Server Stress Test Tool Windows



  1. Server Stress Test Tool Windows 7
  2. Server Stress Test Tool Windows 10
  3. Web Server Stress Test

Download tcp test tool 3.0 for free. Development Tools downloads - TCP Test Tool by SimpleComTools and many more programs are available for instant and free download.

  • A stress test tool can also be used to identify issues like slow-loading or unresponsive web pages. There are three main types of load simulation: HTTP/S-based, real browser-based, and headless. HTTP/S-based tests, which were popular earlier on in the digital age, involve the test driver executing service requests and parsing responses.
  • Best automated network stress testing tools. There are many packet generators and traffic stress testers on the market, but not all of them are any good. We have examined the best of the network stress tools and created a shortlist of the best. SolarWinds WAN Killer Traffic Generator with Engineer’s Toolset (FREE TRIAL).

One of the most important hardware components inside your computer is obviously the drive that holds the operating system. If you have Windows installed on a slow hard drive, it doesn’t matter how powerful the other components like CPU and memory are, the system will boot slower, load programs more slowly, and lag quite badly while multitasking.

This is a reason why high performance hard drives and especially SSD’s are so popular these days. It’s because upgrading just that one part can breath new life into a computer and make it feel a lot more snappy to use. The actual hard disk or SSD performance under Windows is determined by several factors so how do you know if your drive is performing well, needs tweaking or is even holding the system back?

Thankfully, the internet is full of websites to show you how well nearly every drive around can perform. Also, loads of programs are available that can give your hardware a performance test to see how well it’s doing. There are many paid suites around like PCMark or Passmark that can test the whole system, but here we list for you 10 free tools that are specifically designed for testing the performance of hard drives and SSD drives.

All tools were tested on Windows 10 64-bit and are also compatible with Windows 7 and 8.

1. CrystalDiskMark

This is a very popular storage benchmarking tool because it’s versatile and can produce good results for just about everything from USB drives, to memory cards, RAMDisks, SSD drives and mechanical hard drives. CrystalDiskMark is very easy to operate too, just set the test size between 50MB and 4GB, the drive to test and the number of passes to run. More passes obviously should produce more accurate results.

Then click All to run a full test or any individual colored buttons below to run single tests. A useful extra option for SSD drives is whether to fill the test data randomly or with 0’s or 1’s. This will affect the results on drives with hardware compression such as those with Sandforce controllers. Portable, installer and custom skin versions are available.

Download CrystalDiskMark

2. ATTO Disk Benchmark

ATTO Disk Benchmark is a popular portable tool used by many hardware review websites and is also recommended by manufacturers such as Corsair to run speed tests on SSD drives. All the tests are sequential and are taken for read and write operations using block sizes of 512 bytes up to 64MB. A test file length of between 64KB and 32GB is also available, both are selectable from drop down menus.

Leaving Direct I/O enabled will rule out odd results due to any system caching. An I/O size of over a couple of Megabytes will produce virtually the same scores so probably isn’t needed for many users. Results can be saved out and loaded again at a later time. A look around the internet will likely find someone else who has posted ATTO results for similar hardware to your own.

Download ATTO Disk Benchmark (via Softpedia, the official site requires filling a form)

3. AS SSD Benchmark

AS SSD looks a bit like CrystalDiskMark and is designed primarily to benchmark SSD drives. It is another popular tool being used by hardware sites such as AnandTech’s SSD benchmark charts (which also includes ATTO) to show their results. The program uses incompressible data so some SSD’s will show much lower scores than usual if they compress their data.

Sequential and 4KB read and write scores will be shown along with access times and a final general overall score. The results can be changed to IOPS if you prefer from the View menu. A couple of useful additional benchmarks are available in the Tools menu like a Copy benchmark which simulates copying an ISO, game and a program, and also a read/write compression benchmark. AS SSD is also completely portable.

Download AS SSD Benchmark(website is in German, download link at bottom)

4. Anvil’s Storage Utilities

For an SSD or hard drive benchmark and test utility that really puts drives through their paces, they don’t come much more comprehensive than Anvil’s Storage Utilities. While being able to perform a complete read and write test using sequential and random operations, it displays a full set of results including response time, speed in MB/s and also IOPS (Input/Output Operations Per Second).

A total combined read/write score is shown in the yellow box. Also included are 3 extra IOPS tests, an endurance testing function and the ability in the settings to alter the amount of compression to use on the test file. More functions like a system information tab and a screenshot saver round off an impressive tool. Anvil’s Storage Utilities doesn’t seem to be developed anymore and the last version is from 2014.

Download Anvil’s Storage Utilities

5. HD Tune

HD Tune is probably the most well known hard disc drive benchmarking and diagnostic utility and will likely be in every tech users USB toolkit. The free version 2.55 is getting old now having not been updated since 2008 and might have minor issues with some of the latest hard drive models. Some functions like error checking and benchmarking should still work fine.

After a test, the benchmark result graph will show the minimum, maximum and average read speed along with the average access time in milliseconds and the burst rate. The block size can be changed in the options from 512 bytes up to 8MB and a slider can move between faster less accurate or slower more accurate test speeds.

Download HD Tune

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Allen Gorden Perera8 months ago

Is there a bootable type of SSD benchmark software? I find that windows based softwares are inconsistent.

Reply

Pretty much all drive reviewers I’ve seen use Windows based tools so they can’t be that inconsistent. I think it could be more to do with what’s running on your system, such as antivirus, Windows updates/tasks, or third party software doing things in the background while a disk test is running.

I don’t recall ever seeing a disk benchmark software that doesn’t require a full OS to run, whether it’s Windows or Linux. Obviously bootable Live CDs still run an OS although it will usually be stripped down to a large degree.

Reply
Imre2 years ago

Hello, i am looking for a Hard Disk/Drive utility that can scan and “repair” weak sectors.
Also interested to know if there is a tool that scan a hard drive surface from back to front and also randomly perhaps?

Thanks
James

Reply

Bad sectors are usually a sign that your drive is starting to fail. If you have a high number of bad or pending sectors it is highly recommended that you replace the drive rather than attempt to repair it.

WD Data Lifeguard is a free disk diagnostic tool from Western Digital. It can run a “basic test” (checking SMART info), an “extended test” (full scan that locates bad sectors), or completely wipe the drive.

If bad sectors are found during an extended test, you will be given an option to attempt to repair these sectors. However, like I said above, it is recommended that you replace a failing drive.

You can also use CrystalDiskInfo (from the makers of CrystalDiskMark) to display SMART information and monitor drive health in real time. CDI once saved me from having to pay for expensive data recovery by showing an alarm for pending sectors before my drive died 2 days later.

Reply
maidmeow42 years ago

HD Tach cannot run on my Windows 7 64bit system, it says that only could be run on Win2K or WinXP.

Reply

Read the article again and you will see that it does work and what you need to do to get it to work.

Reply
James4 years ago

Here is a simple disk benchmark tool written in Java I’ve been working on. Would appreciate any feedback anyone is willing to provide. Best wishes,
sourceforge.net/projects/jdiskmark/

Reply

I’ve written a simplistic tool in Python to benchmark HDDs and SSDs. It is completely open-source and now in alpha stage, though you already could use it, and if interested, participate in development.
Here’s the link: github.com/thodnev/MonkeyTest

Reply
JC5 years ago

CrystalDiskMark installs a hidden program on your computer that forces your browser to use a particular search engine.

Reply

That’s because you are downloading the version with ads, get the one without ads to not have it install opencandy adware.

Reply
steve4 years ago

So how do you know which version your are downloading? With or without ads?

Reply

In fact, there is no version with ads any more, the author removed opencandy earlier in 2016.

Reply

Server Stress Test Tool Windows 7

Lukearse2 years ago

Thanks for the heads up,
I was looking to download and use CrystalDiskMark, but not now!!

Reply

Why are you taking notice of a 3 year old comment when a newer comment is telling you that problem doesn’t exist anymore and hasn’t existed since 2016??

Reply
Astro5 years ago

@ relcocq
SSD drives aren’t effected by fragmented disk, so no shouldn’t effect the results
You should never run de-frag programs on a SSD, ever.

Reply

Yes and no. Defrag on a HDD, from Win 7+, it run Optimize, which is the trim command. This is very important. Why? simple.

An HDD is seperate into block and then into pages. It can only do 3 operations on block: Read, Write and Erase. It cannot overwrite like a hard disk. But it function the same way: When you delete something, it marks the pages related to these data as available, but not empty. A problem though, on page, it can only do Read and Write, not erase.

When you have to erase a page because you run out of empty page, the ssd controller must copy all the good page in cache from the block (Read action + write action in the SSD cache), erase the block so all pages are empty and write back the good page from the cache. This operation take time and this is way your SSD speed degrate with usage.

Thus, in the early days of SSD, Trim appeared to fix this problem. When Trim is run, it does the operation above on all needed block and pages, thus leaving the SSD only with good and empty pages. This process does add some wear on the drive, but very little.

With time, OS and controller have implemented various way to bypass this problem, like doing the trim action on each erase, never leaving bad pages.

More and reference at: anandtech.com/show/2738/8

Reply
TGWOH6 years ago

I did not see Hard Disk Sentential among your programs. I’ve been using it for years now.
3 years back it told me the bad sectors of the 750GB hard disk in my Dell 545 Inspiron had increased and its performance had dropped to 80%.
The system was still under warranty so I contacted Dell. After a lengthy phone call discussing the problem, they a sent a technician out. After 90 minutes, he agreed the drive was problematic, and gave me a 1TB replacement drive.
I installed the new drive, made it the boot and moved everything important over to it.
I made the 750GB drive a secondary just to see how long it might last. About one week later it failed.
I am sure those programs you list are great but I am thankful Hard Disk Sentential was recommended to me and have it on all of our computers.

Reply

Hard Disk Sentinel is a completely different type of software and is not a tool specifically for bench marking your drives.

Besides, it isn’t even free and this article is specifically about free software for the job.

Reply
Dror6 years ago

Installed HD Tach on Win 8. It will not run and displays a message that it will only run 2000 or XP.

Reply

Go to the Simpli Software program files folder and run the hdtach.exe in Windows XP compatibility mode, works fine then.

Reply
irjan13 years ago

Thanks Ray!!!

Reply

Has anyone considered whether or not a fragmented disk would effect the results?
I would think so.
Rob.

Reply

Leave a Reply

Server Stress Test Tool Windows 10

Benchmarking the environment of a new network is a crucial part of ensuring its success when it goes live. This includes stress testing and generating traffic on existing networks, both of which help you to identify any potentially flawed or vulnerable areas—for example, drops in connection and packet loss. As we know, network traffic is critical to the success of a business, as it determines how data flows and how effectively your applications interact.

For end users online today, speed and efficiency are everything. A customer isn’t likely to stick around if they experience a significant lag on their end, or if a page is unresponsive. In this thriving digital age, end users have information and services at their fingertips, with rapid access. If they fail to get what they want from you quickly, they’re likely to seek out another organization to meet their needs more effectively.

With a network traffic generator tool or network traffic simulator, you’re able to mimic actual network traffic. These tools simulate stress or load to establish how much the network can handle. By doing so, they give you a clear understanding of what your network can cope with, where the areas of concern are, and at what point the network becomes congested.

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While this is important for every business, it’s especially fundamental to businesses with numerous branches needing to maintain constant communication via the wide area network (WAN). If links can’t take the load, then these systems can stop functioning entirely, making day-to-day business extremely delicate. By implementing a network saturation or stress test, you can quickly identify any weaknesses so you can protect your daily activities from failure or downtime.

In this guide, I’ve ranked my favorite network traffic generator tools, with SolarWinds® WAN Killer Network Traffic Generator squarely at the top. A feature-heavy, intelligently designed, and super user-friendly tool, WAN Killer is part of SolarWinds Engineer’s Toolset (ETS), a suite of utilities working together to provide everything a network administrator should need.

Before going into my picks for the best generator software, I’ll briefly outline how traffic generators and stress test tools work.

Basics of Traffic Generators

Traffic generators are a way of injecting traffic into a network for utilization by other devices.

A traffic generator is meant to look like a device on a network, so it can target devices in receipt of traffic. This means it will have a physical, typically higher-level address.

When implemented, a traffic generator attaches to the network via the same interface as other devices to establish brand-new packets. Certain traffic generators may also need to respond to traffic from other devices—for example, when they need to establish an Address Resolution Protocol (ARP) in an IP network or a TCP connection.

Basically, a traffic generator is a tool designed for evaluating the performance of devices under test or systems under test. Traffic generators send RAW packets through certain ports and collect the following data: jitter and latency values, lost packets, TX/RX rates, and out-of-order packets. A traffic generator might be used in a similar way to a bandwidth test utility and can also be used to create packets routed to the packet generator.

Basics of Simulator Stress Test Tools

There are some similarities between traffic generators and simulator stress test tools. The purpose of a simulator stress test tool is to test the performance of a network. When combined with a network traffic generator, it can give you insight into how a network will cope with varying levels of stress and load. A stress test tool can also be used to identify issues like slow-loading or unresponsive web pages.

There are three main types of load simulation: HTTP/S-based, real browser-based, and headless.

  • HTTP/S-based tests, which were popular earlier on in the digital age, involve the test driver executing service requests and parsing responses. This type of test ignores the client-side scripts associated with modern Web 2.0 applications. Overall, HTTP/S tests aren’t as useful anymore, because they can’t cope with complex use cases at the protocol level.
  • Headless browser-based load simulation was designed in response to the increase in Web 2.0 technologies. Initial headless browsers included HtmlUnit, SlimerJS, and PhantomJS. Headless browsers are usually built from WebKit, which is the engine driving both Chrome and Safari. There are several advantages associated with headless browsers, including the fact that they run quickly without requiring a heavy GUI. They offer realistic user simulation, too, which is a big benefit.
  • Real browser-based load simulation takes into account the fact that Web 2.0 applications tend to be bursting with JavaScript, Flash, CSS, and AJAX. If you don’t have a full browser, it’s impossible to track the actual end-to-end response times for the entire web page. This type of load testing lets you verify the functionality of the site and the speed received by the end user. A standard real browser-based performance test tool collects load times for CSS, images, JavaScript, and more.

Best Traffic Generator Tools

Below are my rankings for the best network traffic generators and network stress test software, free and paid. I’ve included tools to suit a range of organizational needs to help you find the one that’s right for you.

WAN Killer is bundled into SolarWinds Engineer’s Toolset, a network software suite containing over 60 utilities. These have been designed to cover everything from network discovery and configuration to monitoring and troubleshooting. In addition to WAN Killer, SolarWinds ETS features a port scanner, SNMP sweep tool, switch port mapper, IP network browser, MAC address discovery, and ping sweep.

WAN Killer was designed to assist users in identifying and targeting specific network traffic. It does this by facilitating the generation of your own traffic. You can define a specific IP address or hostname, which the tool will then intentionally bombard with traffic. This process will give you insight into your network performance. You can even define the size and circuit bandwidth percentage, then create data for your WAN tests.

There’s much to like about this tool. You can proactively test network and load balancing by tracking UDP/TCP packets, which will give you insight into how your network performs under specific traffic load conditions, and you can study network activities without using real traffic. The tool takes a risk-free approach to interactively test connections and edit IP traffic, thereby generating the network load you’ve specified. WAN Killer is a flexible tool allowing you to adjust port numbers, packet size, and bandwidth percentage, as well as modify the Differentiated Services Code Point and Explicit Congestion Notification settings.

Once you’ve installed Engineer’s Toolset, you can access WAN Killer by visiting the Diagnostics folder. The launch process is quick and easy. Because WAN Killer supports application-wide settings, you won’t need to adjust settings every time network traffic is generated.

A massive benefit of Engineer’s Toolset is the quantity of tools it delivers. When combined, these tools enable you to effectively manage, troubleshoot, and monitor your entire network. Each one is easily accessible and contained within a single desktop console. There are some truly impressive tools in this bundle. Aside from WAN Killer, I particularly like Memory Monitor, CPU Monitor, Interface Monitor, Response Time Monitor, and TraceRoute.

Engineer’s Toolset features an automatic discovery tool, which will find all your connected network devices and create a network topology map. It can also track availability of devices, utilization of memory, CPU load, the performance of network paths, the latency of network paths, and interface stats. It’s extremely user friendly and dynamic. I especially like the topology maps and other graphical representations, which include pie charts and line graphs.

If you want to try WAN Killer Traffic Generator, download the fully functional 14-day free trial of Engineer’s Toolset.

Web Server Stress Test

Web server stress test tool windows

Packet Sender is a free, open source application with no advertisements and no bundles. It’s capable of sending and receiving TCP, UDP, and SSL on your chosen ports, which enables customized testing. Servers and clients can run at the same time, so you can test in a streamlined and undisrupted way, and all data can be defined, whether in ASCII or HEX. This is a cross-platform tool for Windows, Mac, and Linux.

Packet Sender uses a command line and a GUI, providing a lot of flexibility in terms of the interface you use. The command-line interface accompanies all versions of the application, so you’ll have access whenever you need it.

Packet Sender can be used for a range of activities, including the automation of testing through the use of its command-line tool and hotkeys. It also lets you test network APIs with the built-in UDP, TCP, and SSL clients, and analyzes malware with the UDP, TCP, and SSL servers. Even firewalls and connectivity can be tested. The tool accomplishes this by getting packet senders to communicate with each other.

By providing portable packet senders with predefined settings and packets to customers, Packet Sender is also a means of supporting tech. In addition, it allows you to conduct security research by sending SSL and then analyzing the resulting traffic log.

Packet Sender, available on GitHub, is a great way of controlling network-based devices with minimal manual input and labor. The network generator utility is an effective means of stress-testing devices, and you can use the cloud service to share, save, and collaborate. I like Packet Sender cloud for the way it facilitates collaboration. With it, you can even publicly display and distribute packets for collaboration, tutorials, and utilization by end users via URL.

Packet Sender offers mobile applications for both iOS and Android. These can be purchased at a small cost from either the Google Play store (for Android) or the Apple App Store (for iOS). The mobile applications are a nice touch, and they don’t incorporate any ads, analytics, or calls for reviews. Still, they’re limited in functionality.

Overall, Packet Sender is an effective network traffic generator and analyzer. It’s a great way of finding holes in your firewall, and its lack of a price tag is appealing. However, free and open source tools come with several disadvantages. They don’t tend to be as user friendly as other tools, and they can be less reliable. They’re also not especially suited to business needs. Still, if you want to give Packet Sender a try, downloading it is zero risk. I personally don’t think it’s as dynamic and usable as it could be, but for a free tool the functionalities are generous.

Nping is another popular open source program for network packet generation, response analysis, and response time analysis. With this tool, you can create your own custom packets for flexible protocol testing. Protocol headers can be configured to your liking, allowing you to essentially fine tune your testing approach.

Nping is multifunctional, being both a ping tool and great for RAW packet generation, denial-of-service attacks, tracert, and ARP poisoning. It includes “echo mode,” which enables advanced discovery and troubleshooting. In echo mode, you can see how network packets change when they’re in transit, both at the target machine and at the source.

Essentially, this mode breaks Nping down into two elements—the echo server and the echo client. The echo server is a network service for capturing packets and echoing them to the original client via a side TCP channel. The echo client undertakes the generation of the packets and the transmission of the packets to the server. This element is also responsible for receiving the echoed versions. I like echo mode because it gives you full visibility into the variances between how a packet is sent and how it’s received.

Echo mode is also great for troubleshooting any firewall or routing problems. You can use it to identify whether traffic is being dropped in transit and lost. Because the Nping echo protocol lets client and server interact across an encrypted channel, the security of Nping is highly dependable.

Nping also features custom TCP, UP, ICMP, and ARP packet generation, along with route tracing utilities, and is useful for detecting packet disruption and understanding firewall rules. This is a highly supportive program, with support for multiple target port and target host specifications, Ethernet frame generation, and IPv6. It offers unprivileged modes for non-root users and is fairly customizable.

Like Packet Sender, this tool could be more user friendly. And as with most open source and free network stress test software, it’s not suited to business needs. It’s available for Linux, Mac, and Windows and is simple to download and install. The source code is accessible from the download page.

Ostinato is a popular network traffic and packet generator. This tool has a friendly GUI and boasts a Python API for automating network tests. It allows you to create your own traffic streams and offers surprising customization capabilities. One of the things I like most about Ostinato is the user interface is well designed, with many dynamic graphical representations.

Ostinato boasts features covering a wide scope of functionalities, which makes it a versatile tool. And this high quantity of utilities doesn’t mean the developers have compromised on quality. The features are intelligently designed and easy for the average user to get a handle on. As I mentioned, you can create your own streams; you can also configure them in an in-depth way, with consideration of stream rates, bursts, and number of packets. This is a tool suited to network load testing and functional testing. It affords you the ability to visualize data on a “per stream” basis, giving you an accurate look at packet loss measurements at a granular level.

Ostinato is also great for achieving real-time network measurement and monitoring. Its efficient and economical design enables you to receive and transmit stats and rates at the level of the interface. There is also the fact that Ostinato is highly compatible and supportive. It covers most protocols, including VLAN, ARP, IPv4 and IPv6, IP in IP, TCP and UDP, ICMPv4 and ICMPv6, IGMP, MLD, IEEE 802.3 LLC, SNAP, and text-based protocols.

With Ostinato you can stack protocols in random order to test error cases and vary packet fields across packets at the runtime stage—for example, by changing the IP/MAC addresses. The tool features user-defined scripting, which can be utilized to substitute a protocol that hasn’t been implemented. You can open, edit, replay, and save PCAP files. And despite there being only one controller, you can have multiple agents.

All in all, this is a feature-heavy tool. There are, however, a few important functions Ostinato will not do. Among these, it should be noted Ostinato is stateless, which means it doesn’t support stateful connection-oriented TCP connections. Moreover, it’s not suitable for generating fake traffic and sending it to websites.

If you want to give Ostinato a try, you can download it here. There are three packages available. The first is for use on either Windows, Mac OS, or a single distribution of Linux. The second package is a desktop bundle available for all three—Windows, Mac OS, and Linux (it supports upward of seven Linux distributions). This package features free updates and example streams. The super bundle, package three, features all of the above, plus Live ISO and virtual appliance compatibility. Two add-ons—Python API and Turbo Transmit—are also available. Turbo Transmit gives you 10G, 25G, or 40G speeds, while Python API is suitable for boosting automation capacities.

NetScanTools Pro network testing software includes the Packet Generator and Packet Flooder tools. Packet Generator is a decent tool allowing you to create a UDP, TCP, CDP, ICMP, ARP/RARP, or RAW packet and send either a single packet or multiple packets to an IPv4 address. This tool was designed primarily as a packet generating and crafting utility. If you want to flood a network with packets and traffic as a means of stress testing it, then you’ll want to combine Packet Generator with the Packet Flooder tool. Alone, Packet Generator cannot create high-speed traffic and won’t respond to returning packets. A combination of the two, however, could make for a comprehensive tool.

With Packet Generator, you’re afforded complete control over headers, including the destination of MAC addresses, the source of Ethernet traffic, and IP, TCP, UDP, and ICMP header fields. This program is great for sending multiple types of packets in quick succession by utilizing scripting processes, and for playing back a packet capture file saved in the past.

One feature I like about Packet Generator is the fact that packet transmissions are scripted. Scripting is simple, and the feature means the parameters of your packets can be changed according to edited script. I also like the mode dedicated to RAW packets. Basically, this mode lets you define the packet by using the NetScanTools hex editor. RAW packet length is limited by the maximum transmission unit of your network (usually 1460 bytes).

Unfortunately, Packet Generator doesn’t have the capability to send customized packets via WAN interfaces such as modems. It can only send via wired Ethernet or wireless 802.11x interfaces. Packet Flooder, meanwhile, is primarily a UDP network traffic generator. It’s able to send packets to IPv4 and IPv6 addresses at a relatively high speed, achieving as much as 98% bandwidth usage under certain circumstances. The major drawback to this tool is it cannot send packet types other than UDP.

With the NetScanTools Packet Flooder tool, you can fix the target UDP port, or make it entirely random. This is useful for certain tests. Data payloads can also be customized, with adaptable length and content; payload content can include random characters, repeated characters of the alphabet, file data, or text data. This feature is available on any interface Windows can send UDP packets through.

Server Stress Test Tool Windows

Unlike Packet Generator, Packet Flooder does not use WinPcap or Npcap. This means there aren’t any limitations as to which devices are compatible. Rather, the interface is determined by the operating system, according to the IPv4 or IPv6 routing table contents. It’s worth noting, the bandwidth utilization achieved with this tool depends on data reports generated by the operating system. Reports take the form of a historical chart or a gauge—two dynamic and easy-to-read methods for displaying data.

If you want to try the NetScanTools Packet Generator and Packet Flooder, check out the NetScanTools Pro demo version, which is free for 30 days. Bear in mind this isn’t the full version, and the demo version cannot be converted to the full version simply by unlocking it.

TRex is another open source program, though this one isn’t free. Still, it’s a good value, and it boasts a flexible offering. TRex incorporates both stateful feature sets and stateless feature sets. The stateful feature sets include support for DPDK ½.5/5/10/25/40/50/100Gbps interfaces, a high scale of traffic (up to 200-400GB per second), latency measurements, jitter measurements, checks for flow ordering, and NAT/PAT translation learning.

The stateless feature sets include the ability to craft stateless streams of traffic up to a scale of 20 million packets per second, along with support for numerous streams; the capacity to alter any field within the packet; continuous support, burst support, multi-use support, multi-burst support, console support, and GUI support; per-stream statistics for latency and jitter; and Python API for boosted automation.

This is a good tool for benchmarking and stress testing NAT, firewall, IPS, load balancer, and network cache devices, offering unlimited concurrent flows. The main issue with TRex is it doesn’t offer support for routing emulation plugins, like BGP, ISIS, and RIP.

Top-Ranking Network Traffic Generator

When looking for a tool to generate or simulate network traffic, you’ll encounter a wide variety of options. After reading this guide, you should have a sense of the available tools and which might be best suited to your needs. Some are free and more limited in scope, while others are part of comprehensive toolsets. When available, take advantage of the free versions of the premium software.

SolarWinds Engineer’s Toolset, specifically WAN Killer, is my favorite network traffic generator on the market. Alongside the traffic generator element itself, the overall offering included in the wider toolset is unbeatable. With more than 60 tools working together with remarkable success rates, ETS offers great value, intelligent features, and a user-friendly design, and it’s available as a free trial.