A Wi-Fi analyzer software collects data from the network’s wireless spectrum and displays it in a graphical format to help the user clearly understand the dead zone and noisy areas.
As the name implies, Wi-Fi analyzers are designed to find potential problems with your Wi-Fi by measuring and displaying all wireless signals and frequency stations in your network by using heatmaps or some other method.
The following are some of the most important aspects of analyzing your Wi-Fi networks:
- Locate and diagnose wireless access points that aren’t functioning well.
- Users’ IP addresses, as well as bandwidth spectrum and signal strength, should be recorded.
- Tracking the last time that Wi-Fi users accessed a particular access point.
- Creating the heat maps to see dead zones in the network
- Access Point Bandwidth and load should be monitored.
IT experts can get a clear picture of what’s going on within the networks using the right Wi-Fi analyzer tools. Some tools can even measure the number of lost data packets and inspect the network for signal-interrupting noise while testing the connection speeds.
We have summed up a list of the best Wi-Fi analyzer tools, both paid and free, to help businesses detect unusual activity, identify the source of network issues, and avoid Wi-Fi disruptions. Let’s get rolling!
You can trust Geekflare
At Geekflare, trust and transparency are paramount. Our team of experts, with over 185 years of combined experience in business and technology, tests and reviews software, ensuring our ratings and awards are unbiased and reliable. Learn how we test.
Netspot
Netspot is one of the best Wi-Fi analyzers that allows you to quickly check the Wireless interface and other network performance metrics. It offers a user-friendly interface appropriate for both novice and experienced network administrators. Discovery and Survey are the two modes of operations in this tool.
The discovery mode displays nearby Wi-Fi networks, while the survey mode displays more detailed information on Wi-Fi strength and parameters. And even you can see information about the SSID, MAC Address, and Signal Information in a table format using the discovery mode.
This software displays signal strength in Color-coded dBm bars which helps the user quickly analyze all Wi-Fi networks.
Features
- Collects real-time Wi-Fi statistics from all nearby networks
- Dead zones and noisy areas can be detected using the heat map visualization
- Users can create and upload their own maps for site surveys
- Can detect and close all unwanted access points by analyzing all the interfaces
- Signal level and noise charts can be modified in real-time
- To compare with previous performance, this tool maintains a log file for every network interface separately.
You can see other features as well from here. This software is available in both a free and a premium edition. This tool is available for many operating systems like Windows, MAC, IOS, and Android.
SolarWinds
SolarWinds provides a robust tool that monitors and troubleshoots any wireless network in real-time. In order to have a better understanding of wireless devices and services, this tool assists you in keeping track of critical Wi-Fi-analysis elements.
The Network Performance Monitor (NPM) package includes this Wi-Fi Analyzer module, ensuring that your wireless networks run smoothly. The NPM monitors all network equipment, not only just wireless Access Points, so you can easily understand how your Wi-Fi system can fit into your larger network.
NPM keeps track of your complex network equipment, such as firewalls and load balancers, so that you can get an overall understanding of your network’s health and its safety measures. Also, the Spectrum Chart function assists in channel selection for the interface. An initial 30-day free trial is available to use the tool.
Features
- Wi-Fi Access Points are automatically discovered and scanned.
- For large environments, smarter scalability is implemented as a built-in feature.
- Automatically Creates a visual heat map of Wi-Fi entry points with their associated signal strengths.
- Root cause debugging tools are included to assist with troubleshooting.
This tool is available for both Mac OS and Windows.
Acrylic Wi-Fi
Acrylic Wi-Fi analyzer is another valuable tool for troubleshooting wireless network problems and obtaining information on access points, signal strength, and security mechanisms.
Like Netspot, this tool can scan all the Wi-Fi interfaces and visualize the channels in both – 2.4 and 5 GHz frequencies. This implies the user can quickly scan and gather information of the 802.11AC dual-band network, which is currently the most widely used Wi-Fi protocol.
It also supports 802.11AX, the newest Wi-Fi standard that is expected to take over the industry in the future.
Furthermore, the monitor mode allows you to track network packets, which can be utilized to find hidden networks. This tool can assist network administrators in discovering corrupted access points and unwanted devices.
Features
- Real-time packet capture monitoring mode is available
- Data can be displayed in various ways, and it can be exported in multiple formats.
- Allows the user to plot the signal strength of selected access points.
The free version of this software is fully compatible with Windows. However, a professional paid version with more capabilities and advanced features is also available.
PTRG Wi-Fi Analyzer
PRTG Wi-Fi Analyzer by Paessler allows you to examine all the channels and connected devices on the network. PRTG’s interface is user-friendly to analyze the data collected on your Wi-Fi networks and create real-time data graphs.
You can even establish warning points for the system to alert you when traffic reaches particular critical levels.
This tool is adaptable, and it supports various protocols such as SNMP, NetFlow, and sFlow (sampled flow). Also, you can compare the past historical data with the live data across multiple graph formats using this tool.
Features
- Configuration of Wi-Fi network’s alarm system is possible (Overloading or component failure is indicated by these notifications)
- PRTG sensors assist the user in configuring the network and gives alerts whenever Wi-Fi security or connectivity compromises.
- Analyzes the wireless network interface from every aspect.
For up to 100 sensors, this software is completely free. Furthermore, the number of sensors you enable determines the charges for PRTG.
inSSIDer
Metageek’s inSSIDer is a very user-friendly Wi-Fi analyzer tool. Even non-technical individuals will find it simple to use. Every connection is subsequently assigned a “link score” by inSSIDer. So it just tells the user to select which access point and channel for better connectivity. This tool is convenient for SMB (Small to Medium Business) networks.
This software examines the complete Wi-Fi configuration, including the signal strength and the effect of nearby Wi-Fi networks. The software is simple to set up, and it comes with detailed instructions and connections parameters if you need additional help.
inSSIDer’s free edition has excellent parameters for visualizations but a limited set of administrative options. The MetaGeek Premium bundle comes with more features like radio frequency spectrum analysis. A 14-day trial period of the MetaGeek Premium package is available.
Features
- Auto-update feature available
- Monitoring of real-time performance
- Shows information about the devices connected to access points.
This software is available for both Windows and Mac.
Vistumbler
Vistumbler was written in AutoIT (a freeware programming language) for Windows and is intended to map out the access points across the whole network. The graphs in Vistumbler make it simple to see which networks are operating well and what needs improvement. This tool supports all Windows versions.
Features
- Completely free tool
- Supports built-in graph plotting for nearby devices and interfaces.
- GPS tracking and real-time Google Earth tracking are both supported.
- Supports various parameters to compile the list of discovered wireless networks.
You can find all other features and additional instructions on their official website.
Conclusion
These are some of the most reliable and effective free and paid Wi-Fi analyzer software for various operating systems. I hope you found these Wi-Fi analyzer tools helpful in analyzing the interfaces and optimizing the network for the best performance.
You may also be interested in reading about the best Wi-Fi routers for home and office use or how to find connected Wi-Fi network passwords on Windows, Linux and Mac.