For anyone who does prefer a CLI-based approach, I maintain RustNet https://github.com/domcyrus/rustnet which is open source and cross-platform (Linux, macOS, Windows) with real-time connection monitoring, deep packet inspection, process identification, and a terminal UI. Obviously a different kind of tool than a polished GUI app like this, but if you live in the terminal or want something you can script and automate, it might be worth a look.
On the macOS network tools side, have you looked into PKTAP? I use it in RustNet to get process-level attribution for network connections. Might be worth exploring if you want to tie traffic back to specific processes.
n1sni 1 days ago [-]
As a rust lover I'll take a look! Thanks
billyhoffman 1 days ago [-]
Congratulations on shipping! Looks awesome.
Minor bug: I tried opening the WebP screen shots in another tab so I could zoom and see them more clearly, and it does not work. Chrome renders the WebP image data as text, and Safari prompts you to download it. This appears to be because the web server is not returning a `Content-Type` header for these URLs:
Minor suggestion. I found this because the UI looked cool and I wanted to see a more zoomed in view of it. But right now the "Take control of your network today" is the only place with a really readable view of the UI. Perhaps add a gallery of screen shots, showing off different features?
n1sni 1 days ago [-]
Noted! The help section on the site shows quite a bit more detail (although, it needs updating)... but you bring up a great point.
alsetmusic 22 hours ago [-]
Really cool to see this come back after the first pass. I always wonder if an interesting project will be seen again after someone asks for feedback. I'm really happy that you're back to show progress on this and will give it a test run tomorrow to maximize the seven day demo.
I chose this particular point to comment to further encourage a screenshot gallery and to mention that Help is a section I'm unlikely to open unless I'm learning about an API. Just wanted to share why I wouldn't have found that screenshot without you pointing to it.
Congrats again. Looks great!
peddling-brink 1 days ago [-]
Looks very neat.
Have you considered offering it through the App Store? I would pay a modestly higher price for that. Or for open source.
But the combination of closed source and not being on the App Store is a bit of a dealbreaker for me.
n1sni 1 days ago [-]
I have considered it, but it would lose a lot of features. It would have to be a "lite" version. To get what we need, we would have to use an external device (think Raspberry Pi) to get the information needed. It's something we are looking at... but as a network guy, I use stuff outside the app store every day (Wireshark, Ekahau, etc.) and have no issue with it.
runjake 1 days ago [-]
I am not the OP, but my guess is that it uses APIs that disqualify it from the App Store. It looks like they are doing stuff with raw sockets and probably using some stuff from private 802.11 frameworks?
The app looks fantastic. I'll probably end up buying it.
billyp-rva 1 days ago [-]
I'm very curious as someone who also offers Mac software but not on the app store... why is not being on there a dealbreaker?
jon-wood 1 days ago [-]
Not the OP, but for me it's a combination of factors. For subscription software I like knowing I can cancel easily and will keep that subscription til the end of my current term. More generally it just means I know it'll be accessible to me in the future, regardless of whether your company goes bust and stops paying for the license activation servers.
lenkite 1 days ago [-]
They are less accessible in the future. Apps on the macOS App Store (as well as iOS, iPadOS, etc.) are taken down / removed from availability if the developer stops paying the Apple Developer Program subscription.
asqueella 1 days ago [-]
People outside US may be able to pay through App store, but not through whatever payment processor you use.
reboot81 1 days ago [-]
For me it’s dealbreaker that it’s available via homebrew.
Not a stance or anything, but when I get a new Mac I use homebrew bundle
If it’s not in my brewfile from old Mac, theres a high probability I won’t get it installed.
alsetmusic 21 hours ago [-]
I have been a champion of Apple's MacOS Migration Assistant workflow for well over a decade. My system is stable enough that I won't consider a "clean" start with a new machine. I've had to reinstall for disaster recovery outside of that.
But I also love Homebrew and I'm glad that will become an option going forward. I have a Launchd job update and run maintenance on all brew tools every night.
n1sni 1 days ago [-]
This is actually really cool. I use Homebrew all the time, but didn't know GUI paid apps were a thing. Wow. THANK YOU! Coming to brew line near you soon :)
n1sni 1 days ago [-]
I don't have a lot of experience with this... I'll look into it.
pjmlp 16 hours ago [-]
Beware of similarities with similarly named commercial products for networks.
I talked to you last month when you posted this. I did end up buying a copy, and it has been somewhat useful.
Three things, it drives me nuts when it migates to the localhost interface, but doesn't migrate back. Either, we need to lock to an interface, or just have the option to remove one.
Two, constantly bouncing in the dock is incredibly annoying and distracting. We don't need more distractions, we need less.
Three, showing the wifi mesh info has actually proven to help, but it would really be even more helpful if you could expand that to rates and more wifi protocols.
n1sni 1 days ago [-]
Hello!
I think I might have missed that feedback - please send again!
1) This has been fixed - if you update, it will automatically move back to the default gateway interface.
2) That can be disabled in the settings...
3) On it's way :)
keyle 21 hours ago [-]
May I suggest more screenshots, front and center?
I had a difficult time to work out whether this software is for me.
Show, more than tell.
VladVladikoff 21 hours ago [-]
Strongly agree, on mobile it was hard to really see what the app does.
rconti 5 hours ago [-]
How do your licenses work? I'm interested in purchasing a license, and wondering what computers I can use it on.
Is the license per user, or per computer?
n1sni 3 hours ago [-]
One license allows one user to install it on three of their devices. There are also enterprise licensing options, with details on the purchase page.
nickthegreek 1 days ago [-]
The info on your About page
>NetViews is a modern, macOS network scanning app inspired by the specialized needs of IT, engineering, and network professionals. It combines host discovery, port scanning, real-time monitoring, and vendor/DNS insights with a clean, native interface - giving you the tools you need without the complexity you don't.
Should be right on the front page above the fold.
n1sni 1 days ago [-]
Awesome feedback. I just re-did the site 2 days ago - so still moving stuff around. But you are RIGHT.
edmundsauto 1 days ago [-]
If I may offer a marketing suggestion - make it easy for people to do a “proam” workflow to setup their own network. A “one click to diagnose and visualize your Wi-Fi setup”. And then write content around that.
This tool looks more powerful than what I would use, but if there were a kid version, I’d like someone to tell me how to improve my network performance.
n1sni 1 days ago [-]
I've been thinking more and more about this - with all the crazy number of variables, it would be hard to code. So, I've been thinking of collecting EVERYTHING this gets, and then using AI to assist with a summary/description written for a 5-year-old :) Not sure I like the approach, but worth looking into.
kylec 21 hours ago [-]
Huge win on the name change. I'm never going to install an app called Pingstalker on my computer, it would feel gross and I'd worry other people might see it and be alarmed by it.
Looks useful and I like the UI, it reminds me of UniFi. After a few minutes I had to force-quit and sent a report. I will buy it, I love messing about and have a reasonably complex home network and have been getting by with a mix of Unix and homemade tools; this is nicer.
n1sni 1 days ago [-]
Interesting! I haven't run into that. I've been doing a ton of testing to avoid things like that. If it happens again, would you mind emailing me the report via the website? I don't get them when sent to Apple.
phubbard 22 hours ago [-]
I have a log but sorry, can't find an email address in the app or on your site. How can I send it to you?
n1sni 3 hours ago [-]
Please use: netviews (at) bmmup.com - you can also find that on our about page.
Thank you!
brailsafe 1 days ago [-]
Looks great I don't have a nees for it, but I'm also happy to see more specialized tools being built natively for macOS, despite Apple's poor releases lately. I have no plans to use anything but a mac in the near future, and normally am happy to pay for a well-crafted mac first app.
Did you use or have any problems with SwiftUI that you found workarounds for? It's been a while since I've played with it, but last I checked it was a bit underperforming and opaque
protocolture 19 hours ago [-]
At 20 dollars this would be an auto buy for me if:
1. I could confirm it does AP and Client reports in standard.
2. It was on Windows where myself and 99.99% of the remote hands that I work with live.
2 is my biggest barrier. Because even if I migrated to applestan, I wont be able to run it everywhere I need it to be.
defenestrated 22 hours ago [-]
Can you add a feature to do MAC spoofing? One can do it with terminal commands today but this would be easier to spoof a given AP's / client's MAC right from the table. Helps debug reserved IP from DHCP, fulfill captive portals for otherwise dumb devices (wifi cameras), etc
yohannparis 1 days ago [-]
Great job, I will give it a try.
As I'm more interested for personal use, can it help me find the best WiFi channel to use for my network, as I live in a dense populated area?
n1sni 1 days ago [-]
Yes - by telling you what ones NOT to use. Click audit and then Wi-Fi Checklist. Choose your network, and then it will tell you if you are on a good channel or not, automatically!
rylando 1 days ago [-]
Is that a feature of the $20 plan? Or only the $50?
n1sni 1 days ago [-]
Both will tell you - the $50 one will be much more detailed... but both give you yes/no feedback.
jvican 6 hours ago [-]
Does it do bufferbloat checks?
moduspol 1 days ago [-]
Looks great. I bought a license just so I'm sure I've got it next time I'm debugging a network issue.
n1sni 1 days ago [-]
Glad to hear it - send suggestions, please!
Brajeshwar 1 days ago [-]
I downloaded, tried to try but I got "You've already used your 7-day trial on this Mac."
n1sni 1 days ago [-]
Interesting! Sorry to hear this. Have you used the trial before? Let me think how to fix this for you... feel free to reach out via email.
rylando 1 days ago [-]
Is it possible to buy the standard version and upgrade to the pro later for the difference between the two pricing tiers ($30)?
n1sni 1 days ago [-]
Yes - I'm trying to figure out how best to do that (using an automated discount code or something), but email me, and I'll make it 100% happen.
Also, I JUST enabled a 20% discount code if that helps you make a decision: HNROCKS - good for one day.
luckman212 19 hours ago [-]
Is that code still active? I just tried to use it to buy the Pro version but it says it's invalid...
n1sni 3 hours ago [-]
Just extended it out - enjoy!
thoughtpeddler 24 hours ago [-]
How is this different from Little Snitch or Lulu?
oreoftw 24 hours ago [-]
Snitch is a firewall, not sure about Lulu.
drob518 1 days ago [-]
Looks nice. MacOS has needed something like this for quite a while.
greatgib 11 hours ago [-]
Competent network engineers don't use MacOS ...
haloblue 1 days ago [-]
Excellent tool so far. Thanks for getting this out there.
n1sni 1 days ago [-]
Thank you!
molszanski 1 days ago [-]
This looks so pretty and awesome :)
RIMR 1 days ago [-]
My first thought, as a network engineer, is that I already have access to pretty much every feature of this tool from the CLI. You ask if I would give that up for this app, and the answer is "not unless you integrate all the other CLI tools I use as features". Obviously, that's not reasonable, because my needs (like most engineers) are overly specific. You could never please everyone.
If this were an iPad/iPhone app, I would say that you nailed it, because this would be way easier and more complete than any of the tooling I have available on a mobile device right now. Otherwise, all of my other tooling is in the CLI, so I would ultimately be going out of my way to use this tool on my Mac.
The easiest fix I can think of is to open the door to third-party/community extensions so that people can add their own tooling to the app. You mention that this is largely a bunch of CLI wrappers, so it would be very helpful if we could write our own, and maybe even share them with each other.
n1sni 1 days ago [-]
Understood. Trust me, I still keep a few consoles open... but it's a lot fewer tabs with NetViews going because for my use cases, it's doing 95+% of the work without effort.
I really like the extension idea... hmmm....
wiredpancake 24 hours ago [-]
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lucastytthhh 1 days ago [-]
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frknky92 1 days ago [-]
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chenmx 17 hours ago [-]
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Rendered at 23:01:30 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time) with Vercel.
Cool to see more network tools for macOS.
For anyone who does prefer a CLI-based approach, I maintain RustNet https://github.com/domcyrus/rustnet which is open source and cross-platform (Linux, macOS, Windows) with real-time connection monitoring, deep packet inspection, process identification, and a terminal UI. Obviously a different kind of tool than a polished GUI app like this, but if you live in the terminal or want something you can script and automate, it might be worth a look.
On the macOS network tools side, have you looked into PKTAP? I use it in RustNet to get process-level attribution for network connections. Might be worth exploring if you want to tie traffic back to specific processes.
Minor bug: I tried opening the WebP screen shots in another tab so I could zoom and see them more clearly, and it does not work. Chrome renders the WebP image data as text, and Safari prompts you to download it. This appears to be because the web server is not returning a `Content-Type` header for these URLs:
curl --head https://www.netviews.app/_astro/ss7.D8bYvHF6_1awjYx.webp
EDIT: Fixed! I see a Content-Type header now
curl --head https://www.netviews.app/_astro/ss7.D8bYvHF6_1awjYx.webp HTTP/1.1 200 OK Date: Tue, 10 Feb 2026 16:54:07 GMT Server: Apache X-Content-Type-Options: nosniff X-Frame-Options: SAMEORIGIN X-XSS-Protection: 1; mode=block Referrer-Policy: strict-origin-when-cross-origin Strict-Transport-Security: max-age=31536000; includeSubDomains Upgrade: h2,h2c Connection: Upgrade Last-Modified: Tue, 10 Feb 2026 16:46:18 GMT ETag: "d312-64a7afe97fe46" Accept-Ranges: bytes Content-Length: 54034 Content-Type: image/webp
I chose this particular point to comment to further encourage a screenshot gallery and to mention that Help is a section I'm unlikely to open unless I'm learning about an API. Just wanted to share why I wouldn't have found that screenshot without you pointing to it.
Congrats again. Looks great!
Have you considered offering it through the App Store? I would pay a modestly higher price for that. Or for open source.
But the combination of closed source and not being on the App Store is a bit of a dealbreaker for me.
The app looks fantastic. I'll probably end up buying it.
Not a stance or anything, but when I get a new Mac I use homebrew bundle If it’s not in my brewfile from old Mac, theres a high probability I won’t get it installed.
But I also love Homebrew and I'm glad that will become an option going forward. I have a Launchd job update and run maintenance on all brew tools every night.
https://www.javad.com/product/netview/
https://www.ibm.com/products/z-netview
https://www.netviewsystems.com/
Three things, it drives me nuts when it migates to the localhost interface, but doesn't migrate back. Either, we need to lock to an interface, or just have the option to remove one.
Two, constantly bouncing in the dock is incredibly annoying and distracting. We don't need more distractions, we need less.
Three, showing the wifi mesh info has actually proven to help, but it would really be even more helpful if you could expand that to rates and more wifi protocols.
1) This has been fixed - if you update, it will automatically move back to the default gateway interface. 2) That can be disabled in the settings... 3) On it's way :)
I had a difficult time to work out whether this software is for me.
Show, more than tell.
Is the license per user, or per computer?
>NetViews is a modern, macOS network scanning app inspired by the specialized needs of IT, engineering, and network professionals. It combines host discovery, port scanning, real-time monitoring, and vendor/DNS insights with a clean, native interface - giving you the tools you need without the complexity you don't.
Should be right on the front page above the fold.
This tool looks more powerful than what I would use, but if there were a kid version, I’d like someone to tell me how to improve my network performance.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46964141
Thank you!
Did you use or have any problems with SwiftUI that you found workarounds for? It's been a while since I've played with it, but last I checked it was a bit underperforming and opaque
1. I could confirm it does AP and Client reports in standard.
2. It was on Windows where myself and 99.99% of the remote hands that I work with live.
2 is my biggest barrier. Because even if I migrated to applestan, I wont be able to run it everywhere I need it to be.
Also, I JUST enabled a 20% discount code if that helps you make a decision: HNROCKS - good for one day.
If this were an iPad/iPhone app, I would say that you nailed it, because this would be way easier and more complete than any of the tooling I have available on a mobile device right now. Otherwise, all of my other tooling is in the CLI, so I would ultimately be going out of my way to use this tool on my Mac.
The easiest fix I can think of is to open the door to third-party/community extensions so that people can add their own tooling to the app. You mention that this is largely a bunch of CLI wrappers, so it would be very helpful if we could write our own, and maybe even share them with each other.
I really like the extension idea... hmmm....