We performed a comparison between AirMagnet Survey and NetAlly EtherScope nXG based on real PeerSpot user reviews.
Find out in this report how the two Network Troubleshooting solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI."It is reliable and easy to use (user-friendly). The heat mapping, passive network surveying, and doing the heat mapping of a building's wireless network allows me to see what level of coverage an area has."
"It allows us to prepare more real designs. Later, we validate them with actual surveys."
"The most valuable features are the survey, spectrum analysis, and reporting."
"Clear and easy to use maps."
"We use the solution for Wi-Fi and networks."
"The predictive survey is the most valuable feature. I use it quite often."
"Using the products to ensure the safety of our equipment that we have a lot invested in."
"The benefit is with the ease of use of the software, I am able to show the customer, "Here is what your wireless coverage looks like." It is set up in a fashion that non-technical people can understand it."
"The most valuable part is absolutely being able to assess existing WiFi networks quickly. You get very powerful details of networks, details that you couldn't see unless you had multiple pieces of software and hardware. This does it all in one thing."
"The whole product is valuable because it's really a bunch of features that make up the one testing utility. Between auto tests, wireless assessments, its ability to do iPerf speed and traffic testing, as well as packet captures — all of those really contribute to a very successful product and allow me to do my job in a better manner."
"One of the key measurements that we use out of the device is the channel utilization measurement, how much traffic is on the air in a given channel. That's the most valuable feature for us. The ability to make a very fast measurement of how much traffic is on the air is a key value. Otherwise we'd have to do a packet capture and do some analysis. It speeds up our testing."
"I love the AutoTest feature... AutoTest allows us to find out what port it is on the switch and to trace it back to a particular patch panel. We can then document it, if necessary, or use that information for connecting a device or for re-VLANing a switch to the appropriate VLAN."
"When it comes to that remote troubleshooting perspective of being able to survey an area to see if there are problems, make adjustments, and then have that same individual resurvey that same area, I don't have to send people to a week long class on how to use the device. I know I am getting consistent results, which can verify near real-time, and whether or not the changes that I have implemented solve the problem."
"My impression of the ease of use is that it definitely is easy to use both the handheld device and the app walking around."
"The solution’s AirMapper Site Survey app is extremely easy to use. We give it to the technicians and send them out to go do that function. We hand it to the technician who goes onsite, then they take a photo of the overall area of a floor plan and are able to go do that site survey without almost any instruction from any engineer. So, it is very usable for beginner-type techs."
"The things that I find most valuable are the Wi-Fi app and the Discovery app. Those two things help a lot when I'm doing the initial discovery of a space. I also use the AutoTest feature quite a lot, especially if I'm troubleshooting."
"When you conduct an active survey and then want to use it for design work, it's actually not very useful."
"But it's definitely a more expensive solution than other ones."
"AirMagnet Survey doesn't cover certain devices in the system."
"It would be nice to have some more training resources for younger techs. We can use them if we need some assistance, but that usually requires one of us who knows what we're doing to calibrate the programs properly."
"It'd be nice if it was cheaper, however, you get value for your money."
"The throughput should be more advanced in the future. They need to add more versions of WiFi than just one."
"I would say some of our newer techs that are going out to job sites can be a little bit intimidated by the interface."
"Printouts are JPEG printouts. The AirMagnet software is proprietary. I can't send my customers a file, because it is AirMagnet file, even for building projects. I can only send JPEGs or screenshots of heat maps."
"The only issue that I have ever had is the battery life. It does drain a little bit quickly... While it's true that by the time I'm finished with my assessment it's usually dead, I have usually finished what I need to do and everything has been pushed to Link-Live. But occasionally, I might need a backup battery if I need to do something for multiple hours."
"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."
"The only improvement I can come up with is the battery life. If they could improve the battery life, that would be great."
"The one thing that it doesn't do well, when it's doing airtime utilization measurements, is that it will classify things as non-802.11, and that isn't correct. What it could do better is make sure that it classifies all traffic that's in the air correctly."
"The battery life should be improved."
"On a hardware spec, it'd be nice to have something above 10-Gigs."
"AirMapper is very quick and easy once everything is on there, but I would like to see an improvement on how you get things on there. Currently, rather than being able to build up buildings or a site of things, every map is an individual piece. We should be able to set up an AirMapper survey easily and more effectively. At the moment, we just have separate floor plans. It'd be great to be able to build a building and tell where different floors are so that if it hears an AP on the floor below, it doesn't put two APs, one on that floor and one on the other floor, and it knows that there are two floors here. One is on top of the other, and it won't put the AP at both places. It would put it on one of the floors where it would be strongest. This would be one of the biggest improvements."
"If I could reset it remotely, meaning reboot the unit, that would be helpful. One time, the test would not respond; the script would lock up. I had to go and manually reboot it. If I could have sent a command to reboot and it would have automatically connected to the wireless, that would have made it perfect. That was the only thing that it did not do."
AirMagnet Survey is ranked 8th in Network Troubleshooting with 38 reviews while NetAlly EtherScope nXG is ranked 2nd in Network Troubleshooting with 22 reviews. AirMagnet Survey is rated 8.2, while NetAlly EtherScope nXG is rated 9.0. The top reviewer of AirMagnet Survey writes "It fixes so many problems quickly that we don't regret spending more on high-end tools than most companies". On the other hand, the top reviewer of NetAlly EtherScope nXG writes "Handheld form factor, intuitive interface that is easy to use, helps us quickly troubleshoot network problems". AirMagnet Survey is most compared with Ekahau Site Survey, Aruba Wireless, AirCheck G3, iBwave Wi-Fi and Wireshark, whereas NetAlly EtherScope nXG is most compared with LinkRunner, AirCheck G3 and LinkSprinter. See our AirMagnet Survey vs. NetAlly EtherScope nXG report.
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