high-speed web-based traffic analysis and flow collection.

Ntop was written in a portable way to virtually run on any platform — Linux, Mac, and Windows. Wireshark is a widely-used network protocol analyzer. It allows checking all the activities of your network. Nagios Core acts as basic event scheduler, event processor, and alert manager. Spice works is one of the best free network monitoring tools which offers real-time status and alerts for your critical devices. Observium is an auto-discovering network monitoring tool. It supports a wide range of device types, platforms, and operating systems.

The tool offers an intuitive and straightforward interface to the health and status of your network. Monit is an Open Source network monitoring and managing tool specially designed for Unix systems. It is one of the best free network monitoring tools which performs automatic maintenance and repair. It can also execute meaningful actions in error situations.

Dynatrace system monitoring tool allows you to auto-discover and baseline your entire IT ecosystem in the very less time. It allows you to monitor and manage application performance and cloud infrastructure.

A thousand eyes networking monitoring software allows you to find the cause of problems anywhere. Share your findings instantly and respond to issues before it damages your customers, services, and revenue.

SevOne offers complete visibility across the entire enterprise network, meeting the challenge of application performance management. It manages everything from on-premise apps to those running in the cloud. AppNeta tools offer SaaS-based network and end-user experience performance monitoring for any cloud, remote locations, and for all type businesses.

LiveAction is trusted network solution provider tool.