Review: Top Android Wi-Fi stumblers and analyzers for under $10

In this review, we look at eight Android Wi-Fi stumbler and analyzer apps for less than $10. All are available on the official Google Play store. We compared the products based on their GUI, features and functionality.

All the Wi-Fi apps we tested will show you a list of nearby service set identifiers (SSIDs) or access points along with basic details like the channel it’s operating on and signal strength. All the apps give you the signal strength in the negative dBm values and have some sort of visual representation on what I call a signal bar indicator. Some of the apps offer further network details, such as the access points vendor, media access control (MAC) and IP addresses.

The three most feature-rich apps we reviewed are WiFi Overview 360 Pro, WiFi Data+, and WiFi Analyzer Pro. (Watch of each product.)

WiFi Overview 360 Pro is packed with unique features, like the ability to prioritize your device’s network list, widgets for your device’s home screens, and the network tools Ping and Trace. It also gives you a couple of different types of strength values, gauges, and indicators. Our only gripe concerns the graphs showing the signal over time of each access point. You can’t view a single signal graph with all the access points; each access point has its own small graph. Plus the signal line resets when you access another tab.

WiFi Data+ also offers more than just a basic Wi-Fi stumbler. It gives the IP address and other details for your current Wi-Fi and Internet (WAN) connection. It’s one of the few that makes sharing or saving the captured data easy as well. The biggest improvement would be offering separate graphs for 2.4 and 5 GHz; right now both bands show the signal strength over time for the access points on the same graph.

WiFi Analyzer Pro also provides network details on your current connection and the AP. But what we found most convenient is that you can identify overlapping access points on the signal line graph and you can pause the scanning of the app. However, it’s network list could use improvements to be more user-friendly.

WiFi Insight has a solid look and feel, with thorough help and documentation. Plus, it’s unique roaming graph can help you evaluate hand-offs between access points. However, it’s uncommon channel usage graph might be considered a drawback.

WiFi Analyzer is a more basic Wi-Fi stumbler, but offers a shortcut to quickly take screen shots in order to save the data. The biggest differentiator is that this app doesn’t age out the access points that are no longer detected, which can be useful in situations where you want to track all access points in a larger area. Additionally, unlike most other apps, access points from both bands appear on the same line graph showing the signals over time. This could actually be a pro or con, depending upon your network environment and personal preferences.

insider is a pretty basic, but solid, Wi-Fi stumbler app. It’s filtering capabilities can be convenient when working with a lot of access points, which may justify the near $10 price tag.

WiFi Scanner is a fairly basic app as well, concentrating more on the graphs. In addition to providing the two typical graphs, it offers a noise graph to visually show the amount of interfering access points on the channels. However, this app lacks access point details (like MAC address) and also SSID labels for the access points on the graphs.

Though WIFI Scan Pro needs much improvement and full 5 GHz support before we can recommend this app, it’s the only one here that allows you to generate PDF reports and offers host scanning.

Here are the individual reviews of the Android Wi-Fi stumbler and analyzer apps:

inSSIDer

inSSIDer is from MetaGeek, which offers additional software and hardware products for professional-grade Wi-Fi troubleshooting, optimizing, and surveying. They provide similar Wi-Fi software under the inSSIDer name for Windows and Mac computers as well, priced at $19.99. The Android edition is currently available for $9.99 on Google Pay, which has a 4 out of 5 star rating from 384 users. We evaluated version 4.0.2.9.

After you open the app, the first tab shown is ESSIDs. There you see a list of all the access points grouped by the radios, which you can also group by ESSID. Details for each access point include the signal strength in negative dBm values and also a small signal indicator, channel, MAC address (when grouped by radios), and supported security protocols. You can also filter the access point list (and consequently, the channel usage graphs) by defining an SSID, MAC address, channel, or signal.

On the Details tab, you can drill down on any network you’ve selected from ESSID tab. It includes the same basic details shown on the ESSID tab, but also a line graph showing access point signal strength over time. If you had grouped by Radio, you’d also see some interference analysis, such as number of overlapping or co-channel access points and recommended channels. If you had grouped by ESSID and multiple access points or radios broadcasting the same SSID, you’d see them all listed and graphed on the Details tab.

On the 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz tabs you’ll find a channel usage graph for the respective frequency band. If grouped by Radio, the access points are labeled the MAC addresses, or if grouped by ESSID, the access points are labeled with their SSID.

On the app menu, you’ll only find a shortcut to opt-in or out of the anonymous usage reporting. There’s no option to save or export the results, nor does it allow you to pause the scanning to temporally save the data. We also didn’t find any in-app help or any documentation online specifically for this app. There’s a pretty consistent look and feel between the different platforms but as the feature comparison shows, there are some differences.

WiFi Analyzer

WiFi Analyzer (not related to the next app) is the ad-free edition of WiFi Analyzer Lite. It is developed by Martin Hloušek, who offers a few other apps as well. Consider trying the free edition before purchasing the AD-free edition, currently running for $2.75 on Google Play. Both editions have an average of 4 out of 5 stars, but the ad-free edition has received ratings from 127 users, while the free edition has from 1,183 users. We evaluated the ad-free edition, version 2.3.

When you open WiFi Analyzer, you see the list of access points, from both the 2.4 and 5 GHz bands. By default, the access point list is sorted by best to worse signal, but in the app settings you can also sort by SSID or BSSID. For each access point, you find a signal indicator and negative dBm value, channel, MAC address, supported security protocols, and vendor name. We noticed it showed more access points than most of the apps we tried, which is likely because it doesn’t filter out any of the access points with very faint signals, like most others do and it keeps access points in the list even after no signal is detected. Furthermore, the signal bar indicators also include a line to represent the highest signal detected for that particular access point.

Clicking a network from the list pops-up with the optimize option. Access points that you mark as optimize will be excluded from the channel scoring graph. The idea here is that you could mark your own access points or perhaps temporary access points that won’t be broadcasting later.

There’s no traditional save or export feature, but the app does offer a quick screen shot feature. From the menu, you simply tap Screenshot. Although it doesn’t say where they’re saved on the phone, we found ours at \DCIM\100MEDIA\Tiny WiFi Analyzer.

There aren’t any buttons or tabs in the app for navigating to the other screens. You swipe the screen to do so. The first screen shown when you swipe to the left is a listing of all 2.4- and 5-GHz channels. Indicators are shown for each channel, scoring how free the channels are from detected signals.

Another swipe to the left takes you to a signal graph showing the negative dBm signal values for each access point in the 2.4 GHz band. The next left swipe shows a similar graph for the 5-GHz band.

There’s one more screen offered by the app, but it’s a right swipe from the default screen showing the network list. This screen shows a graph of the negative dBm signal strength over time from each access point.

The app has a Settings screen that you can access via its menu. We found some convenient functionality, such as being able to disable the lock screen and change the sorting of the network list. However, there is no in-app help nor could we find any documentation online, but there is a closed Google+ group you can join where perhaps you might find help if needed.

WiFi Analyzer Pro

WiFi Analyzer Pro (not related to the previous app) is the ad-free edition of WiFi Analyzer. It is developed by Zoltán Pallagi, who offers a few other network-related apps as well. You might try the free edition before purchasing the Pro edition, currently running for $2.75 on Google Play. The Pro edition has about an average of 4 ½ out of 5 stars from 68 users, while the free edition has 4 starts from 2,834 users. We evaluated the Pro edition, version 1.3.0.

After opening the app, you find three tabs. The first tab shown is the Dashboard, containing many different details of your current Wi-Fi connection. First are the gauges showing link speed and access point latency, signal strength bar, and signal quality stars. Next are the basic network details, such as the access point’s MAC address and channel and your device’s IP and MAC addresses. Next are the access point details: IP address, supported security protocols, and vendor. The last section had DHCP details, giving you the access point’s IP, netmask, DNS, and lease time settings.

On the Networks tab, you see a line graph showing the signals of access points in the negative dBm values. By default, it only shows access points that are overlapping on the channel of the access point you’re currently connected to, which can be convenient if you’re trying to evaluate interference. You can always tap the checkbox to see all access points. Below the graph are the same exact network, access point, and DHCP details for your current connection shown on the dashboard tab.

On the Channels tab, you see a graph of the channels and the signals of all access points, which you can switch between the two frequency bands. For 5GHz, you can also hide the less-popular DFS channels. Below the graph are again the same network, access point, and DHCP details for your current connection shown on the dashboard tab.

On the bottom of the app are some buttons that are always shown. Pause and Resume allow you to toggle the scanning on and off. The Analyze button pops up with a report showing if the current connection has passed or failed some criteria, which can help during troubleshooting a network or to proactively run at any time.

The Networks button brings up a pop-up window with a list of all the networks and their details, including the signal, channel, MAC address, supported security protocols, and vendor.

The app has a Setting page, where you can define the refresh time during scanning and hostname for the DNS resolving. There is no real saving or exporting, but you can pause scanning to temporarily keep the captured data for reference until the app is ended. There is also no in-app help, but we did find some unofficial documentation online.

WiFi Data+

WiFi Data+ is by Propane Apps, which offers a couple of other Android apps. On Google Play, this app is currently priced at $1.29. They offer a free edition of this app as well, but it has ads and lacks some features, such as external (WAN) IP reporting. The Plus edition has an average rating of 4 ½ out of 5 stars from 58 users, while the free edition has 4 starts from 1,246 users. We evaluated the Pro edition, version 3.0.2.

After opening the app, you’ll see the Connection tab. There you see the network details of your current mobile data or Wi-Fi connection, including the access point’s SSID, MAC and IP addresses, and vendor. Device details include the MAC, IP, and DNS addresses and link speed.

On the External tab, you find the IP address and other details on your device’s current Internet (WAN) connection, whether via mobile data or Wi-Fi.