Network Troubleshooting Reviews for 2022

PeerSpot takes a user-centered approach to creating product comparisons that help IT decision-makers arrive at informed decisions. Instead of relying on the word of the companies that create the technological solutions, they go to the users themselves. Real users offer true feedback without any of the partiality that the solutions’ vendors may have.

PeerSpot’s users of network troubleshooting solutions have reviewed and ranked the products according to how potentially valuable they may be to other users. What follows is a list of the top eight ranked and reviewed products:

1. DX Spectrum

PeerSpot users ranked DX Spectrum as the number one network troubleshooting solution of 2021. Here is what is being said about it:

Greg P. a Senior Network Analyst at a transportation company, wrote, “The containerization of different objects was very helpful in building an organized structure. Being able to separately manage your MSP clients with separate visibility was also helpful.

Scalability is a highly-rated feature of this solution. It is better than some of the other tools that I've used in terms of scalability. We scaled it to tens of thousands of devices.

The granular access control that it provided so that you could only see devices that were related to what you were working on was great. I couldn't see the entire inventory of devices. I could only see the ones that were related to my work. It has got a very granular access control component.”

However, he also writes, “For my use case, incident coordination was an area of improvement. The internal software engine for coordinating outages could use improvement because sometimes, we used to get false alerts for unrelated devices. They did a really good job of trying to make sure that you got one major alert and any of the subsequent devices downstream were just additions to that, but occasionally, the engine wouldn't properly catch the right things, and we used to get a flood of alerts.”

2. Auvik

Auvik was named the number two network troubleshooting solution of 2021.

Bobby W., a Network Engineer at GNCU, writes, “It provides automated, out-of-the-box device configuration backups. These are just compulsory administrative tasks for the stuff you rarely need, but if you ever need it and you don't have it, you're in big trouble. It does the automated backup, and it does it so reliably that I've never manually managed configuration. If I was doing that manually, it would probably take five minutes per device to do a configuration backup. Across a hundred devices, it would be 500 minutes a month. So, it saves me a fair amount of time. It also saves me needing to employ somebody to do a very repetitive task. This is what technology does. It replaces dumb functions so that humans can go and do things that are not so easily automated. The device configuration part also saves money, but the only reason that it saved money was that it was something that we weren't doing before Auvik. We were not spending money to backup configurations because we were not really backing up configurations. So, it didn't really replace anything. It just implemented something that needed to be done but wasn't being done.”

He also says, “Sometimes, we get requests for exporting a map of the network. I can export a map, but it exports it as a PDF, which is basically just like a drawing. There is no context. When you're looking at the map, you can hover over things and you can drill in devices and see all kinds of information, but when you export it to a PDF, it is just like a flat image. It is a picture of it, and if you don't know what you're looking at, it doesn't necessarily make any sense. This may be something that has already improved. The exportability piece was one thing that was kind of like a gripe, but it is not all that important. If NCUA wanted to see proof that we have network topology diagrams, I can just show them the tool. Worst case scenario, I can give them read-only access to log into our Auvik tenant, and then they can see for themselves all of that stuff.”

3. Wireshark

Users named Wireshark the number three network troubleshooting solution of 2021.

A founder and CEO at a tech services company states about Wireshark, ”Being able to dissect email data and figure out what is inside email messages was the most valuable feature. Such a feature is pretty helpful for an ongoing forensic investigation or when there is a potential insider threat that you are trying to investigate. It allows you to see the network activity of the users you are investigating. It also gives you more visibility into your network.”

Furthermore, they write, “Its user interface was a little less friendly. They can make its user interface a little bit more friendly. It is for technical people, and most of the technical people would be able to figure it out, but it would be good to improve its user interface.”

4. AirMagnet Survey

PeerSpot users ranked AirMagnet Survey the number four network troubleshooting solution of 2021.

A Network Engineer at a tech services company writes, “Some people who aren't as technical as me, some of our project leads, really liked the graphical interface of it. You can take some of the more technical stuff off of it and just represent items in very ways. For example, green means good, red means bad.”

They also say, “If you're using AirMagnet, it's a special use case. As long as they really walk you through it you should be fine. However, you do need some direction and training. If you don't have very much practice with it, it is difficult to troubleshoot.”

5. NetAlly EtherScope nXG

NetAlly EtherScope nXG is ranked as the number five solution of 2021 by PeerSpot users.

Scott S., an Independent Consultant at a comms service provider, writes, “The multi-technology functionality of the solution, including the fact that it does WiFi and wired Ethernet analysis in one device, means I now have one device that can do a multitude of tests, and fairly reliably. I can lean on it. I can say, ‘Hey, this is the proof I need,’ for whatever the scenario is. It is definitely a great asset. I have other tools, wireless or wired or both. But this one, with its functionality and development, is quickly becoming an all-in-one, versus having to carry two or three or four.”

Jonathan D., a senior network engineer at a government agency, writes, "I would love to see port profiles. This is something I've expressed to them. The ability for a technician to plug it into a switch port, and say, ‘Okay, this port will be an access point or this port will be a phone and desktop PC,’ thus choosing a profile. It will then push a configuration to the device it's connected to and verify that the switch port is correctly configured, so I can hand this to a phone tech who doesn't have any access to a network switch to be able to make changes. They can go out and plug this into a port, then they are able to push a profile to the switch port through the device. That would be pretty fantastic as a next step for this device."

6. NetBrain

NetBrain is ranked as the number five solution of 2021 by PeerSpot users.

A senior System Engineer at a healthcare company writes, “The original case was mapping and the solution enabled us to draw out our maps instead of hand drawing the maps with the links and everything else. It's okay on the value, a bit expensive for just maps, but makes it a lot easier to see things visually and take it from there.”

They also state, “Creating the parsers and QFs from model to model show that the IP interface brief isn't consistent. From a 6500 to a 3750 to a 9300 Cisco switch models, the show IP interface brief is different. There's extra columns and you have to parse for those. Setting those up is a bit of a challenge on this particular version. From what I've been able to gather, the next version, 8.X, is better at that and has more of those, but my perception is that building the parsers out is a bit of a challenge. I've done it but it's a challenge.”

7. OptiView XG

Users of PeerSpot ranked OptiView XG as the number seven solution of 2021.

Mark W., the president of Bitwise Micro, says, "It is a very valuable tool. It goes out and does a discovery, which is a great process of it. You could have something like a rogue DHCP server, and it will identify it, and then you can see to which switch port it is connected. It is quite an impressive tool. I really liked it because you didn't have to install an agent on anything. It would just go out and do its discovery. For me, that's great."

He also writes, "Its price can be improved. Their support can also be improved a little bit. In terms of features, it did everything I wanted it to do. With more features, I would have to start installing network agents or something else, and I don't want to have to install anything. This was the value for me about this device."

8. AirCheck

AirCheck was ranked as the number eight solution of 2021 by PeerSpot users.

Emanuele M., a Wireless Network Engineer at a hospitality company, writes, "I like the cloud functionality. That's very useful because somebody can go onsite, someone who is not really skilled, and I can see the test results from the office.”

He also writes, "We use .1x authentication, so I need to download the certificate onto the device. It would be nice to have this functionality through the cloud as well. Right now, you need to do it through the software by connecting your laptop physically to the AirCheck. This is one thing that is a bit slow."