PingPlotter answers the question every admin eventually gets: “is it our network or the provider’s?” It traces the route to a destination, pings every hop continuously and draws latency and packet loss per hop, so you can point at the exact step where things go wrong. Its Free edition is genuinely useful, but it is deliberately limited. When you outgrow it, you need to know which free tool replaces which part.
This guide uses the vendors’ and projects’ own pages as checked on 6 October 2026: PingPlotter 5.27.13 (24 August 2026), WinMTR Redux v1.00 (GPL-2.0), mtr (GPL-2.0) and SmokePing (GPL-2.0).
The short answer
For a quick, one-off “where does the packet loss start?” on Windows, use WinMTR: free, open source and similar in spirit to PingPlotter’s trace. On Linux or macOS, use mtr. If you need history over days and weeks to a set of targets, use SmokePing on a Linux server. If you want a ready-made graph with jitter and alerts without building anything, the paid editions of PingPlotter remain the convenient option. And if what you really need is device-level monitoring rather than path diagnosis, look at The Dude or NetXMS instead.
What PingPlotter Free actually gives you
Our page for PingPlotter Free lists the limits in detail. In short, the Free edition traces one target with a sample every second, shows per-hop latency and packet loss, supports ICMP, TCP and UDP probes and can export images and share pages. What it does not give you: only 10 minutes of continuous history is kept, there are no alerts, jitter and MOS numbers are paid-only, and remote collection from other sites is a Cloud feature. It also measures latency and loss, not throughput, so it is not a speed test.
Those limits are exactly the reasons people look for alternatives: no overnight monitoring, no alerts, no second target.
PingPlotter alternatives compared
| Feature | PingPlotter Free | WinMTR | mtr | SmokePing |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Licence | Free edition; paid editions are shareware (conditionally free) | Free, open source (GPL-2.0) | Free, open source (GPL-2.0) | Free, open source (GPL-2.0) |
| Platforms | Windows and macOS | Windows | Linux, macOS; on Windows through WSL | Unix-like servers (Perl, RRDtool) |
| Per-hop trace | Yes, graphical | Yes, table | Yes, text or report | Latency to targets, not a hop-by-hop view |
| Long history | 10 minutes | Only while the window is open | Only while running | Yes, long-term graphs |
| Alerts | No (paid editions) | No | No | Yes, built-in alarm system |
| Several targets | One | One per window | One per run | Many |
| Interface | Desktop graphs | Desktop table | Terminal | Web graphs |
| Best for | Visual diagnosis of one path | Quick Windows trace to send to a provider | Scripted reports on Linux and macOS | Watching the quality of links over time |
WinMTR: the closest free Windows tool
WinMTR combines traceroute and ping in one window and keeps updating while it runs. The maintained “Redux” fork on GitHub is licensed GPL-2.0, targets Windows XP and later and requires the Microsoft Visual C++ 2010 redistributables. The fork adds IPv6 support and a number of fixes to the original 0.98 release. The latest release is v1.00. The project has relatively few commits, so treat it as a stable small utility rather than an actively developed product.
It shows a table of per-hop statistics, not a graph. That is enough for the classic support workflow: run it for a few minutes while the problem is happening, copy the result into a ticket and send it to the provider. It does not keep history, does not alert and does not draw a timeline.
mtr: the original, for Linux and macOS
mtr “combines the functionality of the traceroute and ping programs in a single network diagnostic tool”, in its authors’ words. It sends probes with increasing time-to-live values and displays running statistics for each hop. It is GPL-2.0 and builds on Linux and macOS; on Windows the project’s own page points you to the Windows Subsystem for Linux (or Cygwin). On Debian and Ubuntu it is a single apt-get install mtr. Because it is a command-line tool, it fits scripts and cron jobs well and is a natural choice on servers, where PingPlotter would never be installed.
SmokePing: when you need history
SmokePing fills PingPlotter Free’s biggest gap. Its authors describe it as a latency logging, graphing and alerting system. It consists of a daemon that runs the measurements and a CGI interface that displays graphs; it is written in Perl, stores data in RRDtool and is licensed GPL-2.0. It measures round-trip latency, latency variation and packet loss over a long period, has a wide choice of probes (from simple ping to web requests), an alarm system and a master/slave mode for measuring from several locations.
The trade-off is effort: you install and configure it on a server, define the targets and wait for the data to build up. It does not trace every hop of the route the way PingPlotter does; it answers “how has this link behaved over the last month?” rather than “which hop is dropping packets right now?”
When a monitoring system is the better answer
Path-diagnosis tools tell you where a path breaks. They do not tell you that a switch or server is down. If your real need is a map of devices and alarms, use a monitoring system. The Dude is free and quick to set up, but MikroTik has discontinued it and it needs a RouterOS server package. NetXMS is open source and actively developed, with discovery, SNMP and agents; note that its Windows server build is capped at 250 nodes without a licence. For more options see our guide to free network monitoring tools.
How to choose
- One-time check on a Windows PC while the problem is live. WinMTR, or PingPlotter Free if you want the graph.
- Linux or macOS server, script-friendly output. mtr.
- Quality of a WAN link over weeks, with alarms. SmokePing.
- Jitter, MOS and alerts without building anything. The paid editions of PingPlotter, which are shareware (conditionally free).
- Devices and services, not routes. The Dude or NetXMS.
Whichever tool you use, test to more than one destination, and read the result from the last hop backwards: if loss appears on one intermediate hop but not on the hops after it, it is usually a router rate-limiting its own replies, not real packet loss. Only loss that continues to the final hop is a real problem.
FAQ
Is PingPlotter free?
There is a permanent Free edition. It traces one target and keeps 10 minutes of history, without alerts or jitter and MOS. The paid editions are shareware (conditionally free).
What is the best free PingPlotter alternative?
For a quick trace on Windows, WinMTR. For long-term monitoring, SmokePing. For Linux and macOS, mtr. They cover different parts of PingPlotter, so there is no single one-for-one replacement.
PingPlotter vs WinMTR — what is the difference?
PingPlotter draws a graph and a timeline and has TCP and UDP probes in the Free edition. WinMTR shows a table of per-hop statistics for as long as the window is open. WinMTR is open source and has no edition limits.
Is there an open-source PingPlotter alternative?
Yes: WinMTR, mtr and SmokePing are all licensed GPL-2.0.
Is there a PingPlotter alternative for Linux?
Use mtr for hop-by-hop diagnosis in the terminal and SmokePing for long-term latency graphs. PingPlotter itself is available for Windows and macOS.
Can I run mtr on Windows?
Not natively. The project’s page describes running it through the Windows Subsystem for Linux. Native Windows users generally use WinMTR.
