Likelihood to Recommend It is well suited for performing monitoring and testing from a single device. It is less appropriate if you have to monitor from multiple different endpoints. That type of deployment would be more of an enterprise application. If you are looking for an end user monitoring solution then PingPlotter is the one for you.
Read full review I don't know of any other tool that works as well as Wireshark for packet capture an inspection. It's extremely easy to get up and running, and even with little to no knowledge of how to use the tool, you can be looking at all the traffic coming off a network interface.
Read full review Pros Monitor traffic in network Measure stops when contacting network locations such as websites Measures the lag and latency it takes to contact network locations Gives you both induvidual measurements as well as good oversight identifies when network lag or disconnect occurs Read full review Light-weight software - Does not require high end specifications; also runs smoothly on Legacy systems Filter function - Lets you filter you packets from thousands to tens so as to find your target much easily Simultaneous capturing on all the network adapters - You can capture packets from all the Network Interface Cards (NIC's) at once. Read full review Cons Its a little confusing to see which targets are currently running pings and which ones are displayed in the plots. Starting and stopping pings requires a right click and that would be better with a play/pause button I think. Ability to drag and drop the graphs to reorder them. more columns to show which targets are running and which are displayed. Currently this is done with symbols so you cant sort by just the running targets for example I've found. Read full review A more user-friendly interface would be nice, but then again it is not really designed for those who are not quite comfortable with this type of software. Changes to functionality on updates - this can sometimes happen unexpectedly and can be an annoyance. More powerful data processing would be welcomed Read full review Usability I give Wireshark a 10 for usability because it is very usable. Just about anyone can capture packets within a few seconds of opening the program. The analysis is a science but as far as just using Wireshark; it's very easy.
Read full review Support Rating I have not had much contact with the PingPlotter support, only one time have I went to them and it was a positive experience. The questions I had were answered quickly and professionally. I have no issue with the experience I had with the Support team. This was from before and after the purchase of the product.
Read full review I don't believe Wireshark has "true" support as the software is open source. However, there is an active & friendly community around Wireshark that are more than happy to help answer questions. From a comprehensive Wiki and FAQ section on the site to the Ask a Question forum and bug tracker section, there's plenty of support options to make sure your questions and issues are addressed.
Read full review Implementation Rating Simple and easy setup.
Read full review Alternatives Considered A balance of a generic tool vs a network equipment product is necessary when investigating network incidents or disruptions. Need to train the engineer to use both tools to perform their analysis and to dive down to the issues as fast as they can. Experience with the tools will continue to play a part if we were to adopt PingPlotter
Read full review Wireshark is a free tool that came highly recommended by one of our former network security consultants. Using the tool he was able to resolve all of our higher tier network tickets, so we observed first hand why we needed to add Wireshark into our toolset. We received in-depth instruction and training scenarios that demonstrated the effectiveness and power of the product, so we didn't spend any time reviewing competing products.
Read full review Return on Investment Great ROI, troubleshooting time has been reduced by 90% Network Discoveries used to take 2 to 3 hours and were inconsistent - now it is a matter of minutes lacks integration into our MSP toolkit, and we now use it as a stand alone product Read full review Identifying bugs in the network has never been smooth and near-perfect. Wireshark has made sure our equipment and software is working properly via analyzing network data. Analysis of IP packets and Sip call flaws has saved us a lot of time and confident result. Read full review ScreenShots