MxToolBox vs. PingPlotter

The site/product is well suited for a quick and free tool to diagnose any first-level external DNS and/or email-related issues. The monitoring tool and reports is a good first line of alerting when an email issue arises, so it can be dealt with in a timely manner, as a free service

Incentivized

The best scenario and best results are seen when the path does not reuse the same device for the "next hop". It is less well suited in situations where the path is being tricked by the re-use of devices for the next interface. This is seen required in many networks where the proper type of connection is not on an end device and the core device is used to provide a fiber to copper sort of "pass-through" connection.

Incentivized

• Dns records population
• Email blacklisting details
• SMTP diagnostics and real time analysis

Incentivized

• Monitor traffic in network
• Measure stops when contacting network locations such as websites
• Measures the lag and latency it takes to contact network locations
• Gives you both induvidual measurements as well as good oversight
• identifies when network lag or disconnect occurs

• Adding the ability to send test messages from the site
• It is possible to create a temporary inbox to check the receipt of e-mails
• Dark mode

Incentivized

• Its a little confusing to see which targets are currently running pings and which ones are displayed in the plots.
• Starting and stopping pings requires a right click and that would be better with a play/pause button I think.
• Ability to drag and drop the graphs to reorder them.
• more columns to show which targets are running and which are displayed. Currently this is done with symbols so you cant sort by just the running targets for example I've found.

Incentivized

I installed it and it just started working. I realized I could then tweak it to show what I needed but didn't have to spend a long time configuring it before use, editing YAML files etc. Maybe that's fine for a network professional, but I only need this software if something goes wrong, and then need it to work quickly out of the box.

Incentivized

I have not had much contact with the PingPlotter support, only one time have I went to them and it was a positive experience. The questions I had were answered quickly and professionally. I have no issue with the experience I had with the Support team. This was from before and after the purchase of the product.

Incentivized

MXToolBox is easier to use probably because I am more familiar with it. I have used DNSStuff several times to compare results, which usually are very similar. The main drawback for DNSStuff is that each tool is a download rather than browser-based, and I would just prefer that whatever I am using is as up-to-date as possible. I would tend to uninstall the DNSStuff tools right after using them.

Incentivized

PingPlotter has better visualizations and a stronger ability to capture historical data than other tools I've used. This makes it easier to find the root cause by looking back in the log data to find where latency or packet loss occurred.

Incentivized

• On many occasions we have noticed problems and reported then to a client before they knew it was a problem. Customers really appreciate that
• Keeps our customers coming back to us as they know we help keep an eye on their uptime and availability

Incentivized

• Great ROI, troubleshooting time has been reduced by 90%
• Network Discoveries used to take 2 to 3 hours and were inconsistent - now it is a matter of minutes
• lacks integration into our MSP toolkit, and we now use it as a stand alone product

Incentivized