We performed a comparison between NetAlly EtherScope nXG and Wireshark 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."Another good thing I really liked was that it would not only tell me the IP address, but it would tell me more info. It would grab the CDP off of the CDP profile and read all the info it could get, so I knew what I was looking at."
"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 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."
"The most valuable features are the WiFi troubleshooting, network validation, and cabling validation, and the fact that it's an all-in-one tool. You don't have to carry different tools. The multi-technology functionality and its ability to do WiFi and wired Ethernet analysis in one device are the best aspects."
"It cuts the time down in half. You don't need to get a laptop out and do different testing. We can just grab this one tool, bring it, and do all our network testing, surveying, and reviews to figure out what the problems are with just one device, instead of having to use multiple people and devices to do that. You cut down time by 50% because you won't normally need multiple people onsite. A lot of times, you can do everything with one person and one tool."
"My impression of the ease of use is that it definitely is easy to use both the handheld device and the app walking around."
"It clearly depicts the information we're looking for on a 10Gig testing, and we can also verify 100Gig links with it between our routing sites."
"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."
"I use the filters very often, to determine what type of traffic I am looking for. The use of filter allows traffic to be segmented so that a value can be looked at individually apart from the other traffic."
"The solution is easy to install and use."
"It is a stable product. I would rate the stability a ten out of ten."
"I have found the most valuable feature you can design your sniffer the way you want to."
"Being able to dissect email data and figure out what is inside email messages was the most valuable feature. Such a feature is pretty helpful for an ongoing forensic investigation or when there is a potential insider threat that you are trying to investigate. It allows you to see the network activity of the users you are investigating. It also gives you more visibility into your network. It was very easy to set up. There is a lot of information out there on Google and YouTube about how to use it. There is also community support. If you have any trouble, it is pretty easy to find an answer online. You will have to do some digging only if you have a very specific use case."
"I like the filtering feature as we can filter data easily. This feature is also available in tcpdump, but it's a simple piece of software. Wireshark is more advanced and has many features. It allows you to filter a lot of things. The output can be filtered easily. The most important feature is colorization. If I say, "Okay, this particular SMB protocol in red, it will show me red." It's easy to identify that protocol or capture data."
"It gives us the ability to pinpoint problems and to communicate network problems with software and hardware vendors."
"The best part about Wireshark, in my opinion, is its ability to analyze packet capture files."
"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."
"The largest complaint that we get is the battery life on the unit. If you are using it heavily, you get about five hours of usage out of it. In an eight hour day, that is not perfect for us. We would like more battery usage. The battery thing is annoying."
"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."
"On a hardware spec, it'd be nice to have something above 10-Gigs."
"The reporting could be better, with more accurate measurements of loss over cables, impedance, etc. The mapping also needs to be improved. You should be able to do free formatting of the topology."
"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."
"One point of contention might be that when we were starting it up for the first time, there was a little bit of confusion about registration and getting the proper support plans applied. So, that could be more streamlined, but that's not uncommon in the industry."
"When it works, I love the AirMapper Site Survey app. Currently, my device has a hardware bug that the manufacturer and I are working on actively, to get it fixed or replaced. The 5 gigahertz radio on my device is flaky at best... It doesn't seem to have anything to do with the product itself, as much as it is some kind of unique hardware problem."
"The Wireshark search function shows green for a correct search and red for an incorrect search. If there were a way to provide a description about what a search - and the similar ones which are available - can do, while a person is typing it, it would make the product easier to use and simultaneously decrease the learning curve."
"Sometimes I need to use tcpdump when I need to check the packets on CLI."
"The solution’s user interface could be improved."
"Wireshark gets stuck when it is a larger file."
"The only thing that I don't like is sometimes there is an update, and something that I was using is either no longer there or it has changed."
"I would like to see Wireshark improve the ease of application of the command. The command is very powerful, but not easy to apply."
"It needs the ability to follow multiple interfaces for specific traffic from different network zones/virtual networks. It would help to understand how any packet is going through the network."
"We would like the product to be developed so that it doesn't rely on internet access for installation. We would like to see all of the components required to be integrated into the installer."
NetAlly EtherScope nXG is ranked 1st in Network Troubleshooting with 22 reviews while Wireshark is ranked 4th in Network Troubleshooting with 61 reviews. NetAlly EtherScope nXG is rated 9.0, while Wireshark is rated 9.0. The top reviewer of NetAlly EtherScope nXG writes "Handheld form factor, intuitive interface that is easy to use, helps us quickly troubleshoot network problems". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Wireshark writes "User-friendly with an easy setup and a nice interface". NetAlly EtherScope nXG is most compared with LinkRunner, AirCheck G3, LinkSprinter and AirMagnet Survey, whereas Wireshark is most compared with Zabbix, Nagios XI, Colasoft Capsa, SolarWinds NPM and ClearSight Analyzer. See our NetAlly EtherScope nXG vs. Wireshark report.
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