Feature Comparison Guide

As a developer of Internet Tools, I have gained a rich understanding of how various IP tools work and discovered there are subtle but important differences between IPNetMonitor and other similar looking tools.

I created this page to describe what sets different IP tools apart. As the developer of IPNetMonitor, it is natural for me to focus on those areas that I feel are important and distinguish IPNetMonitor from other implementations. Despite this freely acknowledged bias, I have tried to be as objective as possible in comparing how the tools actually work and what results you can expect. I leave it to the reader to "see for yourself" and decide what matters to you.

What Tools are Included

	IPNetMonitor	AGNetTools	Mac TCP Watcher	OTTool	WhatRoute
Ping	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
TraceRoute	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Name Lookup	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
NSLookup	Yes	-	-	-	Yes
Mail Exchange (MX)	Yes	-	-	Yes	Yes
Whois	Yes	Yes	-	-	Yes
Finger	Yes	Yes	-	-	Yes
Network Info (TCP & AppleTalk)	-	Yes	Yes	Yes	-
Domain Name Scan	Yes	Yes	-	Yes	-
Ping Scan	Yes	Yes	-	-	-
Last Seen Scan	Yes	-	-	-	-
Service Scan	-	Yes	-	-	-
Port Scan	-	Yes	-	-	-
TCP and UDP Echo	-	Yes	Yes	-	-
ICMP Logging	Yes	-	-	-	Yes
Subnet Calculator	Yes	-	-	-	-
Throughput Plot (Monitor)	Yes	-	-	-	-
Throughput tool	-	Yes	-	-	-
TCP Info	Yes	-	Yes	-	-
TCP Connection List	Yes	-	Yes	-	-
Geographic Location Plot	-	-	-	-	Yes
Telnet Server (remote control)	-	-	-	-	Yes

ICMP Ping

		IPNetMonitor	AGNetTools	Mac TCP Watcher	OTTool	What Route
1.	Accurate Round Trip Time (RTT)	Yes	No	No	No	Yes
2.	Detects destination unreachable and reports reason	Yes	No	No	No	No
3.	Simple graphic design	Yes	Yes	No	No	No
4.	Integration with other tools	Yes	Some	Some	Some	Some
5.	Multiple Ping windows	Yes	Some	Yes	No	No
6.	Built-in help for each tool.	Yes	No	No	No	No

TraceRoute

		IPNetMonitor	AGNetTools	Mac TCP Watcher	OTTool	What Route
1.	Accurate Round Trip Time (RTT)	Yes	No	Yes	No	Yes
2.	Detects destination unreachable and reports reason	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	Yes
3.	Simple graphic design	Yes	Yes	Some	Some	No
4.	Integration with other tools	Yes	Some	Some	Some	Some
5.	Multiple Trace windows	Yes	Some	Yes	No	No
6.	Asynchronous trace ahead	Yes	No	Yes	No	No
7.	Provides average RTT for each hop	Yes	No	Yes	No	No
8.	Can copy and paste results	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	Yes
9.	Copied results formatted for easy reading	Yes	No	No	No	Yes
10.	Built-in help for each tool	Yes	No	No	No	No

To be continued... send comments to the author at

Product Reference

IPNetMonitor 2.5, Sustainable Softworks, http://www.sustworks.com, trialware $30

AGNetTools 2.0, the ag group, inc., http://www.aggroup.com, trialware $34.95

Mac TCP Watcher 2.0, Stairways Shareware, http://www.stairways.com, shareware $10

OTTool 1.0B4, Neon Software, http://www.neon.com, freeware

WhatRoute 1.5.0b5(PPC), Bryan Christianson, http://crash.ihug.co.nz/~bryanc/, freeware