Comparison

Prowl vs HE.NET Network Tools

Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.

Head to head
About

Prowl

Receive push notifications from your computer and various apps directly on your iOS device. Integrate the API into your own applications for custom alerts. Supports email-to-push and offers features like quiet hours and notification history.

Highlights
  • Push notifications from Mac/Windows
  • Support for numerous apps/services
  • Email to push functionality
  • Customizable notification delivery
  • Quiet Hours and Do Not Disturb modes
  • Notification history and control
Features
Read full description

Prowl is an easy push notifications client iOS. Push to your device notifications from your Mac or Windows computer, or from a multitude of apps and services. Easily integrate the Prowl API into your applications. A list of supported apps/services: http://prowlapp.com/apps.php The only limit of what the service can do is your imagination. REQUIREMENTS To receive notifications from your computer, you need the latest: • Growl on your Mac @ growl.info, or • Growl for Windows @ growlforwindows.com, or • Snarl on Windows @ fullphat.net, or • Any program or web service using the public API. THE CRITICS "I was extremely impressed with Prowl and the elegance with which I was able to view Growl notifications on my iPhone.” —Aron Trimble, TUAW "[A] powerful tool to connect your Mac with your iPhone, seamlessly over the air. —Federico Viticci, MacStories "Great idea. This opens up iPhone push notifications for anything you can think of.” —John Gruber, Daring Fireball "Probably the best $3 I’ve ever spent in the App Store.” —Darrell Etherington, The Apple Blog FEATURES • Push Notifications—When a Growl notification pops up on your computer, it's sent to Prowl and displayed on your iOS device within seconds. • Sweet application support—Prowl has support from a bunch of cool applications and services. Check out the full list at http://prowlapp.com/apps.php • Redirections—Launch a different application when you open a push notification. For example, a notification from your desktop Twitter client can relaunch into your favorite mobile client. You can even pick custom URLs to launch, so you can go anywhere! • Email to push—Use your Prowl email address (from the Prowl homepage's "API keys" tab) to get email delivery right on your device. Generate as many email addresses as you need! • An amazing API—Use the Prowl API with a multitude of libraries in various programming languages. You can send notifications from anything that can talk to the internet, and do some fun things along with it. • Quiet Hours—During the hours you specify, only the badge numbers are updated. No matter the source. Instead of getting a noisy alert, messages are quietly delivered. You can allow emergency-priority items to break quiet hours. • Do Not Disturb—Keep the application quiet whenever you're busy, or when you need a break from a constant alert. Controllable from within the application. • Control—Open the edit view to get a quick glance at your notifications, and do away with pesky ones. Quickly copy, email or SMS a notification directly from Prowl (depending on device and iOS version). • Browse quickly—Use Prowl's internal browser to quickly open links from a notification without having to open Safari. • History—Up to 10 days of notifications are kept on the server. You can delete notifications that you don't want to see any more, or remove all of your history. • Customized notifications—Only events you want are sent to Prowl. You can specify all kinds of conditions from the Prowl plugin for Growl. • Send any message to your device—From the Prowl website, you can send any text to your device: links and phone numbers are automatically linked, so you can easily navigate around without having to worry about typos. From the website or API, you can also automatically redirect to the attached URL. SETUP Prowl is built into Growl 2.0. For earlier versions: http://prowlapp.com/installation.php — for Mac. http://growlforwindows.com — for Windows. SUPPORT @prowlapp on Twitter http://prowlapp.com/support.php

About

HE.NET Network Tools

A comprehensive suite of network diagnostic tools for professionals. It offers features like ARP/NDP lookup, DNS queries, IP calculations, bandwidth testing, and port scanning. Securely manage two-factor authentication codes and view network routing tables.

Highlights
  • ARP/NDP lookup
  • DNS lookup
  • IP Calculator
  • iperf bandwidth test
  • Port Scan
  • SSL/TLS Information
  • Two-factor authentication code storage
Features
Read full description

This suite of networks tools implements most of the network diagnostics that you need as a Network Engineer or System Administrator. Please help us improve it by giving us feedback. + ARP / NDP: Lookup local devices found on your network using either ARP (IPv4) or NDP (IPv6). + Bonjour Browser: See what DNS-SD/Bonjour services are available on your network + DNS lookup: Search for a servers DNS zone records such as SOA, NS, A, AAAA, MX, PTR. + Interface Information: Get information regarding your device's current network state. + IP Calculator: Calculate the Netmask, Wildcard, Network, Host range, and Broadcast for a given subnet. + iperf: Check bandwidth against remote iperf services. + One Time Password: Securely store and view your TOTP and HOTP (two-factor authentication) codes. TOTP codes are available on the Apple Watch. + Ping: Send ICMP packets to a single IPv4/IPv6 address. + Ping Sweep: Send ICMP packets to an entire subnet range. + Traceroute: Find the route packets take to reach your destination. + Progressive Traceroute: Get detailed statistics for a given route. + Port Scan: Scan a list of TCP ports on any server. + Routing Table: See your local device's routing table. + SSL/TLS Information: Check available ciphers, protocols and what's being used when connecting to a remove service. + Whois: Get information regarding network resources. + NO ADS! Note: Recent iOS releases secure certain low-level network information, and as such will not be available in-app, such as MAC addresses for other network devices.

Screenshots

Prowl3 screens
HE.NET Network Tools4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is price: HE.NET Network Tools at Free against Prowl's $2.99. HE.NET Network Tools also leads on update cadence (every 2 months vs every 7 months). Prowl's advantage is rating (4.6 vs 4.0) and review sentiment (88% vs 78%). On ratings volume, ads, in-app purchases and device support there is nothing between them.

Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

HE.NET Network Tools is free to download; Prowl costs $2.99 up front. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

Prowl holds the better App Store score, 4.6 against 4.0. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 106 and 70 respectively. Written reviews point the same way: 88% of Prowl's written reviews are positive against 78% of HE.NET Network Tools's.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Prowl ships an update every 7 months, HE.NET Network Tools every 2 months. The most recent releases landed on October 14, 2026 and October 9, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard6 real differences · 4 level
Prowl versus HE.NET Network Tools: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterProwlHE.NET Network Tools
Price$2.99Free — better
Rating4.6 (106 ratings) — better4.0 (70 ratings)
Positive reviews87.7% of reviews — better77.8% of reviews
Number of ratings106 — better70
Update frequencyEvery 7 monthsEvery 2 months — better
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNoNo
MonetizationPaidFree — better
DevicesiPhone, iPad, iPodiPhone, iPad, iPod, Apple Watch — better
Requires iOS8.0 — better13.0
Further details — not scored
Size3 MB9 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperProwl Solutions LLCHurricane Electric, LLC

Customer experience

Prowl

All ratings106 ratings
Positive90.6%
Neutral1.9%
Negative7.5%
Written reviews243 reviews
Positive87.7%
Neutral3.3%
Negative9.1%

HE.NET Network Tools

All ratings70 ratings
Positive72.9%
Neutral5.7%
Negative21.4%
Written reviews99 reviews
Positive77.8%
Neutral10.1%
Negative12.1%

User reviews

Prowl

From 106 App Store ratings

What we love

  • 🚀 Works consistently and reliably
  • 🚀 Versatile and customizable
  • 👍 Easy to set up and use
  • 👍 Indispensable for monitoring and notifications
  • 🚀 Prompt and fast push notifications

Room to improve

  • 🐛 Occasional visual bugs or glitches
  • 📚 Interface looks dated and needs update
  • 🔋 High battery consumption when used extensively

HE.NET Network Tools

From 70 App Store ratings

What we love

  • 🎯 Comprehensive network diagnostic tools in one app
  • 💰 Completely free with no ads or paywalls
  • 🔒 Privacy-friendly and no data collection
  • ⚡ Lightweight and efficient performance
  • 🛠️ Advanced features like SSL cert chain analysis

Room to improve

  • 🐛 Frequent crashes on Interface Information tool
  • 🐛 Dark mode text readability issues
  • 🐛 iperf3 tool unreliable and buggy
  • 🐛 DNS resolver doesn't show NXDOMAIN responses
  • 🐛 App crashes when scrolling tool menu

Bugs and requests

Prowl

Reported bugs

2 issues
  • Inconsistent notification delivery
  • Login issues on mobile app

Requested features

4 requests
  • Support for modern iPhone screen sizes
  • Custom notification sounds
  • Improved notification management (e.g. delete multiple)
  • Integration with Apple Watch

HE.NET Network Tools

Reported bugs

12 issues
  • Interface Information crashes app immediately
  • iperf3 fails with 'operation not permitted' error
  • iperf2 crashes on iOS 8+
  • DNS lookups not responding after updates
  • iperf3 only runs for 1 second despite longer duration settings
Show 7 more
  • iperf3 fails to start intermittently
  • App crashes when selecting tools from menu
  • Crashes on iOS 11 and later versions
  • Neighbor Discovery crashes on iPhone 6
  • Dark mode text hard to read on iPhone
  • App crashes on iPad for multiple functions
  • Ping and basic tools crash on iOS 11+

Requested features

12 requests
  • Vision Pro compatibility and controls
  • SRV record lookup in DNS tool
  • IPv6 subnet calculator
  • WOL (Wake-on-LAN) magic packet support
  • MTR (My Traceroute) tool
Show 7 more
  • Telnet command for port testing
  • Stop/pause button for running tests
  • Multiple iperf test execution
  • Configurable iperf parameters and bandwidth limits
  • LAN device scanning capability
  • Dark mode text color options
  • Apple Watch app with full functionality

In-app purchases

None

Prowl

No in-app purchases

None

HE.NET Network Tools

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is Prowl free?
Prowl costs $2.99, with no in-app purchases.
Is HE.NET Network Tools free?
HE.NET Network Tools is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Which has better reviews, Prowl or HE.NET Network Tools?
Prowl is rated higher. Prowl averages 4.6 out of 5 from 106 ratings, while HE.NET Network Tools averages 4.0 from 70 ratings.
Do Prowl or HE.NET Network Tools have ads?
Neither Prowl nor HE.NET Network Tools shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Prowl or HE.NET Network Tools?
Prowl ships an update every 7 months, and HE.NET Network Tools every 2 months. Most recently, Prowl was updated on October 14, 2026 and HE.NET Network Tools on October 9, 2026.

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