iStat – System Monitoring – Review

Our rating:

By: iStat - System Monitoring

Version #: 1.0

Date Released: 2009-01-23

Developer: Marc Edwards

Price: 1.99

User Rating:

Loading...

Download App

Network and system monitoring can get very tricky—especially with many computers that need to be up and running as close to 24/7 as possible. Monitoring tools and SNMP have been my saviors. But I’ve always needed either a web interface or an application.

Now we have iStat—an iPhone based computer monitoring app. To use iStat to its fullest, you’ll need to install the iStat server on a Mac. (Currently, iStat can only monitor Mac, LINUX and Solaris computers.) The iStat server is free, and easy to install.   

After I installed the iStat server, getting the iStat app to see the Mac was easy; iStat used bonjour and found the computers automatically. After entering the ‘password’, my phone saw all the information I would need– network usage, CPU usage, hard drive space used, system load, etc.  

The stats on the iPhone are similar as well. It does have one neat ‘button’ though—“Free Memory”. I’m not really 100% sure what it does; it does make the ‘free memory’ section much larger. But, anecdotally my phone seemed more ‘stable’ and ‘faster’. (The jury is out if it’s just a psychological effect or not.)

iStat also has a ping and a traceroute tools—two networking tools that have proved invaluable over the years.  When we tested them, they performed perfectly.  

As a system administrator, iStat is a necessary app—being able quickly diagnose network and computer issues efficiently and from my phone is fantastic. iStat is a must have!  

Quick Take

Value: HIGH

Would I Buy Again:  Absolutely

Learning Curve: As a network and system admin, there wasn’t much to ‘learn’. I did have to install a “server” process on each computer I was monitoring though.

Who Is It For: System administrators, network administrators, and any other people that want to keep track of what’s happening on their computers and LANs.

What I Like:  It works well, easily, and has a clean design. Using bonjour, iStat apps find the iStat servers easily and quickly. It doesn’t get much better than this!

What I Don’t: No PC iStat server so you can’t monitor Windows computers. No alerts—it’d be great if I could look at my iStat app and quickly know if there’s any problem; rather than finding out there’s a problem and using iStat to resolve it.

Final Statement: This is one of the most useful network apps I’ve used. A must have for any network or system administrators. I hope that they continue to enhance this app; I can only imagine what the next version will be like!