Cisco pyATS vs iPerf2

Cisco pyATS is a Python framework for network testing, automation, and validation, available free under the Apache 2.0 license. It supports sanity, feature, solution, system, and scale test and verification workflows, with reusable data-driven tests ranging from simple checks to complex asynchronous suites. Genie libraries provide device connectivity, parsers, APIs, platform-agnostic feature models, reusable test cases, and a YAML-driven test runner. Built-in device libraries cover Cisco IOS, IOS XE, IOS XR, NX-OS, and ASA; plugins and extensions can add other platforms. Connections can use CLI, NETCONF, or RESTCONF. XPRESSO manages test suites, environments, testbeds, resources, live test views, and archived results with comparisons and analytics. It supports on-demand, bundled, and scheduled runs through Jenkins and Docker backends. Cisco also documents Ansible community integrations and out-of-the-box RobotFramework support. pyATS runs on Linux and macOS and supports self-hosted deployment. Cisco says more than 75% of its codebase is open source on GitHub. Email support is best-effort and usually receives a reply within a day.

iPerf2 measures network traffic performance, including throughput, latency, link capacity, and responsiveness. Testing uses a client to send traffic to a server. It can generate TCP and UDP traffic in one-way, bidirectional, full-duplex, and simultaneous multi-stream configurations. Measurements include one-way delay, round-trip time, jitter, packet loss, and throughput. It supports IPv4, IPv6, and multicast, including source-specific multicast joins, and reports can include enhanced metrics or use CSV format. The project manual describes an Android client with live meters for throughput, latency, and congestion signals. The manual also describes permit-key HMAC authentication using a timestamped HMAC-SHA256 value, with replay limited by a configurable time window. Its Professional feature set includes server access gating and remotely enabled server-side latency histograms. Measurements happen at socket-level reads and writes, so lower-level protocol-header overhead is excluded. iPerf2 and iPerf3 are separate implementations and do not interoperate. It runs on Android, Linux, macOS, and Windows, and can be self-hosted. Both listed editions are free.