If you're a regular reader of my contributions to this web site you'll know that I'm a big fan of PRTG. It's a software product that you install on a Windows machine (ideally a dedicated one, but it doesn't have to be), which then monitors your network and keeps a watch on all your other devices. It can monitor Windows PCs and servers, Linux machines, and just about everything else. It can even monitor specific applications.
In my case, I use PRTG to monitor of bunch of servers that I look after as part of my day job. As soon as one of them is running low on hard disk space or memory, or is running more slowly than normal, PRTG lets me know. It even keeps an eye on all my SSL web certificates, and warns me when I need to renew one of them.
A couple of years ago, PRTG was free if you only needed to monitor 10 things across your entire colllection of servers. Then they increased it to 30. Today the company announced that the limit for the freeware version was being raised to 100 sensors, which previously cost $440.
So if you have never tried this great app, now is the time to put it through its paces. See www.paessler.com for the download, which runs to a fairly hefty 150 MB. The program is malware-free according to Web of Trust and the virus scanner I use most often (the download is too large for VirusTotal).
Comments
I'm trying both at the moment and they are quite complementary as there is little overlap in functionality using the default configurations. In the main, this is because the scope of Glasswire is primarily my computer and what connects to it whereas PRTG's scope is my network anywhere.
Here's some more detail for those who are interested:
PS. I should have added that the default install of PRTG uses quite a lot of bandwidth. Most of it is local for me but there is a lot that uses my Internet quota. Actually, it doesn't bother me because my ISP provides me with unlimited bandwidth. But if you have limited Internet bandwidth then PRTG can use several MBs a day depending on the number of devices you are monitoring and the types of sensors you are using. You can use Glasswire to monitor this situation. :D
Rob, I should have thanked you for recommending this free product. It is excellent and I plan to keep it running because it provides so much information that I can quickly access, even if I only need it infrequently.
PRTG will suit many of our readers because it is useful for home users and non-specialists even if they have very limited technical knowledge. It installs very easily without having to configure settings because you just answer some questions provided by PRTG's GURU: if you don't know the answer you can skip it. It also provides excellent in-line help for almost every task. The only obvious improvement would be a bit more hand-holding when it is first run to better explain the monitoring terminology to new non-technical users. PRTG also has key advanced features available in the free version:
yea, Rob