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Utility • Oct.31, 2019

If you own a Mac, you would know what the sleek and powerful machine can do. Macs are capable of churning out excellent performance layered in an appealing and user-friendly interface.

Mar 24, 2020  Best Monitor for Mac mini iMore 2020. If you're looking for a large-screen display to go with your 2020 (or older) Mac mini, you've come to the right place. Your best bet is the LG UltraFine 4K display thanks to its versatility and price. It's perfect for most people, though there are other monitors you can also consider, depending on your. Sep 30, 2019  PRTG Network Monitor. PRTG Network Monitor from Paessler is a comprehensive yet strikingly simple tool for monitoring your entire IT infrastructure. This internet usage monitoring software allows you to measure all the traffic in your network by monitoring the data directly on your routers.

As Steve Jobs once said about Macs: We made the buttons on the screen look so good you’ll want to lick them.

1. With this in mind here are the best employee monitoring software solutions for Mac and PC of 2020 in order of ranking. Despite the name, SentryPC works on both Mac and Windows and is by far the easiest to use and implement employee monitoring software on both platforms.
2. Great Monitor with Some Mac Issues.I moved from a 32 inch monitor to this 34 inch ultra-wide ( See a visual comparison in the attached pictures ) This monitor is best equipped for work, or for PC gaming that provides the option to use the ultra-wide 21:9 aspect ratio' 'Great Monitor with Some Mac Issues' See all customer reviews.

However, there are certain apps, performance patterns, and clogged files that hinder the performance of your Mac. You’ll need a good Mac system monitor to track these apps and files and see how your Mac is performing at large.

With a system monitor for Mac, you can view detailed information about your Mac’s hardware and software, memory, disk speed, and graphics card performance. These details will help you analyze if your Mac is performing at par with your expectations, or if it is time to clear the clutter, or even make an upgrade.

Is Apple’s in-built Activity Monitor good enough?

Mac OS comes with an in-built activity monitor which shows you the processes that are active on your Mac. This can help you manage these processes to see how they affect the activity and performance of your Mac.

The built-in Activity Monitor on the Mac OS is reasonably good as it helps you break down everything by task and even force quit tasks if needed. However, if you are someone who needs to monitor the activity on your Mac continually, then you would realize that the built-in Activity monitor might not be the best tool as you cannot customize it and tweak it as per your needs.

Since there is so much happening inside your Mac which the built-in Activity Monitor does not reveal. Apple is known to minimize distractions with its design. However, this often comes in the way of monitoring its performance.

If you really want to actively monitor your CPU’s performance, disk and network activity, memory usage, and receive custom notifications for these parameters, then there’s not much that the inbuilt Activity Monitor can do. It even occupies most of the screen. Wouldn’t it be convenient if you could monitor your Mac with some icons in the menu bar?

To get to know about the intricacies of your hardware, you will need third-party apps that excel at the job. Here, we will list out some of the best system monitors for your Mac that display your Mac’s performance and activity meters with much detail and accessibility.

Our pick to monitor Mac a whole lot advanced: iStat Menus

When it comes to having a robust and customizable app for monitoring the system performance on your macOS, nothing quite beats iStats Menus.

Overview

Once you install iStat Menus on your Mac and set it up, you will notice that the app runs in the background. It is displayed on the menu bar at the top of your screen where it gives you real-time system updates — something which the inbuilt activity monitor on the Mac OS is incapable of doing.

Constant updates flashed on the menu bar, can help you keep an eye on what your Mac is up to and if anything is hindering its performance.

iStat Menus is one of the most popular activity monitoring apps for Mac. The reason for it is that it can report everything. Here are some of the things that iStat Menus can report on:

• Disks
• Memory pressure
• CPU and GPU performance
• Battery and Power
• Weather
• Network
• Sensors

Other features of this app include hotkeys for quick keyboard access, accessibility and localization features, and notifications based on CPU, disk, network, weather, battery and other events.

With iStat Menus, keeping an active eye on your Mac’s performance is quite accessible. As mentioned above, all you have to do is click on the respective menu bar icons. Once you do that, you will see a drop-down which details out that component of your Mac.

Most of the drop-downs come with graphs that show a detailed breakdown of data which is updated at regular intervals so that you can know how your Mac’s activity has changed over time.

Customization

If you are worried about the menu bar cluttering with several icons, then you can rest your anxiety!

iStat Menus is highly customizable. You can choose what to show and what to hide on the menu bar. You also have the option to hide the icons from your menu bar temporarily. Mac app store download free.

To review what components are metered on the Menu bar, you can head over to the app and check or uncheck the required field box.

You can also update the colors that show in the app to customize the experience for yourself. You have the option to change the menu bar colors, menu bar borders, and even the shade of the drop-down that highlights the graphs and other details. To make sure that you do not get lost in these customization settings, the interface highlights how playing around with the colors will affect the display of your app.

Under the global settings, you also get to customize the update frequency of the app.

With much customization at hand, iStat Menus is the go-to option for a distraction-free and clean activity-monitoring app, which does the least to confuse you.

Performance

The CPU and GPU tab on iSats Menu lets you keep a track on your processor’s current load. Once you click on the menu bar icon, it reveals a drop-down list of the top five processes that are running. These processes are updated with time — you can choose the update frequency along with the displayed processes in the CPU & GPU tab of the app.

You get to view the system performance stats in the form of line graphs, pie charts, or bar graphs, or numerical value — whichever option you choose.

When you hover over these graphs, you get more insights in the form of a popup that highlights system loads for a particular time that may have triggered high CPU usage.

Sounds great so far, doesn’t it? This app is quite a haven for developers who want to check if their app is taking a toll on Mac’s performance.

With memory comes the capacity to expand on your current tasks — the workload that your Mac is capable of handling without crashing or starting to lag.

iStats Menu’s memory performance indicator provides you with ample insight into the memory bit of your Mac. The popup graphs are informative and easy to understand at the same time. They let you track the ‘memory pressure’ metric, which is much more useful than simply knowing how much your memory is ‘free’.

The detailed memory stats help you see how much of your RAM is wired, active, compressed, or free. It also lets you see the processes that are consuming most memory.

There’s more that this app has to offer! The weather module is a new integration to iStat Menus, and the developers have done the job of integrating it well.

The menu bar icon displays the current weather conditions, and when you click on it, it expands into a whole widget which shows you the ins and outs of your current geography.

You get custom icons for different weather conditions, be it rain, storm, snow, or a bright sunny day!

The well-designed weather module also shows you the daily forecast — what to expect from the day, along with the maximum and minimum temperature based on your preferred units. If you are a weather buff, then you would like to know that you also get to know the dew point, the wind’s speed, and direction.

Notifications

This is probably one of the most exciting features of iStat Menus. The notification feature allows you to have notifications every time your Mac hits a specific condition. It can help you stay notified if your Mac heats up, overuses the CPU, or clogs the memory.

You can get custom notifications once your memory usage crosses a certain threshold so that you can begin quitting the apps.

The custom notifications also work with the weather module, so if you are working on your Mac and the weather turns grey and stormy, a notification pops up right away.

Flaws but not dealbreakers

While iStat Menus provides a comprehensive insight into your Mac’s functioning, at the first look, it seems like advanced users could make better use of it. However, if you spend some time on the app, you will get familiar with its buttons and icons, and the settings that govern its feature.

Also, we wished that the icon side of things was a but more aesthetic — syncing well with the design-rich layers of the macOS. However, that’s not much to be worried about and can surely be fixed with future updates.

Availability and pricing

The single license for iStat Menus can be bought at $14.15; the upgrade price happens to be at $11.79. This also includes 6 months of weather data. However, if you want to try it out, you can always download the trial version.

iStat Menus is also available at Setapp. Setapp provides access to hundreds of apps per month. It has a free 7-day trial, and then you have to subscribe it at $9.99 per month.

Also great: MenuBar Stats

MenuBar stats is another great app that can help you monitor the performance of your Mac in a clean, sleek and straightforward interface.

MenuBar Stats, with its latest release MenuBar Stats 3, has completely reinvented the app to make it more compatible with the newer versions of the Mac OS.

It has been ‘completely re-written from the ground’ and comes with modules such as CPU, disk, network, Bluetooth, fan, and more.
Each of these modules can be accessed front he menu bar and/or the notification center of your Mac OS.

Menubar Stats 3 comes with a host of features that will make monitoring fun, visually appealing, and accessible on your Mac OS.

We particularly like the separate window mode feature as it lets you look at each of the modules individually in a separate window. With separate windows on the same screen, you get access to detailed information about individual components in a clear and concise manner.

On the other hand, the combined window mode on Menubar Stats 3 allows you to see all the information in a single window. There is no pre-set limit to the number of modules that you can add. You can drag and drop the modules to expand the window; if there is no space on your screen, the window will activate the scroll view mode.

Menubar Stats 3 is also known to have great support, so if you have any queries around the app, you can contact the support team and can expect a response in no time!

Menubar Stats 3 comes with a free trial and can be purchased on the App Store for $4.99.

Other contenders

While the above-mentioned apps are quite popular and highly rated, there are other apps that can help you with monitoring your Mac’s performance with much ease.

Free open source monitoring app: XRG for Mac

Talking about open sources, XRG for Mac is a functional system monitor tool that you could try if you do want to monitor your Mac’s performance for free.

Yes, it is free to use and comes with almost all the features that a performance monitoring app should have. This app lets you monitor your CPU and GPU activity, memory usage, machine temperature, battery status, network activity, disk I/O, stock market data, and current weather.

Network Monitoring Tools Mac

There are also a handful of settings that you can customize to personalize your experience with this app, change units and modify the way data and graphs are displayed.

However, the way the numbers are displayed on it can get cluttered and cannot be compared to the visual aesthetics of iStat Menus and Menubar Stats 3, and it could take a while for you to figure things out with this app.

Nonetheless, it is a must-have if you are looking for a free tool to monitor your Mac’s performance and don’t mind spending some time figuring out the interface.

Clean and lightweight performance monitoring tool: Monity

Monity is another app that you can download on the App Store to track the performance of your Mac.

Monity is excellent for those who want a system monitoring app to work as a widget. It rests in the Today View section of your Mac OS and oversees various components of your hardware. Monity does not have menu bars — they say that you can view your network and system usage ‘without messing around with huge and uncomfortable symbols in the menu bar’.

Monity can be used for memory management, monitoring network activity, battery and disk usage, app usage statistics, sensors, temperatures, and fan speed.

It provides you with detailed insights into each of these components. Besides, the app is regularly updated to sync well with the visual changes that the new Mac updates bring.

Monity delivers data to you in an effortless way. For an app that is lightweight and cheap, it works exceedingly well, delivering you with stats and data at your disposal.

Monity comes in fifteen languages and can be purchased from the app store for $4.99.

macOS system monitoring widget: iStatistica

iStatistica is another monitoring app which includes notification center widget and a status bar menu — a mix of what you would find in iStat Menus and Monity.

With iStatistica, it is quite simple to keep track of your CPU’s performance — all you have to do is slide out your Mac’s Notification Center and you will get insights into the CPU, memory, battery, network activity, and disk usage. However, you will have to download an additional plugin to gain access to fans, sensors, and disk I/O monitoring.

The app is available in six languages — English, French, Spanish, German, Russian, and Italian.

If you want continuous access to iStatistica in your menu bar, you can click settings and select ‘Open iStatistica at Login’ ooer, if you only want it to be in your Notification Centre, you can switch off the autorun feature.

iStatistica runs on macOS 10.12 or higher, so if you have trouble using this app, make sure that your macOS is updated to the latest macOS Catalina 10.15.

iStatistica comes with a 7-day free trial. Post that, you can purchase a license for $7.99.

Battery health diagnostic: coconutBattery

coconutBattery has been around since 2005. With the years of development that has been put into it, it does a fine job of displaying the health of your battery on your Mac, iPhone, and iPad.

It shows you the live performance of your battery, the age of the device and the battery, how often the battery is charged, the current health of your battery, and much more.

You also get the option to save the current health information of your device’s battery so you can see the changes in the health over time and know precisely when it is time to replace the battery or make an upgrade.

The app also syncs through iOS, which means that you do not have to connect your phone through a USB every time you want to check the health of your iPhone or iPad’s battery.

coconutBattery, however, is strictly a battery monitoring app, so you cannot view other parameters of your Mac on it, such as CPU, disk, and memory usage.

The pro version of the app — coconutBattery Plus — comes with additional features such as WiFi support, iOS Advance Viewer, custom printing templates, notifications, and more. It can be purchased for around $12, depending on your region.

However, you get to try the Plus-upgrade features for 14 consecutive starts of coconutBattery.

Storage monitoring tool: SMART Utility

The newer Macs come with faster SSDs that have high data transfer speeds. To keep track of the health of your drive and to diagnose the problems, it is essential to have an app which takes care of it all. SMART Utility for Mac is one such app which is designed to do just that.

It is compatible with HDDs and SSDs that monitor, analyze, and report on the condition of your Mac’s drive.

The app displays crucial information about your drives, such as the model, power-on hours, capacity, bad sector counts, temperature, and error counts and types. It can also display information in the menu bar and supports scanning in the background — a great feature since you do not have to keep the app in foreground every time.

SMART Utility is a lightweight app and comes with a free one-month trial with four launches. A personal license can be purchased at $25. The price for a family license if $40. If you own a business, then you can get a business license for $100. Educational sites have to pay $65, while a consultant license comes at $350.

Make your pick

With a plethora of options to choose from, you can pick just the right apps to get to know more about your Mac’s performance under the hood. iStat Menus takes care of most of these parameters, but if you want to get more on the artistic side of things, you can probably go for Monity. For battery diagnostics, nothing quite beats coconutBattery. The best part? Well, you can also sync it with your iPad and iPhone.

We hope that this list provided you with ample options to get to know your Mac better. A fine-tuned Mac opens up doors to more productivity, and we have designed this list and our preferences by keeping that in mind.

Happy tuning!

We’ve all been there—end users are complaining about slow internet, but you thought you had plenty of bandwidth. Over the years, I’ve come to realize you probably do, in most cases. In fact, throwing additional bandwidth at the issue is often an expensive Band-Aid. What you need is to get to the root of performance problems.

If you want to see what’s using your bandwidth, or simply check the bandwidth of your server, you can benefit from implementing a bandwidth monitoring tool. There are several options on the market, varying from the rudimentary to the more analytical. Some are free, and some come with a price tag. What matters is finding the right fit for your business. My overall favorite? SolarWinds^® Network Bandwidth Analyzer Pack.

This comprehensive package allows users to monitor bandwidth as well as identify, diagnose, and resolve network performance issues with ease via its highly intuitive dashboard. The best part? You can try them both by downloading a 30-day, fully functional free trial.

What Is Network Bandwidth Monitoring?
Why Is Network Bandwidth Monitoring Important?
Finding the Right Bandwidth Monitoring Tool
The Takeaway

What Is Network Bandwidth Monitoring?

To understand network bandwidth monitoring, it’s important to take a few steps back and paint the full picture of bandwidth usage in general. Bandwidth refers to a network’s capacity to transfer data between devices or the internet within a given span of time. Higher bandwidth allows data to be transferred at a faster rate and for more devices to connect at once.

I like to refer to networks as highways and bandwidth as the lanes. The more lanes you have on a highway, the more easily traffic can move. The same thing is true of a network. If too many users are watching videos or downloading files—any type of high-data activity—your network speed will lag. This is why you may often notice a slower connection in public places full of users, with their laptops open and tablets in hand, all trying to use the internet at once.

Bandwidth capacity is typically determined by the connection type. Digital subscriber line (DSL) internet relies on telephone lines and has limited capabilities. Cable internet is faster, but fiber-optic speeds trump them all. The exact amount and type of bandwidth your company needs depend on the size of the business, but it’s safe to assume any operation brimming with laptops, phones, tablets, and other devices should be equipped with substantial bandwidth capacity if they want to provide a fast and efficient experience for all end users.

Why Is Network Bandwidth Monitoring Important?

Typically, it takes a network interruption to alert IT technicians to a problem. At that point, they are forced to be reactive rather than proactive. But if you always have your finger on the pulse of the network, you have a distinct advantage—you can spot and address issues more quickly because you know where to look.

This is where network bandwidth monitoring comes into play. With the right network bandwidth monitoring tool, you can:

• Identify bandwidth needs. While servers can be reconfigured if needed, it’s best to calculate your company’s bandwidth requirements at the start to avoid major overhauls down the line. This means determining the bandwidth needs of your enterprise’s local area network (LAN) or wide area network (WAN). A network usage monitor will allow you to monitor WAN bandwidth and LAN bandwidth, glean a comprehensive understanding of the bandwidth capacity your network requires, and better evaluate when it may be time to upgrade your bandwidth—for example, if your company converts to laptops from PCs or adds a new division of employees. When you’re monitoring network performance on an ongoing basis, you’re better prepared to spot trends indicating a need for greater bandwidth far in advance. Put simply, planning for an upgrade should never take place as the result of a crisis.
• Boost network performance. The solutions to bandwidth complaints are often obvious, once you know where to look. Bandwidth analyzers provide a complete picture of your bandwidth and network health, empowering you to identify the applications using the most bandwidth and how they’re being used, spot bottlenecks at a glance, analyze and monitor traffic patterns, track response time, availability, and uptime of routers, switches, and other SNMP-enabled devices, and drill down into all of these details as needed. This allows you to be proactive about spotting emerging problems and quickly get to the root of a performance issue before end users complain and productivity comes to a grinding halt.
• Save your budget. While it’s sometimes necessary to add bandwidth, it can be an expensive undertaking. Before you put extra spend behind your bandwidth, I always recommend leveraging a bandwidth monitoring tool to gather and communicate both granular and big-picture network usage information. Monitoring allows you to head off issues and troubleshoot slowdowns without the added investment in more bandwidth.
• Enhance security. Hackers are abounding, ready to jump on an opportunity to inject malware into your company’s system and prey on highly sensitive data and information. Monitoring bandwidth usage will enable you to readily identify suspicious activity and hosts by providing a detailed snapshot of potentially malicious traffic flows. Armed with this level of insight, you can stop hackers in their tracks and protect your company from a data breach.

Finding the Right Bandwidth Monitoring Tool

A wide variety of network traffic monitoring tools and bandwidth monitors are on the market. Some are more robust and comprehensive in their service offerings, while others are lean. Some involve a fair amount of spend, and others are free or open-source. Finding the right fit for your business boils down to the level of monitoring you hope to achieve and what your company’s budget (or lack thereof) will allow. Here are my picks for the top 9 tools to monitor bandwidth and network usage:

1. Network Bandwidth Analyzer Pack

I’m a big fan of this bandwidth monitoring software bundle from SolarWinds because of its ability to detect, diagnose, and resolve network performance issues before end users can begin finger-pointing.

Network Bandwidth Analyzer Pack (BAP) combines the power of SolarWinds Network Performance Monitor and NetFlow Traffic Analyzer (which I’ll dive into later), equipping you with the resources needed to monitor bandwidth use by application, protocol, and IP address group. Leverage the platform to view both IPv4 and IPv6 flow records and monitor Cisco NetFlow, Juniper J-Flow, sFlow, Huawei NetStream, and IPFIX flow data, allowing you to easily identify the applications and protocols consuming the most bandwidth.

More than a net meter bandwidth monitor, the toolset is equipped to not only display traffic patterns but also correlate them into a visual, usable format via a web-based interface featuring bold charts and graphs. The interactive and highly intuitive dashboard boasts a drag-and-drop feature, so you can easily connect the dots between varying performance metrics spanning months, days, or even minutes. Drilling down in this way is essential for any team looking to quickly identify service provider issues and applications hogging the bandwidth.

Best Network Monitor Software Mac Pro

From a security standpoint, BAP will automatically alert you when application traffic suddenly increases, decreases, or disappears completely. High traffic spikes indicate cyberattackers at work, so having access to this type of instant update can help you act fast and stop hackers before they unleash too much damage. Unexpected decreases in traffic, as well as a complete lack of traffic, are evidence of a larger performance problem.

2. NetFlow Traffic Analyzer

NetFlow Traffic Analyzer (NTA) is another solid offering from the team at SolarWinds. This comprehensive platform is slightly less robust than Network Bandwidth Analyzer Pack (of which it’s an integral component) but no less sophisticated.

With NTA, you get all of the bandwidth monitoring, network analysis, and intelligent alerts in Bandwidth Analyzer Pack, minus the in-depth wireless and multi-vendor network monitoring and network performance baselines.

In other words, if you’re looking for an in-depth, single-vendor network architecture bandwidth analyzer, SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer is for you. The platform features the visual correlation I love, complete with the drag-and-drop network performance analysis dashboard so you can drill into any network element and analyze traffic patterns over months, days, or minutes. With NetFlow Traffic Analyzer, you can quickly identify bandwidth use by application, protocol, and IP address group to identify where bandwidth is being zapped. This level of analysis, paired with customizable network traffic reports displaying historical data and identifying peak bandwidth usage, empower you to adjust policies for better bandwidth management and avoid spending extra on additional bandwidth.

Beyond these features, if your business regularly uses cloud-based applications, like VoIP or e-commerce systems, the software can also be leveraged to verify prioritized traffic moves smoothly through the network. This is an essential part of CBQoS policy optimization.

3. PRTG Network Monitor

PRTG Network Monitor from Paessler is a comprehensive yet strikingly simple tool for monitoring your entire IT infrastructure. This internet usage monitoring software allows you to measure all the traffic in your network by monitoring the data directly on your routers. PRTG Network Monitor also helps you determine how much bandwidth your devices and applications are using and monitor heavy overloads, so you can quickly and accurately pinpoint bottlenecks. Depending on your network and hardware, you can use different protocols, like SNMP, flow, or packet sniffing, to leverage the tool and determine who or what is using your bandwidth. Once you’ve identified the root of the problem, you can act swiftly, putting new bandwidth usage management policies in place without having to put additional spend behind greater bandwidth.

This all-in-one solution goes beyond bandwidth analysis and monitors SQL, Exchange, and server software as well as all your cloud and virtualization applications, making it an elaborately in-depth service offering. You can even use the tool as a network speed monitor.

The Windows-based PRTG tool comes in two editions: a free version for monitoring up to 100 sensors and a commercial edition for those who need to monitor a greater number of sensors. But depending on the volume of sensors you need to monitor, the software can quickly become a drain on your budget.

4. NetFlow Analyzer

ManageEngine NetFlow Analyzer touts itself as a complete traffic analytics tool, and for good reason. The platform leverages flow technologies, including NetFlow, sFLow, IPFIX, NetStream, J-Flow, and Appflow, to provide real-time visibility into network bandwidth performance. Once you have access to analytics, you can classify applications hogging your network bandwidth and even reconfigure your policies via application-level QoS shaping, helping you regain control over those bandwidth-hungry applications.

With real-time insights and detailed analytics letting you drill down and discover traffic patterns and device performance as well as historical bandwidth reports, you’ll have the information you need for more informed capacity planning. You’ll know when it’s time to grow your bandwidth, and when it’s best to implement a new policy or shut down a specific device.

The security features of this bandwidth monitoring tool are also worth noting. NetFlow Analyzer’s Continuous Stream Mining Engine helps you detect external and internal threats, track network anomalies, and identify zero-day intrusions, so you can jump into action when needed.

5. FREE Real-Time Bandwidth Monitor

While many of the more robust products come with a price tag, there are some great free options for IT technicians looking to capture the basics. SolarWinds Real-Time Bandwidth Monitor is one of those tools. This free bandwidth usage meter allows you to check server bandwidth usage in real-time and monitor multiple interfaces simultaneously.

All bandwidth usage data is displayed visually via graphs to help you perform more critical analysis. You can even leverage the platform to create custom bandwidth thresholds, so you’ll receive an alert as soon as usage is out of bounds.

This tool is free and straightforward to use. Simply enter the IP address of the network device and associated SNMP credentials, then select the interfaces you want to monitor, and a graph will populate with bandwidth usage in real-time—no complicated install processes to worry about here.

However, the tool won’t tell you which application is eating up your bandwidth or exactly how it’s doing so. But if simple bandwidth polling is what you’re after, then you can’t go wrong with Real-Time Bandwidth Monitor.

6. FREE Network Analyzer & Bandwidth Monitoring Bundle

Best Network Monitor Software Mac Download

Another high-quality, no-cost bandwidth monitoring option is SolarWinds Network Analyzer & Bandwidth Monitoring Bundle. This free tool combines two popular free network monitoring tools offered by SolarWinds: Real-Time NetFlow Analyzer and Real-Time Bandwidth Monitor (which I already reviewed above).

Leveraging both tools makes it easy to quickly identify the types of network traffic by flow data capture—including NetFlow, J-FLow, and sFlow data—and provides multi-interface monitoring for bandwidth usage in real-time. It offers a bit more detail than some of the other free options out there by allowing you to see traffic by conversation, app, domain, and endpoint.

Equipped with this level of information, you’ll be better prepared to quickly diagnose network problems and avoid bottlenecks. The Network Analyzer & Bandwidth Monitoring Bundle can also record up to 60 minutes of data, a great feature for those looking to review some data trends.

I’m a big fan of this option, especially for those looking to dip their toes into network monitoring. Once you’re comfortable leveraging the data in this free tool, SolarWinds makes it easy to take it to the next level and glean more in-depth traffic analysis and performance statistics by upgrading to Network Bandwidth Analyzer Pack.

7. ntopng

Formerly called ntop, ntopng (“ng” is for “next generation”) is a simple, to-the-point traffic probe that uses libpcap, a tool for packet capture, to report on network traffic and usage. The platform allows users to sort network traffic according to a wide range of criteria, including IP address, port, L7 protocol, autonomous systems, and more. Ntopng displays network traffic and active hosts in real time, so you can stay up to date while producing historical reports to review data and better identify trends. Although this reporting capability isn’t as robust as some of the other products I’ve discussed, it does a fair job and can track data such as application protocols and throughput.

ntopng has a commercial version called ntopng pro with some additional bells and whistles, but the open-source version is good enough to quickly gain insight into traffic behavior. It can also integrate with external monitoring applications such as Nagios for alerting and provide data for monitoring.

8. Cacti

Cacti is mainly an open-source, front-end graphing tool for system data, but it can also handle data collection. The software leverages RRDTool, a data logging and graphing system, so you can collect data from almost any infrastructure element, including load balancers and servers, routers and switching systems, firewalls, and so on, and display it in different graphical formats.

Cacti also supports SNMP polling, which itself covers a wide range of network devices. This feature allows you to monitor bandwidth usage by graphing it on an interface. The simple yet powerful line graphs Cacti produces can show spikes and dips in traffic, but they don’t offer the thorough performance analysis of the graphs and charts featured in many of the paid options listed here. This is a smart, free option for those who want a high-level view of their bandwidth. It can be installed on either Unix or Windows OS.

9. BandwidthD

BandwidthD is a free, starkly simple tool for bandwidth monitoring. While the program hasn’t been updated since 2013, it still maintains a steady stream of network and traffic data by tracking usage of TCP/IP network subnets and building HTML files, complete with graphs to display utilization. When launching the platform, you may find it a little finicky—you’ll need a relatively sound knowledge base for setting up manual configurations. But it’s effective if all you’re looking for is a no-cost, straightforward solution.

BandwidthD runs on most platforms, including Windows. Just remember it requires winpcap or libpcap for Linux and Unix users.

The Takeaway

Regardless of size or budget, all companies should implement bandwidth monitoring. Monitoring your bandwidth will help you boost network performance and identify bandwidth needs, potentially save your business money, and add an extra layer of security to your everyday activities. With the right tool, you will be empowered to quickly identify performance issues and even stop them in their tracks, before they bring end-user productivity to a standstill.

While there are a number of good bandwidth monitoring tools on the market, my favorite is by far SolarWinds Network Bandwidth Analyzer Pack. This robust offering makes it easy to drill down into the data and analyze your applications and bandwidth traffic via a clear, intuitive web-based dashboard. It’s well worth the investment and could save your company from having to invest in additional bandwidth. If you’re still unsure, I recommend downloading a free trial or starting with one of the free tools like Network Analyzer & Bandwidth Monitoring Bundle.

Best Monitor For Mac

Recommended Reading

Monitors For Mac

Ultimate Guide to Network Monitoring – If you’re looking for comprehensive information on how to monitor and take care of your network, I’ve put together a beginner’s guide followed by more expert-level instructions covering everything you need to know.

Mac Monitor Network Traffic