sMonitor

sMonitor is an advanced and approachable utility that enables you to monitor Internet hosts and services via the ping command. It can send email and SMS notifications.

After a fast setup operation, you are welcomed by a user-friendly interface which consists of a normal window with a neatly organized structure, where the monitor starts automatically for the local host and gateway. The list shows the name, time, ping, Active Directory status, DHCP, DNS, HTTP, NETBIOS-NS and Telnet of each server.

It's possible to temporarily stop the monitor to edit a server's properties or add a new one by specifying the name, host name or IP address, along with the service name, port, protocol and time out. You can also ask the tool to send email and/or SMS notifications after several failed attempts.

A server can be restarted on the spot or scheduled to restart later at a fixed time. sMonitor logs program activity to file so you may consult it for any errors. The app lets you open the CSV file directory, HTML file, error or script log file without leaving the interface.

Sessions may be run by sMonitor or a built-in Windows service. You can make it run at every Windows startup until further notice or show service responses, set the time intervals, enable continuous email or SMS notifications if any service fails, all of them are up and running, or if the service state changes, edit the default list of ports for the servers menu, load and execute scripts, and so on.

The app left a small footprint on computer performance during our tests, using low CPU and RAM. It didn't hang, crash or prompt error dialogs. SMonitor delivers an efficient solution to keeping track of the communication strength between your PC and Internet servers. The price of the registered edition seems too much, though.