The Wi-Fi analyzer tool has a set default that will start scanning and displaying the found information. You can manually turn on Active Scan or Passive Scan mode to constantly search for new networks by clicking on the “Scan.” You can use the wifi analyzer on Mac Yosemite, Mavericks, Mountain Lion and Lion for many different reasons. SolarWinds Network Performance Monitor. SolarWinds undoubtedly offers the most powerful.
Are you looking for a reliable Wi-Fi analyzing software of late for your Wi-Fi network? The tech market today shows a wide range of such software applications and it’s really perplexing to sort out the best one from such a huge bunch.
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But the good bit is that we have come up with a list of the best Wi-Fi analyzer software programs today that will be really helpful for your wireless network. Read on to know more.
Homedale
Homedale is another good name when it comes to powerful Wi-Fi analyzer software applications which enables you to make easy search for the WLAN/Wi-Fi access points as well as monitor the signal strength. With its straightforward GUI, you will have a clear view about the adapters and major details of access points such as MAC address, encryption data etc.
Wi-Fi Scanner
The software is designed to help you in easily locating the visible wirefree networks & their respective data. It obtains SSID, MAC address, signal strength, maximum & achievable rate of data etc. Backed by the software, you would be able to evaluate allocation of WiFi networks based on channels & pick minimal congested bandwidth.
WirelessNetView
This is another handy name when it comes to efficient analysis of your Wi-Fi network. The tool will run in background to monitor activities of WiFi networks around the user. For every detected network, the software will show up with all needed data- last signal status, SSID, detection counter, cipher algorithm, authentication algorithm etc.
Ekahau Site Survey
Ekahau Site Survey is a user-friendly enterprise-grade software for WiFi professionals that help them with smooth Wi-Fi design & maintenance. The software is reputed for its vivid heat maps & easy-to-use reports- which altogether enables you to optimize your Wi-Fi network conveniently. It’s one of the best names when it comes to Wi-Fi network troubleshooting.
Wi-Fi Inspector
Just as the name suggests, the software assures easy and quick view of your Wi-Fi network so that you can have a real-time monitoring on the network’s status, clients & traffic. Then, the software is equipped to spot the bad access points easily so that you can have a high-performing network.
TamoSoft Throughput Test
This software is designed to test performance of both wireless & wired networks. It can continuously send UDP & TCP data streams throughout the user’s network & computes major metrics like downstream & upstream throughput values, round-trip time and packet loss. The tool is able to display results in chart and numeric formats.
Kismet
The list would be incomplete without the mention of Kismet which is highly regarded as a powerful Wi-Fi analyzer. The software acts as a strong WiFi network detector as well as a sniffer & intrusion detection tool. It primarily works with IEEE 802.11 Wi-Fi networks yet could be expanded to take care of other networks via plug-ins.
Wi-Fi Analyzer Software for Various Platforms
There is a huge assortment of Wi-Fi analyzer software applications for various platforms. The one you go for must be compatible with your system’s OS. Not every such software programs are meant for all operating systems as there are some software applications that only work for specific OS- however, there are a few that work with all operating systems as well.
Free Windows Wi-Fi Analyzer Software – WiFi Analyzer
If you are on the lookout of a reliable free Windows Wi-Fi analyzer software, WiFi Analyzer would be a good help for you. It works to detect major Wi-Fi issues, helps to spot best place or best channel for user’s router by turning his system into a solid analyzer. The free basic version comes totally ad-free.
Free Android Wi-Fi Analyzer Software – inSSIDer
When it comes to finding free Android Wi-Fi analyzer software, inSSIDer would be a viable option. The software offers a clear and exact picture of the Wi-fi environment and will identify all the major aspects of a network – such as signal overlap, configuration issues hampering the network performance, channel conflicts and so on.
Free Mac Wi-Fi Analyzer Software – WIFI SCANNER
If you are looking for free Mac Wi-Fi analyzer software, WiFi Scanner would be a good tool for you. this powerful Wi-Fi scanner will automatically scan the airwaves nearby for the Wi-Fi signals and it offers great deal of data on the network- including MAC address, channel, signal strength, signal-noise ratio, noise, security encryption method.
Most Popular Wifi Analyzer Software for 2016 – Acrylic WiFi
This is claimed to be one of the best Wi-Fi analyzer software programs in the market today which helps with elaborate security & coverage analysis and that too quite fast for your Wifi networks. It’s easy to use and would help you with automatically generated report on the network analysis.
If you are looking for the most popular Wifi analyzer software for 2016, Acrylic WiFi would be a good option. The advanced WLAN scanner software will help with detailed analysis on the network’s security & coverage and can spit any major issue- such security risks, unauthorized network access points and so on.
What is WiFi Analyzer Software?
A WiFi analyzer software is quite literally a software that will work to analyze your wireless network. Also known as WiFi scanner software, such software programs are equipped you to monitor the activities & status of the networks around the users.
After detecting the networks, the software will offer you detailed information on major aspects of each network- with coverage on last signal quality, SSID, average signal quality, authentication algorithm, detection counter, MAC Address, cipher algorithm, channel frequency, RSSI, channel number & more.
These software programs also help with WiFi troubleshooting issues. Some of the software programs can display the report of the monitored data in chart and numeric formats.
How to Install Wi-Fi Analyzer?
To install WiFi analyzer software, first, you will find out the download link of the chosen software and then download it from its official website. But then, before the download starts, it’s a must to check the software’s compatibility with your system’s operating system. After the download, you will get the installation link followed by the needed installation instructions.
Benefits of WiFi Analyzer Software
WiFi analyzer software programs are very helpful when you need detailed data on wireless networks around you. The best ones in the market provide elaborate details on every aspect of the wireless networks so that you can have a vivid picture of the connections.
The leading wifi analyzing programs are equipped to evaluate wifi networks based on channel and the users here can pick the least crowded bandwidth for access point- that will help them with an increased speed of connection significantly. As they help with information on signal strength and encryption status, they facilitate with easy and fast steps on troubleshooting issues.
The WiFi analyzer software programs are really important to when it comes to the maintenance of wireless networks. They provide a complete and updated picture of the network that helps in quick identification of the Wi-Fi issues. The great bit is that anybody can operate these programs as these are generally easy to operate.
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As the number of Wi-Fi networks rapidly explodes, detecting, managing, and maintaining your Wi-Fi can become problematic. When everyone around you is blasting their own Wi-Fi signals—particularly if in large apartment buildings or business complexes with lots of other large companies—you’re more likely to experience problems with Wi-Fi signals dropping out, poor connectivity, and slow performance.
Even within your own Wi-Fi network, several optimizations could help ensure your network is functioning appropriately, including router placement, appropriate channel, and security measures. And of course, analyzing and understanding your wireless network is key.
One of my favorite tools for discovering and solving these problems is SolarWinds® Network Performance Monitor (NPM). It includes high-performance network monitoring and insights and troubleshooting features to ensure your network starts working again as soon as possible after a problem arises. In particular, the SolarWinds heat map feature allows you to see where Wi-Fi signal is strong, and “dead zones” with low connectivity.
What Does a Wi-Fi Analyzer Do?
Most Wi-Fi network analyzers work in a similar way, in which you can choose a wireless spectrum to examine, such as 2.4GHz or 5GHz. The analyzer then examines that spectrum to view networks, their channels, and signal strength.
In simple terms, a Wi-Fi analyzer gathers information about access points and channels on your network and displays it in an easy-to-understand, visually accessible way. A wireless network analyzer can help you maintain connection quality, which can be vital for numerous business needs and performance metrics. Wi-Fi signals are constantly changing, and small changes in the network can have massive effects on the overall connection uptime.
Using a Wi-Fi network analyzer can collect data and help you identify problems, or it can indicate potential solutions such as switching to another channel to reduce congestion. You can also use this type of tool to discover areas in your facility with a weak Wi-Fi signal.
Best Wi-Fi Network Analyzer Software in 2020
In my opinion, using Wi-Fi analyzer software can be an excellent tool for optimizing business and even at-home Wi-Fi performance. This kind of software is usually easy-to-use and can provide great benefits in terms of connection reliability, signal strength, and download speeds.
Network Performance Monitor
Of the different tools available on the market, the SolarWinds Network Performance Monitor, with its Wi-Fi analyzer, is the most comprehensive. Despite its extensive list of features, it remains simple for both beginner and advanced users.
The relevant feature here is the heatmapping capability allowing you to create multiple color-coded maps of your facilities using real device data to display signal strength. You can automatically update these maps for a real-time understanding of your wireless network. Having at-a-glance insights into your Wi-Fi can really help with troubleshooting (especially when end users come knocking with complaints about connectivity).
Beyond heatmapping, NPM offers a range of useful network management features. For instance, its proprietary NetPath™ tool lets you detect and display network pathways with a visual traceroute. This allows you to simply determine where slowdowns and issues exist, as you can see the performance and information between individual nodes. Furthermore, with the PerfStack™ feature, you can compare the performance of different metrics side-by-side, so you can correlate multiple types of data across a common timeline.
Overall, SolarWinds NPM has an impressive suite of tools, and each has clean and beautiful visualizations and displays. Furthermore, NPM scales well and includes the ability to hook in with the SolarWinds High Availability platform, to ensure even fewer network drops, with strong failover protection.
NetSpot
NetSpot has a beautiful, easy-to-use interface, and is suitable for both beginners and experienced network administrators. It uses two different modes: discovery mode and survey mode. The first mode looks at a snapshot of the Wi-Fi networks near you, while survey mode can provide more detailed heat maps of Wi-Fi strength.
NetSpot is easy to install and includes several other visual representations of the wireless spectrum and the data it can collect. There are four different versions: free, home, commercial, and enterprise. The difference between them is the number of zones you can look at, how many access points you can scan, and the number of data points you can collect with a scan.
InSSIDer
Another product to consider is InSSIDer. This established Wi-Fi analyzer tool for Windows is very reliable. The InSSIDer tool is generally intended for enterprise and business use, rather than for home users. Despite being geared toward admins, it’s still relatively easy to use.
It gathers the data you would expect: channel, signal strength, MAC addresses, and encryption type for each access point on the network. InSSIDer then provides you with a “link score” for each connection. The higher the score, the better. The software is easy to install, with comprehensive guides and links to free webinars if you need more assistance.
NetCut
Consider NetCut if you’re looking for a solution for professional or enterprise use. It was originally created to be a back-end solution, but it can be used by anyone for network investigating and debugging.
NetCut allows you to monitor LAN activity and can display all the IP and MAC addresses and data of devices that are connected or have ever connected to your network.
With NetCut, you can kick someone off your network or restore their access at will. The main issue with NetCut for beginner users is that it has a lot of machine-translated documentation that may be hard to understand for someone who is not a network administrator, and a slightly more complex interface.
NetCut includes an extra layer of protection called NetCut Defender, which protects your computer from ARP and MAC address spoofing.
WiFi Analyzer
Unlike NetSpot and NetCut, WiFi Analyzer is intended primarily for home or temporary use. It is an app for Windows 10, available on the Microsoft Store. It comes in basic and pro versions, and the basic version includes everything you need to analyze your Wi-Fi network. The app takes your network and turns the data into easy-to-understand visualizations, suggesting which channel you should use to reduce congestion.
For someone new to Wi-Fi analyzer tools, this would be a potential choice. For enterprise needs or larger networks, it’s probably much too limited.
Mac Os Wifi Analyzer
Vistumbler
Like most other Wi-Fi analyzers, Vistumbler scans nearby networks for access points and can map your Wi-Fi network and connectivity strength while showing you detailed information about each network. It provides network status, MAC address, SSID, signal strength, channel number, and network type.
Vistumbler is set apart by its GPS support, which can integrate with Google Earth to display Wi-Fi networks. This feature is for people who may be driving, walking, or cycling around to try to find Wi-Fi networks to use. When Vistumbler discovers a Wi-Fi network with this feature, the app can show you where the network is on a map and other network information.
The main downside is that Vistumbler is not easy to use, and the user interface can be difficult to navigate. Again, it’s not a full enterprise solution for Wi-Fi analysis.
WiFi Commander
With good-looking graphics and sophisticated UI, WiFi Commander is one of the more attractive Wi-Fi analyzer tools. You can scan and filter nearby Wi-Fi networks and create 3-D graphs of the results. If your laptop has touchscreen capabilities, you can use touch to move and interact with the 3-D visualization.
The WiFi Commander app shows Wi-Fi signal strength and displays it in real-time so you can use the most recent data to join the strongest or most stable Wi-Fi network.
Wireshark
Free Wifi Analyzer
If you need a free or open-source Wi-Fi analyzer tool, check out Wireshark. Its purpose is to analyze and troubleshoot different communications protocols, and it includes the ability to look at Wi-Fi. Wireshark is very complicated to use, and you’ll need some training to use it. As such, it’s normally only used by networking and Wi-Fi professionals. In addition, there are obvious disadvantages for relying on open-source tools for business use, so you may want something with a bit more built-up functionality.
If you’re looking for something a little more basic when it comes to Wireshark, SolarWinds has a free tool called Response Time Viewer for Wireshark designed to help you analyze packet capture files as well as visualize response time in Wireshark.
Free Wifi Scanner Mac
Wi-Fi Analysis Solutions
In general, there’s no shortage of tools and software to help you monitor and organize your Wi-Fi networks, whether you’re a casual user or an enterprise professional. With the inclusion of high-reward tools such as heatmaps, visualizations, and performance metric graphs, the best Wi-Fi analysis tools and network management tools can revolutionize how you get the most out of your connection.
Wifi Analyzer For Mac Free
I recommend SolarWinds NPM due to its more robust suite of offerings and simple learning curve for new users. It’s much more robust than some of the limited-scope tools I mentioned above. Even so, I find the SolarWinds platform both intuitive and efficient.
Wifi Monitor Mac
Related Reading
How to Tame—and Redefine—Your Network Now – If you’re interested in considering how networks are changing and evolving, as well as the ways in which you may need to adapt your network management, read this article on how to prepare for tomorrow’s network topography.