There are endless graphical Ping tools for Windows, and we’ve probably tried more than our share– but could Ping GUI win us over, anyway?

The program offers plenty of plus points. It’s portable, open-source, and the creation of Peter Verbeek, the developer behind the popular Peace Equalizer.

Ping GUI makes unusual efforts to help you figure out how it works. A pop-up window displays instructions on the first load, and key areas of the program have tooltips with useful advice.

Even if the tips weren’t there, you’d figure out the basics quickly enough. Enter an IP address or domain (google.com) in the address box and click Ping. The program tries connecting to that destination and displays its ping time, both in text and bar chart form.

Check the “Ping continuously” box and click Ping again. By default Ping GUI now connects to the destination every 1.5 seconds, displaying the results and plotting the results over time on the chart.

It’s easy to ping and monitor multiple hosts simultaneously

Usefully, you can enter multiple domains separated by spaces – “google.com bing.com twitter.com” – and the program will ping them all simultaneously. Text results are displayed as before, but the bar chart is colour-coded, making it easier to spot any issues.

Common ping destinations may be saved in a list, allowing you to recall and reuse them in a couple of clicks.

A simple report option enables saving the results of any ping session as a text or csv file, and bonus features include a basic traceroute which displays the results for all your specified destinations.

Put it all together and this is a likeable project from a developer who’s done his best to deliver something better. Check it out.

Ping GUI is an open source tool for Windows 7 and later.