The Best Network Throughput Monitoring and Testing Tools

Network throughput refers to the volume of data that successfully travels through a network medium within a specific time period. It is a key metric used to evaluate the efficiency and performance of a network, providing insight into how quickly data can be transmitted between devices.

Here’s our list of the best network throughput monitoring and testing tools:

To measure this throughput, you need the right monitoring and testing tools. Specifically, these network throughput tools can address the following pain points.

• The existing bottlenecks are hard to find: resulting in poor bandwidth usage.
• Applications tend to lag or drop in performance: because of issues like packet loss, latency, or congestion.
• Organizations find it hard to accurately identify capacity levels: and this impedes their planning process.
• Network teams using manual processes: tend to be slow and reactive.
• Lack of visibility: into distributed environments.

To address the above pain points, you need an appropriate network throughput monitoring and testing tool.

If you need to know more, explore our vendor highlight section just below, or skip to our detailed vendor reviews.

Network throughput monitoring and testing tools highlights

Key points to consider before choosing network throughput monitoring and testing tools

Selecting the right network throughput monitoring tool is not easy because you want the tool to provide precise insights and measure the metrics that matter to you. This selection process becomes even more important if you have a complex and distributed network. To help you through this process, here are some important factors to consider.

• Accuracy of Metrics: The tool you select must offer reliable and accurate metrics related to bandwidth usage, packet loss, jitter, latency, and more.
• Protocols and Platforms: Your tool must support all the protocols, devices, and platforms used in your organization.
• Scalable: Opt for tools that can scale well with your growing organization. This means you’d want to pick a tool that supports everything, from small to enterprise-grade networks.
• Ease of Use: Your selected tool must be simple to deploy and use, so it can be used by all the employees in your organization.
• Security: When your traffic generates large traffic volumes, it’s important that the throughput testing tool prioritizes security.

Keeping the above factors in mind, we have come up with a list of tools that tick the above boxes.

To dive deeper into how we incorporate these into our research and review methodology, skip to our detailed methodology section.

What’s the difference between throughput and bandwidth?

The differences between network throughput and bandwidth can be confusing to many. This is understandable given how the terms are generally used and that they deal with the same subject (amount of data transmitted over a given medium).

In short, bandwidth is the maximum amount of data that can go through a given medium and throughput is the amount of data that actually goes through that medium.

If you’re shopping for internet service, keep in mind you pay your Internet Service Provider (ISP) for bandwidth and get throughput.

In practice, throughput will always be less than your bandwidth. Additionally, your throughput at a given point in time will usually not be your maximum throughput. For example, if everyone in the office is streaming high-definition video a lot more data is being transmitted than if everyone was just sending plain text emails.

One of the most helpful ways to conceptualize bandwidth and throughput is the highway analogy. Bandwidth is the number of lanes on a highway while throughput is the cars traveling on that highway. Adding lanes (bandwidth) could improve traffic speeds, but it wouldn’t solve all your speed problems. On a highway, collisions and slow-moving vehicles can slow things down. Similarly, on a network, collisions, latency, and overhead can cause delays that aren’t necessarily solved by adding bandwidth.

Measurements of Network Throughput (MB vs Mb, Gigabit speeds, etc)

There are multiple abbreviations thrown around when discussing throughput. All the different measurements somehow refer to an amount of data (usually bits or bytes) over a period of time (usually seconds). Understanding what the most popular measurements actually mean can help you better understand throughput. Below is a quick breakdown of some of the common measurements and terminology related to throughput.

• Bit – The smallest size of binary information used by computer devices. That is, the individual ones and zeros in binary math.
• Byte – 8 bits
• Megabit – 1 million bits
• Megabyte – 1 million bytes
• Gigabit – 1 billion bits
• Gigabyte – 1 billion bytes
• Mbps – Megabits per second
• MBps – Megabytes per second
• Gbps – Gigabits per second
• GBps – Gigabytes per second

One of the key takeaways here is: 1 MB is eight times more than 1 Mb. The same goes for GB vs Gb. Keep that in mind when comparing throughput statistics and ISP service plans.

Impact of latency on throughput

Latency can have a big impact on throughput. Latency is the amount of time it takes data to traverse a given path. If we think back to our highway analogy, the amount of time it takes to travel across the highway is latency. That wouldn’t matter too much if all traffic was one way, but when you start to think about it, you begin to understand how it can impact throughput. TCP relies heavily on acknowledgments, which means a receiver must acknowledge a sender for the transmissions to proceed. If it takes a long time for the packets to get back to the sender, there will be a lot of wasted time and lower throughput.

High latency can occur for a variety of reasons, from bottlenecks to the number of hops between destinations to physical distance between sites.

Impact of packet loss on throughput

If a TCP packet is dropped, it will need to be resent. This redundancy negatively impacts throughput. A sender will know that a packet needs to be resent based on timeouts or lack of acknowledgment for a given packet(s). Packet loss can occur for a number of reasons including high latency, jitter (inconsistent speeds on a connection), hardware and connection issues, or software bugs.

What throughput should I expect for a given bandwidth?

There’s no one-size-fits-all answer to this question. A number of moving parts affect throughput, so every situation is unique. With current technology, latency, and packet overhead being what they are, you won’t get speeds that match the bandwidth you purchase from your ISP.

As a “best-case scenario” reference, this CableFree article took a deep dive into maximum network throughput and determined that a 1 Gbps Ethernet connection has a potential for 94% efficiency (i.e. 940 Mbps). Enabling Jumbo Frames bumps the potential up to 99% (990 Mbps).

What can measuring network throughput help you do?

In a word: measuring throughput helps you resolve complaints about the network being “slow”. This is because throughput measurements help you better understand a network connection and its real-world performance. Throughput monitoring can help with:

• Identifying bottlenecks
• Comparing real-world performance to SLAs
• Network design and planning
• Creating baselines
• Troubleshooting

Can you forecast network throughput?

Getting a baseline of your existing throughput will help you to spot peaks and troughs in volume. If you don’t intend to add on any new services to the network, your next task will be to ensure that there are is sufficient available capacity for trend growth in traffic volumes. If you are launching an expansion project, then you should expect increased demand on your network infrastructure.

In both cases, it helps to use a tool that can replay real traffic data and also generate extra traffic volumes to check that the bandwidth that you have available will be able to cope with that new demand.

Capacity planning tools such as the SolarWinds Flow Tool Bundle come in handy in these testing scenarios. The Bundle includes three tools that work with the Cisco-invented NetFlow v5 system. When you turn on NetFlow capabilities on your Cisco router, it will forward all packet headers to a collector. You can also use NetFlow to query the router and get aggregated data out of it.

The Bundle includes an interface to turn the NetFlow capabilities on your routers on and off. A second utility will replay captured traffic around your network and a third tool in the bundle will generate fake traffic to send around the network, testing the bandwidth capacity of all of your equipment and network software as well.

How can you improve network throughput?

With an idea of what throughput is and what affects it, we’ll now talk about things that can be done to improve throughput. Again, there’s no one-size-fits-all answer; it’s important to understand the cause of your throughput problems to effectively address them. Below are some common methods employed to improve throughput.

• Increase bandwidth – Sometimes simply adding lanes to the highway is what you need. This is one of the most obvious solutions, but remember bandwidth can be expensive and might not be the root cause of your problems. Also, be sure to have the network infrastructure in place to support your bandwidth updates if you go that route. After all, a 10 Gbps connection doesn’t mean much on a network full of 100 Mbps switches.
• Eliminate bottlenecks – Network bottlenecks are points on a network that causes traffic to slow down. For example, if you update your entire network to 1 Gpbs speed, an old server with a 10 Mbps network interface may create a bottleneck.
• Update to fiber – Data on fiber connections move near or at the speed of light. Data on copper connections move significantly slower (for those of you into the science, it’s photon speed vs electron speed). Copper maxes out around 10 Gbps while fiber can reach terabit speeds or higher (check out this Engadget article for an example). While 10 Gbps is fine for most networks, fiber is much less susceptible to noise and can cover more ground than a comparable copper run, adding additional advantages that can help boost throughput.
• Adjust MTU – Adjusting MTU (Maximum Transmission Unit) sizes on a router can lead to improved throughput. For example, larger MTUs can minimize overhead and increase throughput. For more, check out this NetGear article designed to help you optimize the MTU size on a router.
• Use QoS – Configuring QoS (Quality of Service) on your routers and switches is another way to improve throughput. QoS can be used to dedicate bandwidth, manage congestion, shape network traffic, and set priorities on network traffic. For a deeper dive on the topic, check out this Cisco document. QoS doesn’t necessarily improve your throughput, it can help you make sure latency-sensitive applications (VOIP, video streaming, etc.) are less affected when things slow down.
• Use a CDN – A CDN (Content Delivery Network) can help get your content closer to users if you a dealing with a situation where many of your users are far from your servers (e.g. a website). Therefore, a CDN might be a great way to improve throughput. At the Human Health Project, we use CloudFlare as a CDN.

The best network throughput monitoring and testing tools

1. ManageEngine NetFlow Analyzer (FREE TRIAL)

Best for: Real-time traffic visibility.

Relevant for: Network engineers, IT teams, and security analysts who need better insights into traffic patterns.

Price: The annual subscription starts at $3,438 for 500 interfaces and two packs.

ManageEngine NetFlow Analyzer offers constant network traffic monitoring plus analysis tools. You can use this system to ensure that all of your network devices are contactable and get the package to send you an alert if a device does not respond.

ManageEngine NetFlow Analyzer’s key features 

• Continuous Monitoring: Provides constant network traffic monitoring.
• Application Traffic Identification: Detects and identifies traffic from specific applications.
• Traffic Shaping: Implements measures to manage and optimize network traffic.
• Multi-Vendor Support: Suitable for environments with devices from various vendors.
• Time Series Analysis: Offers graphs for analyzing traffic over time.

Unique buying proposition

NetFlow Analyzer offers detailed insights into network throughput by gathering data from applications, devices, users, and interfaces. It supports multiple protocols, making it easy to collect data from every device in your network. It also works well across varied environments.

Feature-in-focus: Traffic Shaping

A standout feature of NetFlow Analyzer is its application-based traffic shaping capabilities using Cisco NBAR. With this feature, administrators can identify Layer 7 applications and dynamic ports based on specified filters and apply custom bandwidth policies for each. This granularity ensures that business-critical applications have the required bandwidth.

Why do we recommend it?

ManageEngine NetFlow Analyzer is the major rival to the SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer. This package includes systems to communicate with network devices and extract the operations statistics that they store. The system also includes a protocol analyzer that enables specific application traffic to be identified. That function is important if you hope to implement traffic shaping measures to improve the delivery of interactive, time-sensitive traffic. The tool also helps to implement those measures through mechanisms such as queuing.

You can see the traffic throughput on each link and get that automatically compared to the capacity of the hardware so that you can see when capacity is running short. The system has the capabilities to operate in a multi-vendor environment ensuring that it can communicate with the switches and routers of all the major providers through the use of Netflow, sFlow, jFlow, IPFIX, NetStream, and AppFlow.

The package lets you run tests and look at past performance on time series graphs. With these insights, you can implement traffic shaping measures to work out which applications are the bandwidth hogs and which switches would benefit from queuing so that interactive traffic doesn’t get held up. The system provides Cisco NBAR and CBQoS for these purposes.

Who is it recommended for?

ManageEngine produces three editions of the Network Analyzer, which should make it appealing to businesses of all sizes. However, the Free edition, which could attract small businesses is limited to monitoring three interfaces, which barely reaches the definition of what a network is. The Professional edition covers a single network and the Enterprise edition can monitor a WAN, so mid-sized and large businesses would be interested in the NetFlow Analyzer.

You can host the software for ManageEngine NetFlow Analyzer on Windows Server or Linux. The system is also available in the AWS Marketplace to run on your account on that platform. Try a 30-day free trial of the on-premises version.

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2. Site24x7 Network Traffic Monitoring (FREE TRIAL)

Best for: Tracking bandwidth usage.

Relevant for: Network engineers and MSPs who want to monitor network activity and throughput.

Price: The All-in-one monitoring package comes in two editions: Professional – $42;  Enterprise – $625. These prices are per month.

Site24x7 Network Traffic Monitoring uses flow protocols to track the capacity utilization on every link on a network. This system is part of a cloud platform of system monitoring and management tools that provide full-stack observability.

Site24x7 Network Traffic Monitoring’s key features 

• Flow Protocols: Utilizes multiple flow protocols to monitor network traffic.
• Protocol Analysis: Analyzes various network protocols to understand traffic patterns.
• Top Talkers: Identifies the most active sources of traffic.
• Traffic Problem Alerts: Sends alerts for sudden changes in traffic patterns.

Unique buying proposition

Site24x7 uses network flow technologies to provide visibility into your network’s throughput. It works well across on-premises, cloud, distributed, and SD-WAN environments to offer unified views through a single console. It comes with many advanced features like AI-powered insights, customizable dashboards, and support to help you make informed decisions while staying on top of your network’s performance.

Feature-in-focus: Flow-based Bandwidth Analysis

Using a flow-based approach, Site24x7 offers contextual insights into traffic patterns and network performance. It collects NetFlow data through an on-premises poller and analyzes it to provide the data you need. It also generates reports for easy sharing and decision-making.

Why do we recommend it?

Site24x7 Network Traffic Monitoring is delivered from the cloud. It is easy to set up and run because the tool installs an agent on the network that it being monitored. This installation process is part of the onboarding process and results in automatic detection of all devices on the network, creating a network inventory and a topology map.

The on-site agent for the Site24x7 communicates with switches and routers to extract activity data. This process is implemented with flow protocols. These are the NetFlow, IPFIX, sFlow, J-Flow, cFlow, AppFlow, and NetStream protocols. Data is uploaded to the Site24x7 server where it is organized into tables and graphs.

The package includes an alerting system that raises a notification if traffic patterns change suddenly. Such changes can indicate an overloaded or faulty network device. Network device status tracking services in the Site24x7 package will illuminate any system problems further.

Who is it recommended for?

This system assesses the capacity of each device interface and tracks traffic throughput per link. The tool will raise an alert if a switch or router gets overloaded and will show which protocols, workstations, and external sources are channeling the most traffic onto the network. So, the monitoring system is suitable for use by any business that has a network.

The Site24x7 platform bundles many system monitoring and management tools into its plans. There are plans available for many specializations, such as infrastructure tracking and website monitoring. There is also a plan available for managed service providers. Try out Site24x7 by accessing a 30-day free trial.

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3. Obkio

Best for: Real-time insights into network throughput.

Relevant for: Networking teams and MSPs maintaining network performance.

Price: The Basic plan starts at $499 per month.

Obkio is a cloud-hosted network monitoring tool that extracts traffic data from networks and also gathers information on network device statuses. The tool can use either of these routes to derive traffic throughput statistics.

Obkio’s key features 

• Traffic Measurements Between Two Points: Gather throughput data through agents.
• Network Device Monitoring: Collects device activity data with SNMP.
• Alerts for Performance Issues: Receivies warnings from SNMP device agents.

Unique buying proposition

Obkio uses synthetic traffic and device polling to provide real-time insights into network throughput and performance. Its visual tools make it easy to understand the findings for different users. Plus, it is a SaaS tool that’s easy to deploy and use.

Feature-in-focus: Quick Polling

A highlight of this tool is its quick polling features, as it polls every 30 seconds to capture bursts or drops in data flow. This method is considered to be ten times more effective than five-minute polls offered by many similar platforms.

Why do we recommend it?

Obkio is notable for its ease of use because an administrator just has to choose where to install data collection agents and the console of Obkio will download them and get them running. These agents collect a range of network traffic statistics and also gather SNMP reports from device agents. Users can run troubleshooting tests through these data collectors as well.

SNMP reports include a slot for interface capacity and data pass-through for each direction. So, this is a good source of throughput data. The package can also read passing packets with its own agent. So, it provides two ways to measure traffic volumes.

While it gathers throughput data, the tool can assess other factors about traffic, such as its regularity (jitter), latency, and packet loss. You can set up alerts on these statistics and these, along with the SNMP warnings from device agents, will appear in the Obkio console. The system can be configured to forward alerts to technicians by email, Slack, Pagerduty, or Teams.

Who is it recommended for?

Obkio is recommended for businesses of all types but it is particularly useful for companies that run interactive applications, such as VoIP or video conferencing. This tool is also a good choice for multi-site businesses and those enterprises that rely on cloud-based services. The package is able to measure traffic across internet connections, so it can support SD-WAN and SASE virtual networks.

Obkio is available in four plan levels and the next-to-highest of these, the Premium Edition, is offered for a 14-day free trial.

4. ExtraHop

Best for: Visibility into high-speed networks.

Relevant for: SecOps and IT teams of large enterprises. It is also a good choice for MSPs managing hybrid networks.

Price: Negotiated pricing.

ExtraHop is an enterprise-level monitoring solution with support for advanced features like contextual intelligence, forensic investigation, real-time analytics, and more.

ExtraHop’s key features 

• Enterprise-Level Monitoring: Provides comprehensive monitoring for large-scale networks.
• Contextual Intelligence: Supports advanced features for deeper network insights.
• Real-Time Analytics: Offers real-time data analysis for immediate insights.
• Cross-Site Traffic Tracking: Monitors traffic across multiple sites and between on-premises and cloud environments.

Unique buying proposition

ExtraHop RevealX NPM provides complete visibility into networks by gathering and analyzing real-time data, including data from encrypted traffic. It uses machine learning algorithms across 5,000 metrics to detect issues before they impact users.

Feature-in-focus: SSL/TLS Traffic Decryption

A notable feature of this tool is its ability to decrypt SSL/TLS traffic at the line rate without impacting performance. The advantage of this feature is that it provides visibility into encrypted traffic patterns, so you can troubleshoot throughput issues hidden in this encrypted traffic.

Why do we recommend it?

The ExtraHop Reveal(x) system is a classic network monitoring service that includes the discovery and documentation of all network devices. This package combines network device status monitoring and traffic tracking. This system can track traffic across sites and also between sites and cloud platforms. The tool is also able to perform security monitoring simultaneously with its traffic monitoring.

ExtraHop offers monitoring solutions for security, network performance, and the cloud. The section of this enterprise software we’re focused on here is its network performance monitoring capabilities.

One of the major selling points of ExtraHop’s network performance solution is the ability to automatically detect and correlate network issues, which should help reduce mean time to resolution. Part its solution includes detailed metrics and charts covering average bandwidth utilization, average throughput, throughput by protocol, “top talkers” (endpoints with the highest average throughput), and more. If you’re looking for an enterprise-level solution to your throughput monitoring problems, you may want to take a look at ExtraHop.

Who is it recommended for?

ExtraHop doesn’t publish its price list and its cloud-based system is very sophisticated, which implies that it is probably out of the budget of small businesses. This traffic monitor is combined with security monitoring, it can track activity on multiple sites and it can track traffic between sites and cloud systems. So, this is a good choice for complicated large business systems that include resources from many different SaaS providers and include users working remotely and at multiple branch offices.

You can demo ExtraHop directly from your browser (Contact info is requested, but demo access is given immediately after).

5. SolarWinds Network Bandwidth Analyzer Pack

Best for: Deep visibility into the throughput of enterprise networks.

Relevant for: Network teams of large organizations with complex networks.

Price: Starts at $6 per node per month.

The SolarWinds Network Bandwidth Analyzer Pack is actually two SolarWinds products bundled together: Network Performance Monitor (NPM) and NetFlow Traffic Analyzer (NTA). You can learn more about each of these modules in our NPM and NTA reviews.

SolarWinds Network Bandwidth Analyzer Pack’s key features 

• Bundled Solutions: Combines Network Performance Monitor (NPM) and NetFlow Traffic Analyzer (NTA).
• SNMP and Up/Down Monitoring: Provides comprehensive monitoring of device status and network health.
• Multi-Protocol Support: Supports NetFlow, sFlow, and jFlow for diverse network environments.
• Holistic Network Monitoring: Designed for thorough monitoring of network throughput.
• Traffic Outlier Detection: Automatically identifies unusual network traffic patterns.
• Enterprise Scalability: Suitable for large, complex networks.

Unique buying proposition

Network Bandwidth Analyzer Pack offers complete views into network performance and throughput. It offers information about device health from detailed traffic flows and displays the findings through the Orion web console. Using this data, you can troubleshoot issues quickly.

Feature-in-focus: Flow-based Analysis

One of the notable features of this tool is its flow-based analysis via NTA that lets you monitor bandwidth usage based on app, protocol, and IP group. It uses a wide range of flow protocols across multiple vendors. You can even set usage rates and trigger notifications when devices, applications, and users exceed these rates.

Why do we recommend it?

The SolarWinds Network Bandwidth Analyzer Pack gives you two network monitoring systems that provide both network device status checks and traffic pattern tracking. Although it is possible to use the Network Performance Monitor by itself, the NetFlow Traffic Analyzer will only run if the NPM is also present. Therefore, if you want to perform traffic analysis with SolarWinds products, you have to buy both of these products, which is what this pack offers.

In short, NPM is one of the most popular pieces of enterprise monitoring software offered by SolarWinds and does a lot of the Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) and up/down monitoring you would expect from a Network Management System (NMS). Adding NTA to the mix enables support for monitoring the various flow protocols like NetFlow, sFlow, jFlow, etc. Combined, these two tools become a holistic, feature-rich, throughput monitoring solution.

You can demo NTA directly from your browser here. You can also download a 30-day free trial of the Network Bandwidth Analyzer Pack which includes both tools.

Who is it recommended for?

The combination of two big SolarWinds systems provides a lot of monitoring services, which is probably only going to appeal to larger companies. The full package of screens presents a lot of information and you need a team of technicians in order to get the full value out of this package. Extensive monitoring automation, thanks to an alerting system means that your technicians don’t have to watch the screens all the time. The NetFlow Traffic Analyzer provides full support for the implementation of traffic shaping measures, which will help you to squeeze extra value out of your current network assets.

6. Iperf

Best for: Active throughput testing.

Relevant for: Network engineers and IT professionals who want to diagnose performance issues.

Price: Free

Iperf is a free, open-source tool used for taking active measurements of throughput on a network. It is officially supported on CentOS, FreeBSD, and macOS. According to its Github page, a number of other *nix based operating systems have been reported successfully using Iperf, and I was able to get it running on Linux Mint 17.1 without issue. Iperf can measure TCP (Transmission Control Protocol, UDP (User Datagram Protocol), and SCTP (Stream Control Transmission Protocol) throughput.

Iperf uses a client/server configuration, meaning the software needs to be installed on both endpoints for you to measure throughput. You can download and install Iperf here (Note: I was able to use apt-get install iperf on Mint 17.1).

iPerf’s key features 

• Free and Open-Source: Available at no cost and open for modifications.
• Supports Multiple Protocols: Measures throughput for TCP, UDP, and SCTP.
• Cross-Platform Compatibility: Works on CentOS, FreeBSD, macOS, and other Unix-like systems.
• Lightweight and Efficient: Minimal resource usage for effective performance.

Unique buying proposition

Iperf is an open-source and flexible tool that tests bandwidth performance in real time. You can adjust test duration, buffer sizes, parallel streams, protocols, and output formats to meet your specific requirements. It also runs on multiple platforms.

Feature-in-focus: Protocol and Parameter Tuning

A key feature of Iperf is its tuning flexibility. Some of the parameters you can adjust are: parallel streams, bandwidth control, interval reporting, JSON output, and protocol support. Such flexibility ensures that you get insights into the areas that matter the most.

Why do we recommend it?

Iperf is a great option for techie administrators who like command-line troubleshooting tools. This is a free system but it doesn’t offer any user-friendly graphics. The tool is only able to measure traffic between two endpoints that you control.

In the example below, I ran Iperf in server mode by executing the command iperf –s, then connected to the server to measure TCP throughput by executing the command iperf –c 10.0.2.15 (10.0.2.15 was the IP address of the Iperf server).  For more on Iperf, check out its Github page.

Who is it recommended for?

Iperf is more of a connection testing tool than a traffic measurement system. You can use it to generate your own traffic and test a link on the network or a path that runs over multiple links. The tool is free and it is available for Linux.

7. NetCPS

Best for: Lightweight throughput testing

Relevant for: Network engineers and IT professionals who want to test link availability.

Price: Free

NetCPS is a Windows Command Line utility that also follows the client/server paradigm for measuring throughput. It has been around for a long time, but can still be useful on many modern Windows operating systems (it worked well on Windows 10 for me).

NetCPS’s key features 

• Windows Command Line Utility: Designed to run from the command line in Windows environments.
• Network Throughput Testing: Measures the throughput between two endpoints.
• Modern OS Compatibility: Functions well on modern Windows operating systems.
• Lightweight and Versatile: Minimal resource usage and adaptable for various tests.

Unique buying proposition

NetCPS comes with features to test network throughput in a quick and efficient way. This tool runs from the command line and requires minimal system resources, making it ideal for different environments. It is open source and provides flexibility for customization.

Feature-in-focus: Client/Server Burst

NetCPS runs on a classic client/server setup, where you can start the server on one machine and run multiple clients on other hosts. It sends 100 MB of data from memory to avoid disk bottlenecks while computing the throughput.

Why do we recommend it?

NetCPS is a Windows tool that performs more or less the same function as Iperf. This utility generates 100 MB of data, which you can send from one endpoint to another. If the route crosses a switch or a router, you will be able to test the availability of that device. The result will tell you the transfer speed of that traffic burst.

NetCPS is freeware, with the one exception that it is NOT permitted for governmental or military use. You can download, learn more about, and view the source code of NetCPS here.

In the example below, I used NetCPS to measure throughput on a local PC’s loopback address. First, from the directory where the NetCPS.exe file was loaded, I executed the command NetCPS.exe –s to place NetCPS in server mode, then in a separate cmd.exe Window I executed the command NetCPS.exe 127.0.0.1 to test the loopback IP address.

Who is it recommended for?

NetCPS is a command line tool and it is free to use. This is a handy tool to have for network troubleshooting. Government institutions and the military are banned from using this tool.

8. Netperf

Best for: Precise benchmarking of network throughput.

Relevant for: Network performance engineers who want to tune metrics for improving bandwidth usage.

Price: Free

NetPerf is a CLI tool used on *nix operating systems (it also compiles on Windows) similar to Iperf that was originally developed by Hewlett Packard. While it’s not technically open source, it is free to use and a fairly popular tool for measuring throughput and benchmarking network speeds.

For more information on Netperf, check out the manual and the Netperf Github.

Netperf’s key features 

• Network Benchmarking: Measures network speed and benchmarks throughput.
• Supports Multiple Protocols: Handles both UDP and TCP connections.
• Free for All Users: Available at no cost for everyone.
• Cross-Platform Compatibility: Runs on Unix-based systems and Windows.

Unique buying proposition

Netperf offers flexible and accurate throughput testing using multiple controls for protocols, packet sizes, and timing. It supports bulk tests as well as request-response scenario testing to make it a highly reliable and trusted platform for network benchmarking.

Feature-in-focus: Confidence Interval Reporting

A highlight of Netperf is its request-response testing mode, which allows you to send a request from a client to a server and measure how long it takes to get a response. Alongside the typical metrics like transactions per second, it also reports statistical confidence, so you know how reliable the results are.

Why do we recommend it?

Netperf is a network testing tool. This utility is free to use. The Netperf system lets you test links or a whole route between two points on a network. It reports on throughput speeds and it is meant to be a benchmarking system. That means you use Netperf to get a standard throughput speed and then measure applications against that. You can run UDP or TCP connections to specific ports.

Like NetCPS and Iperf, Netperf uses a client/server model. You can start the server using the command netserver –p <port_number> and then connect from a client using the command netperf –H <server_IP_address_or_FQDN> -p <port_number>. In the example below, we started the server on port 15222 from a host with IP address 10.0.2.15.

Who is it recommended for?

Like Iperf and NetCPS, Netperf is a handy tool for network administrators who want to run ad hoc tests. The system was written for Unix and related operating systems, such as Linux and macOS. However, it will also run on Windows.

Our methodology for choosing network throughput monitoring and testing tools

We looked beyond simple bandwidth graphs when evaluating network throughput tools. To give you the best tools with the most comprehensive features, we used the following criteria.

1. Reliable Throughput Measurement

The first requirement was accurate throughput monitoring. We looked for tools that measured network performance consistently across interfaces, links, and devices. Specifically, we prioritized tools that offered dependable throughput data for troubleshooting and capacity planning. A bonus if the tool could display this data on easy-to-understand dashboards.

2. Traffic Analysis

We favored tools that break traffic down by applications, protocols, devices, or conversations, making it easier to understand what is driving network utilization. This capability helps ensure that high throughput is not always a problem, and low throughput is not always the result of a network fault.

3. Continuous Performance Monitoring

Point-in-time testing rarely tells the whole story. For continuous evaluation, we selected solutions that collect performance data and maintain historical records round-the-clock, so you can identify recurring congestion, seasonal usage patterns, and gradual performance changes.

4. Performance Issues

Rather than expecting administrators to watch dashboards constantly, we looked for products that could recognize unusual throughput levels, identify abnormal traffic patterns, and generate alerts when network performance changes unexpectedly. Also, tools that could send alerts across multiple channels scored higher.

5. Network Testing

While researching, we noticed that many products monitor existing traffic but cannot actively test the network. We gave preference to tools that include throughput testing between endpoints, so you can validate available bandwidth and verify network performance after configuration changes or upgrades.

Broader B2B software selection methodology

In addition to the above criteria, we also included the following factors, as they are a part of our standard evaluation methodology.

Application across real-world use cases.

• Scalability
• Positive user reviews
• Quality of vendor support
• Pricing transparency
• Ease of use

Check out our detailed B2B software methodology page to learn more.

Why Trust Us?

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Let us know your feedback!

That was our crash course on throughput and list of throughput measurement tools. Did we leave anything out? Do you have any questions about the tools we mentioned here? Let us know in the comment section below.