Overview

Obkio combines synthetic tests between network locations with device health data, application checks, and visual traceroutes. That combination can help teams distinguish a network slowdown from a device, application, or user issue, then inspect where along a route performance degrades. The service uses synthetic traffic rather than capturing real user traffic, an approach that avoids collecting user sessions but does not monitor actual user traffic.

For category browsing, see Network Performance Monitoring Software, VoIP Monitoring Software, and Network Monitoring.

Key features

Frequent synthetic tests: Distributed agents test between locations every 500 milliseconds, measuring latency, packet loss, jitter, throughput, and MOS score. The cadence and range of metrics make it suitable for tracking short-lived changes, not just basic availability.
Device monitoring: SNMP gathers health data from routers, switches, and firewalls. Correlating device health with network performance can help teams narrow down whether a problem sits with infrastructure or a path between locations.
Application checks and traceroutes: Application monitoring, including HTTP URL tests, helps separate network problems from application or user issues. Visual traceroutes expose hop-level latency, giving teams a more concrete place to investigate degradation than an end-to-end result alone.
Notifications and reporting: Email alerts are supported, and the pricing page lists Slack, Microsoft Teams, PagerDuty, and HTTP webhooks for notifications or events. Reports can be exported as Excel, PDF, or JSON and scheduled daily, weekly, or monthly.
Security and privacy: Listed safeguards include MFA, TLS-encrypted communications, encrypted stored data, user roles, and audit logs. Synthetic traffic means Obkio says it does not capture real user traffic, which may fit teams seeking network visibility without user-session collection.

Pricing

Obkio is freemium. The Free plan costs 0.00 USD per free, lasts forever, and is capped at two software agents. That can support a small proof of concept, but the cap restricts coverage across multiple locations.

The 14-Day Free Trial costs 0.00 USD per free and includes Premium features for 14 days, with a maximum of 10 agents and no credit card needed. When the trial ends, the account switches to Free and agents above two are disabled. That makes the trial useful for evaluating broader coverage, but teams should plan for the reduced footprint afterward.

Paid plans have custom pricing. Starter is aimed at SMEs with fewer than three locations; Basic is for multiple network locations; and Premium targets mid- to large multisite networks. Each has monthly pricing by quote, so teams must request pricing before comparing costs. Custom Enterprise uses tailored pricing for MSPs and large businesses.

There are also audience-specific offers: Non-Profit Organizations has custom pricing for multisite NPOs, while Education Sponsorship uses custom pricing for colleges and universities. The 50 Remote Users offer includes 50 agents, 10 devices, two users, public monitoring agents, and Windows 11 and macOS workstations; 100 Remote Users has the same listed allowances except for 100 agents. Both are quote-based. The agent, device, and user limits matter when sizing remote deployments, and teams should confirm whether those allowances fit their intended coverage.

Platforms

Obkio supports Android, iOS, Linux, macOS, Windows, web, and API access. Its hybrid deployment model and public monitoring agents in the remote-user offers provide options for teams spanning workstations and network locations. Online documentation is available 24/7; live chat and email support are listed weekdays from 9am to 5pm EST.

Who it's for

Obkio is a good fit for small businesses, multisite organizations, MSPs, remote users, nonprofits, and colleges or universities that need to correlate synthetic network performance with device and application signals. The 500-millisecond testing cadence and hop-level traceroutes are particularly relevant when intermittent degradation is hard to localize. It is less compelling for teams that need broad coverage at no cost, since Free stops at two agents, or teams whose priority is observing real user traffic.

Pros and cons

Pros: Tests run every 500 milliseconds and cover several network-quality measures, giving teams a detailed synthetic view of changing conditions.
Pros: SNMP device health, HTTP checks, and visual traceroutes add diagnostic context beyond endpoint reachability.
Pros: The 14-day Premium trial allows up to 10 agents without a credit card, making it possible to evaluate wider coverage before purchase.
Cons: The permanent free plan allows only two software agents, limiting its value for multisite monitoring.
Cons: After the trial, agents above two are disabled, so a team cannot keep trial-scale coverage on the free plan.
Cons: Paid plans are quote-based, which makes upfront budget comparison harder.
Cons: Synthetic traffic does not provide monitoring of actual user traffic, so it may not answer questions that depend on real sessions.

Alternatives

For voice-focused monitoring, compare CallMeter, a paid option with a free trial, API, self-hosted, and web platforms, and monthly or annual plans whose features, usage limits, and service levels vary. MultiDSLA is a paid alternative for teams looking for a controller plus one or more node devices, with support for controlling 100+ nodes.

VoIPmonitor may suit teams seeking VoIP monitoring with cloud or self-hosted options: its Cloud 3 channels plan is 22.00 USD per month, includes full features and 21-day CDR retention, and keeps PCAP on the user's server. VoIP Spear is another voice-oriented option; its Lite plan costs 14.95 USD per month and includes one endpoint, one-minute test frequency, two servers per test, and one week of past results.

ServicePilot VoIP Monitoring is worth comparing for teams wanting a freemium option: Object Monitoring costs 0.50 USD per month per object, with pricing decreasing based on quantity, and lists VoIP Avaya, Cisco, Oracle SBC, and Genesys. Dotcom-Monitor offers a free plan with up to 25 targets, monitoring as often as every five minutes, two monitoring locations, and email alerts.

Teams prioritizing open-source or self-hosted choices can consider HOMER, which is free and open-source with commercial support available by quote, or sip-exporter, a free Linux option.

Verdict

Choose Obkio if your team needs frequent synthetic network checks and a way to connect path performance with device, application, and hop-level evidence. The combination is its strongest reason to buy; the narrow free cap, post-trial reduction, and quote-based paid plans are reasons to look elsewhere if you need inexpensive broad coverage or real-user traffic monitoring.

	Nectar Diagnostics	Obkio
Free plan	No	Yes
Free trial	No	Yes
Paid from	—	Free
Open source	No	No
Platforms	Web	Android, api, iOS, Linux, macOS, Web, Windows
MOS scoring	Yes	—
Jitter tracking	Yes	—
Packet-loss tracking	Yes	—
SIP trunk monitoring	Yes	—
Free plan	—	Yes

Nectar Diagnostics vs Obkio

Nectar Diagnostics

Obkio