DNSViz vs HiPerConTracer
DNSViz
dnsviz.netHiPerConTracer
nntb.noSide by side
| Figure | DNSViz | HiPerConTracer |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | Free | Free |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Free trial | — | — |
| Open source | — | — |
| Web | Yes | — |
| macOS | Yes | — |
| Linux | Yes | Yes |
| API | Yes | — |
| Self-hosted | Yes | Yes |
| Plans published | 1 | 1 |
| Spec score · Network Diagnostic Software | 8.7 (#5) | 8.5 (#7) |
| Purpose | DNSViz visualizes DNS zone status to help understand and troubleshoot DNSSEC deployment. | HiPerConTracer is a Ping/Traceroute measurement framework for running regular measurements among sites. |
| Support | The website invites users to submit questions, comments, and feedback. | The project directs users to its GitHub issue tracker for bug reports, issues, and questions. |
Plans
In their own words
DNSViz
DNSViz is a free, open-source tool for visualizing DNS zone status and investigating DNSSEC deployment. It lays out a domain's authentication chain and resolution path, and identifies configuration errors. The graph can show delegations, record sets, negative responses, DNSKEY and DS records, signatures, wildcards, warnings and errors. It classifies DNS data as secure, bogus or insecure according to whether a trust chain reaches an anchor. The web service can run new analyses, but its maintenance mode means historical analyses cannot be loaded and new results cannot be saved to its database. For command-line use, the suite includes tools to query DNS, assess results and produce graph or text output. Queries use recursive resolvers by default, or authoritative servers when requested; graph output can be an image, DOT graph or HTML file. DNSViz documents installation on Linux, macOS and FreeBSD, among other Python-supported environments, and provides a Docker container. It is intended for understanding and troubleshooting DNSSEC, including pre-deployment checks of proposed zone and delegation changes.
HiPerConTracer
HiPerConTracer is a free, GPL-licensed framework for Ping and Traceroute measurements on Linux and self-hosted systems. It supports ICMP and UDP, multi-homing, parallel measurements, network load balancing, and nanosecond-precision timing through Linux software and hardware timestamping. A shared and static libhipercontracer library lets other software integrate its measurement functions. Framework tools can view, merge, convert, sync, collect, import, query, and manage results; conversion includes CSV output. The Importer supports MariaDB, MySQL, PostgreSQL, and MongoDB. The Sync Tool transfers result files to a remote Collector using Rsync and SSH, while a Reverse Tunnel Tool maintains an SSH reverse tunnel for nodes without publicly reachable addresses. Documentation recommends TLS for database connections and separate database users. The current stable release is version 2.2.12, announced October 6, 2026. Ready-made packages are listed for Linux and FreeBSD; other named systems require source builds.