SpeedCheckr is a free tool from This easy to download and self install tool can sit on your desktop or server as a service (installed as sequencer) and sends about 20 packets per minute of precisely timed ICMP packets and measures the distortion on the sequencer to determine all of the key network performance indicators. Once the data is sent, the product tracks how long it took for the information to reach its destination and how long it takes for the information sent out to bounce back from the target computer to your computer.
After running the tool for couple of hours on my 1 GB RAM crap PC, its a delight to see that there is not much of impact on bandwidth due the product itself although i would keep any eye on memory usage on the PC if you are running the service for long hours. Having said that no issues have been identified during the test. The results does show difference in network speed to various locations and forms a sound case to argue with hosting providers if the speed is found slower than what has been promised.
With the collected information the product produces a dashboard of intuitive reports in form of graphs providing insights into "Total Capacity", "Utilized Capacity", "Available Capacity" on the computer along with "Data Loss", "Latency and "Round Trip Time" reports. The product team have also confirmed that SpeedCheckr does not capture, record, sniff or in any way measure your actual network traffic to determine utilized capacity metric.
SpeedCheckr is only a monitoring solution and not a diagnostic tool to pinpoint any performance issues on the desktop. Such a need to pinpoint the issue and suggest possible fix is included in AppNeta's other suite of products viz. PathView Cloud service. The product while installation allows you to choose from pre-configured default targets, however is not capable yet to add your own locational targets.
“Unlike many free speed testing tools available today, SpeedCheckr offers a truly easy and accurate solution to measure Internet speed and performance,” said Matt Stevens, CTO, AppNeta. “We are excited to bring to the industry a more intelligent, lightweight approach for measuring and continuously monitoring performance so that users can be confident in their results and resolve performance issues quickly.”
