AirCheck G3 vs Wireshark comparison

NetAlly and Wireshark are both solutions in the Network Troubleshooting category. NetAlly is ranked #7, while Wireshark is ranked #3 with an average rating of 8.9. NetAlly holds a 8.0% mindshare in NT, compared to Wireshark’s 13.9% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of NetAlly users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 98% of Wireshark users who would recommend it.

AirCheck G3

Read 13 AirCheck G3 reviews

809 Views
278 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Wireshark

Read 63 Wireshark reviews

732 Views
438 Comparison Views

98% willing to recommend

AirCheck G3

Wireshark

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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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: April 2025).

Buyer's Guide

AirCheck G3 vs. Wireshark

April 2025

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Helped 850,671 peers since 2012

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 May 2025, in the Network Troubleshooting category, the mindshare of AirCheck G3 is 8.0%, down from 8.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Wireshark is 13.9%, up from 11.9% 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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Vijay Duggal

Network Specialist at Squarepoint Capital

Provides detailed traffic analysis and helps troubleshoot issues

There is a disadvantage when it comes to sampling intervals. While the solution supports sampling as fine as one millisecond, it requires a copy at that interval. My Python script allows me to achieve a granularity of up to ten microseconds, but I can't go beyond that. When dealing with provisioning on both issues, it would be beneficial if I could go down to the microsecond level, if not the nanosecond. Additionally, I've heard from a colleague that Wireshark might be less effective in the voice domain.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

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

"It has made our networking staff more productive. We spend less time because the device helps us by identifying the issue and providing a solution for the customer. Prior to not having this device, we would have to guess when an issue arose. Now, we don't have to guess. This can easily save us hours per call."

"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."

"The one-button AutoTest feature is an amazing tool. It works well. It tells you whether or not you have shorts in your network, your PoE+ is running low on voltage, and shows you your link speed."

"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."

"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."

"AirCheck made a lot of children and caregivers quite happy. While I might not have resolved everything, I have reduced the problems that we had every night. During the day, they would do visible checks and not always rely on the monitors, but every night, they had at least three or four of those alarms. I was able to reduce it to once or twice a week since those appliances are still limited in their wireless capability."

"I also like the remote session and the ability to log in to the device remotely. You can log in to the tester with your computer and can see the screen and operate the tester remotely. This is a very cool function, but it's very advanced."

More AirCheck G3 pros

"You can use Wireshark to see the traffic packet format, the IP layers, the fields, and the enabled flags."

"It helps in analyzing if something looks suspicious, such as a brute force attack or scanning from somewhere."

"Being able to dissect email data and figure out what is inside email messages was the most valuable feature. Such a feature is pretty helpful for an ongoing forensic investigation or when there is a potential insider threat that you are trying to investigate. It allows you to see the network activity of the users you are investigating. It also gives you more visibility into your network. It was very easy to set up. There is a lot of information out there on Google and YouTube about how to use it. There is also community support. If you have any trouble, it is pretty easy to find an answer online. You will have to do some digging only if you have a very specific use case."

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

"The product is simple to implement."

"Wireshark's best feature is that it's adaptive, which means it's the go-to tool for network-related developers."

"The feature to incorporate Voice over IP (VoIP) incidents into network traffic analysis is valuable. Capturing voice or SIP communication allows for examination of interactions between SIP clients and SIP servers. This helps the team investigate or analyze issues related to call center servers and operators."

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

More Wireshark pros

Cons

"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."

"The biggest improvement would be an easier upload over wireless to Link-Live. Currently, the device has to be patched into the Ethernet. The wireless upload has been giving us some issues."

"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."

"We use .1x authentication, so I need to download the certificate onto the device. It would be nice to have this functionality through the cloud as well. Right now, you need to do it through the software by connecting your laptop physically to the AirCheck. This is one thing that is a bit slow."

"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."

"NetAlly has been behind the curve on visualization, Wi-Fi design, and heat maps for a little while now. They're perfectly aware of this deficiency, but what they offer is good enough for a lot of people. It's not suitable for larger shops, but it works in a pinch. The AirMapper and subsequent AirMagnet integration is an afterthought."

More AirCheck G3 cons

"The solution’s user interface could be improved."

"The decryption of encrypted packets could be better."

"Wireshark is similar to an OS defense tool, meaning that it runs on an OS such as Ubuntu and Fedora, but I'm unsure if it's compatible with Windows or if it's a straightforward process to run it on Windows. Right now, my team needs to run Wireshark from a dongle to use it, so it's an OS-dependable tool, and that's an area for improvement. I was unable to use Wireshark on Windows, and I couldn't capture it, as I'm unsure how to configure the wireless card into monitoring mode on Windows. The process was straightforward on Linux, but it wasn't the case on Windows OS. It seems Wireshark isn't compatible with all OS. For example, you can analyze the log, and you can analyze it on the Windows server, but you can't do a capture in Windows. Configuring Wireshark for Windows isn't as easy as configuring it for Linux."

"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."

"The product is great but I wish there were more of an emphasis on the command line tools."

"Wireshark could make the filtering rules easier to apply and offer a drag-and-drop option as opposed to type and text."

"Wireshark gets stuck when it is a larger file."

"Wireshark could be improved with a delay option when getting data automatically."

More Wireshark cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The overall cost of the solution, compared to the time saved—the number of man-hours devoted to other means of troubleshooting—is incomparable."

"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 product has a pretty good price."

"It is definitely well worth the price. It is approximately $2,500. It pays for itself since it eliminates troubleshooting costs and labor due to all the money you would spend kind of troubleshooting the device if you didn't have any of these tools with you."

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

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

"Pricing is on par with the rest of the industry and the licensing is decent."

"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."

More AirCheck G3 pricing and cost advice

"This is an open-source product that can be used free of charge."

"It is free."

"It's a stand-alone tool. If there is a commercial license for it I am unaware of it."

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

"The tool is free."

"We are using a freeware version of this solution, so there are no licence costs involved."

"I've never personally had to pay for it, making it a highly valuable internet resource that's accessible for use. While they offer some paid versions, our firm has utilized the free version for the past three years."

"The solution is open source so is free."

More Wireshark pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Manufacturing Company

13%

Comms Service Provider

11%

Computer Software Company

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.

See all answers

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.

See all answers

Comparisons

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Compared 31% of the time

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Compared 22% of the time

AirMagnet Survey vs AirCheck G3

Compared 21% of the time

iTrinegy NE-ONE Network Emulator vs AirCheck G3

Compared 17% of the time

Broadcom Network Flow Analysis vs AirCheck G3

Compared 9% of the time

More AirCheck G3 Competitors

Microsoft Network Monitor vs Wireshark

Compared 20% of the time

Colasoft Capsa vs Wireshark

Compared 13% of the time

SolarWinds NPM vs Wireshark

Compared 12% of the time

Zabbix vs Wireshark

Compared 10% of the time

Nagios XI vs Wireshark

Compared 7% of the time

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

AirCheck G3

May 2025

Download AirCheck G3 product report

Buyer's Guide

Wireshark

April 2025

Download Wireshark product report

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.

Wireshark

Sample Customers

Information Not Available

Comversion, ADP, Talbots

Buyer's Guide

AirCheck G3 vs. Wireshark

April 2025

Free Report: AirCheck G3 vs. Wireshark

Find out what your peers are saying about AirCheck G3 vs. Wireshark and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.

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