Show HN: PingStalker – A macOS tool for network engineers

pingstalker.com

74 points by n1sni 6 days ago

Hi HN - I’m the developer of PingStalker, a macOS utility I built to see what’s really happening on the LAN/WLAN.

I live in the CLI, but when it came to discovery and monitoring, I found it limiting. So I built a GUI that brings my favorite tools together in one place.

PingStalker started because I wanted to know if something on the network was scanning my machine. I also wanted quick access to core details—external IP, Wi-Fi data, and local topology. Then I wanted more: fast, reliable scans using ARP tables and ICMP.

As a Wi-Fi engineer, I couldn’t stop there. I kept adding ways to surface what’s actually going on behind the scenes.

A few highlights:

- Performs ARP, ICMP, mDNS, and DNS scans to discover every device on your subnet, showing IP, MAC, vendor, and open ports.

- Continuously monitors selected hosts (“live ping”) to visualize latency spikes, missed pings, and reconnects.

- Detects VLANs on trunk or hybrid ports, exposing when your Mac is sitting on a tagged interface.

- Captures just the important live traffic — DHCP events, ARP broadcasts, 802.1X authentication, LLDP/CDP neighbor data, ICMP packets, and off-subnet chatter — to give you a real-time pulse of your network.

- Decodes mDNS traffic into human-readable form (that one took months of deep dives, but the output is finally clear and useful).

- Built my own custom vendor-logo database: I wrote a tool that links MAC OUIs with their companies, fetches each vendor’s favicon, and stores them locally so scan results feel alive and recognizable.

Under the hood it’s written in Swift. It uses low-level BSD sockets for ping and ARP, plus Apple’s Network framework for interface enumeration. The rest relies on familiar command-line tools. It’s fast.

I’d love feedback from anyone who builds or uses network diagnostic tools:

- Does this fill a gap you’ve run into on macOS?

- Any ideas for improving scan speed or how traffic events are visualized?

- What else would you like to see?

Details and screenshots: https://pingstalker.com

Happy to answer any technical questions about the implementation, Swift APIs, or macOS permission model.

PonyoSunshine - 7 hours ago

I was excited see what this could do, but the moment I saw it was a one day trial, I was so turned off that I didn't even bother wasting my time even looking into it and just removed it.

If you want people to invest time investigating your product to see if it's a good fit, don't rush them. I know you are probably eager to turn this into a profitable product, but this is not how to approach people like me if you want to see any sort of return.

Maybe make a lite version that is free and make your paid option have all the extra bells and whistles in it, but please, don't do this.

ayewo - 2 days ago

Congrats on shipping!

Apart from the obvious question of why you didn't opt to open source the tool :), I'm genuinely curious about how you approached development.

How did you decide for this feature A: "I'll just spawn child processes and read the output of `x-y-z` and `a-b-c` CLI tools, while for feature B: "I'll drop-down to BSD sockets"? Perhaps you have a performance budget: if using the Apple-provided CLI utilities are not fast enough then you drop down to writing BSD sockets?

mindcrash - a day ago

I think your market would open up and grow spectacularly if you could make a version of this for Linux (and possibly BSD). OpenSwiftUI might be a great start for research.

Good luck!

hilti - 2 days ago

Looks cool, but what do you mean by cross-platform?

PingStalker is a modern, cross-platform network scanning app inspired by the specialized needs of IT, engineering, and network professionals.

oigursh - 12 hours ago

Would you consider extending the trial to 7-days so I don't have to urgently make it the whole focus of my day?

AnonC - a day ago

I don’t know if this will be useful for me (on a phone right now and need to see the details on a Mac). I was intrigued as well as surprised by a “one day trial” offer. I’ve usually seen seven day trials, 30 day trials, etc. One day seems too short to me. A longer trial and/or based on number of launches may be better.

pharos92 - a day ago

Looks like a great and useful app. I'll definitely buy it.

Have you seen PingDoctor? https://apps.apple.com/us/app/pingdoctor/id1350044974?mt=12

I quite often login to routers/firewalls to pull the ARP and Route Tables. If there was an option to add an API Key + REGEX + HOST/s for processing with a one-click button that'd be rad

AlecSchueler - a day ago

The software actually looks really cool but I would question if the name is working in your favour. "Stalker" is a very loaded word and many people will have negative emotional reactions to it. It feels like one step away from "NetworkRapist."

stwr - a day ago

Congrats on shipping! Looks like a great tool to add to my toolkit for a very modest price!

Any big significant other features planned on the roadmap? Would be interesting to know what else you are planning to add over time. (If any)

easygenes - 2 days ago

Cool. For a moment I got excited and thought someone built an alternative to the crazy-spendy Ping Plotter. An always-running statistical view of traceroutes for multiple sites is something only they seem to be doing well.

alsetmusic - a day ago

Looks very cool. I'm especially impressed with the extensive documentation on day one. Well done!

c0nsumer - a day ago

Can you add wider channel width for wireless network captures? Your tool only offers 20 MHz and 40 MHz, but wdutil also offers 80 MHz and 160 MHz.

1over137 - 2 days ago

Thanks for supplying it outside Apple’s store!

- 6 days ago
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