Ping monitoring is an essential practice for any network administrator. By sending ICMP echo request packets to devices on your network, ping tools can measure the response times and availability of hosts to quickly identify connectivity issues or outages.
In this comprehensive guide, we will explore 10 popular ping monitoring solutions designed specifically for network troubleshooting and diagnostics.
What Does Ping Monitoring Do?
Ping monitoring tools send ICMP echo request packets to target devices in order to gauge response times and test connectivity. The key data points provided include:
- Response time (latency): The time it takes for the ping request and reply process
- Packet loss: The percentage of ping requests that did not receive a response
- Uptime/availability: The percentage of pings requests that were successfully answered
By continuously monitoring these vital metrics, network professionals can pinpoint the exact location of issues and outages for faster resolution. These tools also establish baselines of typical response times on your network. Any spikes or dramatic shifts can indicate developing connectivity problems or bottlenecks before they escalate into more severe issues.
Now let‘s look at 10 robust ping monitoring solutions designed specifically for network troubleshooting and diagnostics.
1. Paessler PRTG
PRTG is an all-in-one network monitoring solution that includes built-in ping sensors to track response times, uptime, and failures. Some key features include:
- Custom dashboards to map your entire network topology.
- Automatic device discovery via ping sweeps of IP ranges.
- Real-time alerts notify you immediately of ping failures or high latency.
- Reports help identify long-term ping time trends.
PRTG is extremely customizable, allowing you to set varying ping intervals, thresholds for alerts, and define specific notification parameters. For larger environments, PRTG can scale to monitor thousands of devices across multiple sites.
Key Benefits:
- All-in-one network monitoring and diagnostics solution
- Real-time ping performance graphs
- Automatic mapping of network topology
- Customizable alerts and notifications
- Scales to large environments with thousands of sensors
2. SolarWinds Engineer‘s Toolset
Engineer’s Toolset includes two ping tools – a standard ping utility and an enhanced graphical ping tool specifically designed for network troubleshooting. Key features include:
- Charts response times, packet loss and overall availability.
- Overlay latency from multiple monitoring locations on a single graph.
- Save and export graphs as PDFs or image files.
- Set custom thresholds for alerts on spike response times or loss.
The enhanced ping tool provides a visually intuitive way to pinpoint the exact source of ping latency issues quickly. Paired with NetPath for complete network path analysis and TraceRoute for hop-by-hop metrics, SolarWinds makes troubleshooting connectivity problems easy.
Key Benefits:
- Graphical ping tool ideal for troubleshooting
- Customizable alerts and reporting
- Integrates tightly with NetPath and TraceRoute
- Scalable to monitor large, complex networks
- Downloadable 30-day free trial
3. PingPlotter
PingPlotter is a versatile ping monitoring tool focused on tracking connectivity over time to identify intermittent issues. Standout features include:
- Ultra fast ping interval testing (as often as every second).
- Graphical timeline makes it easy to spot intermittent failures.
- Alerts can directly integrate with other software platforms.
- Emulate connectivity issues from specific devices.
While some tools only ping devices every 1-5 minutes, PingPlotter allows for high frequency ping testing to help uncover hard-to-diagnose intermittent problems. For network professionals overseeing VoIP deployments or troubleshooting remote connectivity problems, PingPlotter is an invaluable tool.
Key Benefits:
- Reveals intermittent connectivity problems
- Ultra fast ping intervals for detailed diagnostics
- Graphs map trends over custom durations
- Emulate problems from specific user devices
4. Nagios XI
Nagios XI provides enterprise-grade monitoring of networks with thousands of devices. For ping monitoring, Nagios leverages external plugins to track ICMP response times.
- Monitors entire network infrastructure from one platform.
- Robust access control, customization and role-based options.
- Alerts when devices are unreachable or response times shift.
- Supports distributed, remote monitoring servers.
With robust functionality for almost all network infrastructure and devices, Nagios XI offers unified monitoring and alerts when ping issues arise. This is an ideal ping monitoring solution for large organizations managing an extensive, complex network topology.
Key Benefits:
- Unified monitoring for all network devices
- Enterprise-grade scalability and customization
- Advanced alerting and reporting capabilities
- Supports distributed, remote monitoring
5. Icinga
Icinga is an open-source network and system monitoring platform. For ping monitoring, it utilizes external plugins like Nagios to send ICMP echo requests and log response times.
- Open-source software with no vendor lock-in.
- Highly customizable alerts, dashboards and visuals.
- Scales to manage extremely large, complex environments.
- Supports distributed instances for remote monitoring.
While the interface is not as polished as some commercial options, Icinga is extremely robust and avoids getting locked into annual subscriptions. For organizations with Linux/Unix sysadmins on staff, Icinga is a feature-packed monitoring system with Ping modules available.
Key Benefits:
- Free open-source platform
- Design customized views and reporting
- Extremely scalable for vast, complex networks
- Avoids vendor lock-in and subscriptions
6. Zabbix
Zabbix offers unified network monitoring capabilities, including ping and ICMP functionality, in a free open source platform.
- No cost, open-source monitoring software.
- Template-based monitoring configuration.
- Automatic discovery of devices and network topology.
- Highly customizable alerts if devices don‘t respond to pings.
While the interface is dated, the underlying functionality is on par with many paid solutions. For organizations focused on eliminating SaaS subscription costs, Zabbix provides feature-rich monitoring absolutely free.
Key Benefits:
- Free perpetual license, no subscription fees
- Template-drive monitoring configuration
- Discover network infrastructure automatically
- Scale to expansive environments with ease
7. NetCrunch
NetCrunch delivers high-level network monitoring, alerts and analysis tools for subnet level events, including ping and DNS monitoring.
- All-in-one network monitoring system.
- Instant alerts on network outages or unresponsive devices.
- Custom topology mapping of networked infrastructure.
- Reporting tools detail uptime, response times and traffic.
This Windows server based solution offers real-time visibility and troubleshooting tools to dive deeper into device connectivity disruption events and slow response times.
Key Benefits:
- Ideal for subnet level monitoring
- Visibility into layer 2 and layer 3 connectivity
- Automatic topology mapping
- Supports role-based access control (RBAC)
8. LogicMonitor
LogicMonitor is a robust network performance monitoring platform for on-premise, cloud and hybrid infrastructure. For network connectivity, LogicMonitor utilizes ICMP ping testing with customizable thresholds.
- Unified monitoring for networks, servers cloud resources.
- Automatically maps interdependencies across infrastructure.
- Anomaly detection alerts for unusual latencies.
- Supports distributed monitoring collectors.
With advanced AIOps driven alerting, admins gain insight into the overall impact network device degradation has across the full stack. This unified platform scales seamlessly from small business up through global enterprises.
Key Benefits:
- All-in-one infrastructure monitoring
- Automatically maps communication paths
- Instant alerts for unexpected ping spikes
- Calculates overall business impact of issues
9. Datadog
Datadog is a full-scale cloud monitoring and analytics platform. While mainly focused on cloud infrastructure, Datadog utilizes synthetic monitoring to track network connectivity via ping.
- Unified monitoring for cloud, servers, networks and apps.
- Out-of-the-box dashboards tailored for various teams.
- Sophisticated correlation and topology mapping capabilities.
- Proactive synthetic monitoring and testing framework.
For network managers in cloud-centric or DevOps focused environments, Datadog provides robust ping performance tracking and alerts across the greater technology stack.
Key Benefits:
- Cloud-scale unified monitoring and analytics
- Instant visibility with prebuilt dashboards
- Maps dependencies and impact paths across systems
- Synthetic tests from global points of presence
10. FreshPing
FreshPing focuses specifically on website monitoring via HTTP/HTTPS and ping. The distributed monitoring network provides analysis and alerts when sites have connectivity degradation.
- Real-browser testing from dozens of global regions.
- Uptime, load time and ping monitoring.
- Page speed test grades based on performance.
- Public status pages to share with customers.
While lightweight in terms of infrastructure monitoring functionality, FreshPing concentrates on providing geographical visibility and alerts for web-based services and applications.
Key Benefits:
- Real browser testing
- Worldwide performance visibility
- Alerts for uptime failures and ping spikes
- Public status pages and reports
Choosing the Right Ping Monitoring Tool
When determining which solution best fits your needs, consider these factors:
- Network size – Larger organizations require more scalable platforms like PRTG, Nagios XI or Zabbix.
- Location diversity – Multi-site networks benefit from distributed monitoring servers.
- Cloud utilization – Hybrid and cloud-centric infrastructure requires unified visibility like Datadog.
- Graphical interface – Tools like SolarWinds offer visual troubleshooting advantages.
- Consolidated views – If supporting disjointed teams, unified tools promote collaboration.
- Budget – From free open source to full-scale enterprise, cost may dictate options.
Take time to evaluate organizational requirements, network complexity and the team‘s competencies when selecting your ping monitoring system.
Get Started Today
While often the first troubleshooting step for connectivity issues, many network teams lack dedicated solutions for response time and uptime tracking. The robust ping monitoring tools covered in this guide provide invaluable diagnostics, visualization and alerts to accelerate problem identification and resolution.
Visit our Network Monitoring section for related buying guides on platforms to monitor network router traffic, WiFi signals, VoIP performance, remote employee connections and more.
