AirCheck G3 vs Wireshark comparison

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AirCheck G3

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Jul 11, 2024

Wireshark and AirCheck G3 are leading network analysis tools with distinct user benefits. Despite Wireshark’s strong user reviews regarding its advanced capabilities and cost-effectiveness, AirCheck G3 stands out for its specialized hardware features and ease of use.

Features: Wireshark users value its comprehensive packet analysis, protocol decoding, and extensive filter capabilities. AirCheck G3 is appreciated for its hardware portability, network discovery features, and real-time troubleshooting.

Room for Improvement: Wireshark reviews suggest a need for more intuitive setup processes and improved graphical analysis tools. Users of AirCheck G3 point to its limited software-based network testing options and higher cost.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Wireshark users note a straightforward deployment but highlight a steep learning curve and community-based support. AirCheck G3 users find the device quick to deploy with strong technical support from the vendor.

Pricing and ROI: Wireshark is praised for its free usage model and high ROI by minimizing network downtimes through its detailed analysis. AirCheck G3’s higher initial setup cost is balanced by its portability and effective troubleshooting.

To learn more, read our detailed AirCheck G3 vs. Wireshark Report (Updated: March 2025).

AirCheck G3 vs. Wireshark

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Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:

Categories and Ranking

AirCheck G3

Ranking in Network Troubleshooting

7th

Average Rating

8.6

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Wireshark

Ranking in Network Troubleshooting

3rd

Average Rating

9.0

Reviews Sentiment

7.7

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Network Troubleshooting category, the mindshare of AirCheck G3 is 7.6%, down from 8.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Wireshark is 13.2%, up from 12.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Network Troubleshooting

Featured Reviews

David-Prusynski

Senior Network Engineer at a healthcare company with 5,001-10,000 employees

A portable, rugged device that reduces resolution time and saves thousands of dollars

It would be nice if I could import an AP list with a MAC address. When it looks at access points, it should tell me the AP name instead of the MAC address. When you get a MAC address, you can eventually find out where you want to go. However, a lot of times, if I just have an AP name, I know that's in this area or that's over there. I would like that function because AirMagnet, which is the precursor of this, had that ability where you could basically import a list of APs and MAC addresses, and then it could display those instead of just a MAC address. That'd be a nice function. We should be able to put an AP to MAC address in Excel and export it as a CSV file and then import it. That'd be nice to have because I have that information for all my hospitals. The one I'm doing this weekend has got 550 access points. It is much easier for me to look at an AP name than to get a MAC address. Currently, I have to go to a different spreadsheet and try to find that MAC address. If I had the AP name, it would be like, "Okay. Yep. See it. Done." They are doing spectrum analysis in G3, which I would love to have in G2. That's a nice tool to have, and from what I heard, that's the same price. I'd like to have that. The other function I would love to see is the ability to test fiber. I know the $10,000 version has the ability to test fiber, but I would love this lower-cost device to be able to test fiber.

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DonniUgalde

Senior I.T. Systems Engineer at Pro Techs MSP

Provides visibility into the network, and the GUI is easy to use

I wish the filters were a little bit more prepopulated. It would have been easy to hit a drop-down and select a filter. If I only wanted to look at DCP, UDP, or IP, it would be easy to filter it out. Advanced network knowledge is required to get a lot out of the tool. However, it's very easy to install and deploy. It would be nice if there were some handheld Android devices with a Wireshark-specialized application that would allow us to mirror a Cisco port. Then, we can just plug into the port and click the green start button, and it will start ingesting the packet capture. Then, we won’t be using a laptop. The only downside is that we must have a laptop and connect a network cable. Some new laptops don't have network ports, so we have to get another adapter. Having an all-in-one device, like NetAlly or Fluke, and some of their network devices would be cool.

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Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:

Pros

"The solution saves us a factor of 10 in time. If a typical WiFI ticket would cost me two hours with AirCheck, then it would cost me 20 hours without it. At 20 hours, you start to refuse to do tickets because it is just too expensive."

"The auto-test, channel scanner, packet capture, and Link-Live integration are all crucial features we use regularly. The wired cable tester is also indispensable. We frequently run into problems during cable testing that are hard to pin down. When tracking down a cable problem, you usually need to plug something into the cable and ensure the cable plant is reliable."

"AirCheck G2 gives me an overview of which channels are used by the access points or who delivers the Wi-Fi, which gives me a clear picture of what's going on."

"It is a pretty rock-solid device that is well-built."

"The information provided by the solution for resolving connectivity and performance problems is very thorough. The reporting functionality is extremely good as I can pass that information on with little input. The device will identify issues and problems, e.g., the diagnostic material. When you have Internet access, it sends the information to your email address, which is very useful."

"The airCheck is the real-time spectrum analyzer to see clients that could be connecting to our network, not just rogue networks out there, but rogue clients and other interference in that particular spectrum."

"It is portable. It is rugged. It comes with a nice case. It has been dropped, but it doesn't break. I don't have a crack screen or anything like that. It has pretty good battery life."

"I like the cloud functionality. That's very useful because somebody can go onsite, someone who is not really skilled, and I can see the test results from the office."

More AirCheck G3 pros

"The most valuable feature is the traffic gate, which shows which IPs are getting more bandwidth or traffic."

"The initial setup is simple."

"I find Wireshark a very useful tool. Its best feature is that it allows me to deeply understand what's going on at the packet level, as well as any adverse signatures that I can analyze. When I need to create an IPS rule, I need to check the traffic deeply to get more insights about the actual traffic, what's the name of certain flags, etc., and I'm able to do all that through Wireshark. The tool is also user-friendly."

"The transmission and reception issues are valuable."

"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."

"Packet-capture files can be hard to use due to their size. Wireshark has a tool called tshark that can parse the files with out opening them so that you can take large captures, say 2-10GB, and return only relevant information."

"Wireshark is very user-friendly; even someone with basic IT knowledge can use it."

"It is a stable product. I would rate the stability a ten out of ten."

More Wireshark pros

Cons

"I would love to have a button that pretends that you're an iPhone 5 or an Android Samsung, then tell me what you think the experience is. This is a very difficult thing to do because each of these things has different radios in them and behaves differently. Now, I can go into the user's office, and say, "The tool says everything's green. The WiFI infrastructure is fine, but their iPhone experience sucks." Is it a problem with their particular iPhone or is it a problem with any iPhone model? If I could have this solution emulate an iPhone model so I can walk into that room, and say, "My tools pretending to be your iPhone and it works fine. It must be your particular iPhone that we have a problem with." I found mobile phones in general have lousy radios and the coverage isn't strong enough, but it would be a nice feature."

"It was hard to determine which AP was which because it only shows the MAC address. It'll also display the MAC address of the BSSID, so it looked like I had 12 APs in my house. If I have three access points and each is a dual-band with an SSID or BSSID for each radio, it comes out to about 12 APs. That's one of the bugs fixed in the latest firmware update, but it's only available if you have a NetAlly support contract."

"The solution doesn't have much functional information online."

"A feature I would like to see is the ability to charge the device via a PoE outlet. Usually, I need to charge it at home. It would be good to leave the device plugged in and charging at a PoE source at the customer site after a quick look at the network when I have moved on to other tasks."

"The battery life needs improvement. For example, when you are doing an Ethernet test, that seems to drain the battery pretty quickly."

"We use these out in the field, and because they're not allowed on our network, we usually have to have the person take them home and provide backhaul to them. In other words, they are not allowed through our firewalls to dump the data. So, we have to have them go to a separate wired network to dump the data. There could be an option to put an LTE and have a phone engine in it so that you can buy a SIM card for it and have it use cellular to download the data. That is something that would be nice to have. That's a little kink in this system right now. Other than using the Ethernet port to download data, it'd be nice if we could use either LTE or some other way to get the data that was collected by AirCheck G2 to our Link-Live portal."

"It would be nice if I could import an AP list with a MAC address. When it looks at access points, it should tell me the AP name instead of the MAC address. When you get a MAC address, you could eventually find out where you want to go. However, a lot of times, if I just have an AP name, I know that's in this area or that's over there. I would like that function because AirMagnet, which is the precursor of this, had that ability where you could basically import a list of APs and MAC addresses, and then it could display those instead of just a MAC address."

"I would like them to modify the interface. The button to change profiles is fairly small. When you have interventions, it is not always possible to have a ballpoint pen or perfect precision touch with it, since sometimes you need to touch it quite a lot when your hands are very dirty. I would like a special pen that is compatible with that responsive screen. That would make it easier."

More AirCheck G3 cons

"I have not used Wireshark to an advanced point where I could provide a detailed opinion on improvements needed."

"Sometimes I need to use tcpdump when I need to check the packets on CLI."

"Big trace files (more than 1,000,000 packets) can be slow, but then you can use "TraceWrangler" (also free) to help with slicing and dicing the data."

"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."

"You need some basic knowledge to work with Wireshark. Maybe it could be more user-friendly just for new users. Just for the new generation."

"In the future, it would be nice to see color coding. It is just black and white."

"Wireshark's UI isn't easy to handle and doesn't have as nice a view as Omnipeek."

"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."

More Wireshark cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The product has a pretty good price."

"Because I work in a big company, it is a no-brainer. If I were a consultant, I would still buy it, but it would be a huge investment. Overall, it's a good tool to have."

"The price is fairly expensive, if you are a single individual. For me, it's well worth the cost of the unit. Depending on the nature of the work that you're doing, the upfront costs can be expensive. Typically, what happens in an environment is a department might have one device as opposed to technicians having them individually."

"For a few thousand dollars, you save yourself a ton of time. It's a great deal."

"It costs $3,000. It would be nice if its cost was less. I could then buy more. Currently, when we buy one, we make sure that where we need it is big enough, or if it is too small, when a person has a job, they have to get a temporary one mailed to them to use, which becomes a little less convenient."

"If you find a feature you need, you have to call them and add it, but you should be able to use the product. You spend money on and invested in multiple devices and can't even use half of the features. They should negotiate with large enterprises who buy large numbers of units to provide NetAlly support for all of them at a nominal fee."

"The upfront cost of the solution is around $4,000."

"I'd always love a lower price, but as compared to some of the other tools, it is fairly reasonable. I personally bought one. So, I must have thought the value was there because I'm spending my own hard cash on it, not just the company's. You can get support. I don't have support on my personal device. We did buy support for our company devices. It is reasonable. It is not super expensive or astronomical."

More AirCheck G3 pricing and cost advice

"We're using the free version of Wireshark."

"Wireshark is open source and gives great value and functionality to the network investigation."

"It is an open-source solution."

"Wireshark is free software, so you don't have to pay any licensing fee. Individual people can use it and then donate to Wireshark."

"Wireshark is free software, so you can download it and use it for free with no licensing fees."

"Wireshark is an open-source product, so it's free to use."

"It is free to download and install. It runs on multiple platforms, so how can you go wrong?"

"Wireshark is open-source and free of charge."

More Wireshark pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Manufacturing Company

13%

Computer Software Company

11%

Comms Service Provider

10%

Government

University

11%

Computer Software Company

11%

Government

10%

Financial Services Firm

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

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What do you like most about Wireshark?

The GUI is easy to use.

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Wireshark?

Wireshark is priced at a medium range, not too high, not too low. The pricing could be more flexible, and they might make it more expensive. That said, compared to other products, it is competitive.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Wireshark?

The speed of the Internet could be improved, especially its performance. Performance can sometimes be a challenge due to numerous factors.

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Compared 12% of the time

Zabbix vs Wireshark

Compared 10% of the time

Nagios XI vs Wireshark

Compared 8% of the time

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Product Reports

AirCheck G3

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Also Known As

AirCheck G2, AirCheck

No data available

Overview

AirCheck G3 is the most cost-effective hardware-enabled site survey solution for Wi-Fi 6/6E networks. It provides network professionals of any skill level with complete and accurate information to survey and validate Wi-Fi deployments and changes, resolve connectivity and performance problems quickly, speed up closure of trouble tickets, and ensure your Wi-Fi network meets end users’ needs.

The new and improved battery life of 10 hours (3 - 4 hours charge) lasts you and your teams throughout the day.

AirCheck G3 Product Info

NetAlly

Wireshark is the world's foremost network protocol analyzer.

Sample Customers

Information Not Available

Comversion, ADP, Talbots

AirCheck G3 vs. Wireshark