# ping

6 Hacker News commenters recommended ping and 5 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 5 of 13 months.

**Verdict:** Built-in command for checking whether a network host responds, praised as reliable and essential for network discovery. Critics note that on Windows, ping without a count never stops and can spawn many processes.

## Why people recommend it

- Reliable; preferred over buggy timeout (2 comments): "It's important that the Ping app keeps sending pings even if they drop" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48311981)) "Ping is preferred because timeout is buggy" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49983669))

## Alternatives hackers recommend

- [NetViews](https://hackerapproved.com/p/netviews.md): 17 recommend
- [Whosthere](https://hackerapproved.com/p/whosthere.md): 16 recommend
- [Snitch](https://hackerapproved.com/p/snitch.md): 10 recommend
- [PingStalker](https://hackerapproved.com/p/pingstalker.md): 7 recommend
- [mtr](https://hackerapproved.com/p/mtr.md): 5 recommend

## Cite as

Hacker Approved, "ping", https://hackerapproved.com/p/ping/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).