NetForge vs Egress Recon
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
NetForge
This app provides over 60 industry-standard network diagnostic tools for engineers. It offers a one-time purchase for lifetime access to all features, including connectivity tests, email server analysis, and vendor command references.
- 60+ industry-standard network diagnostics
- DNS, Ping, WHOIS, TLS inspection
- Subnet calculator
- Traceroute and TCP port scanning
- Email server and VoIP testing
- Offline vendor command references
- One-tap diagnostic workflows (Recipes)
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NetForge is the network engineer's pocket toolkit — 60+ industry-standard diagnostics in a single iOS app, with no subscription, no ads, and no recurring fees. Pay once, use forever. WHAT'S FREE • DNS Lookup — A, AAAA, MX, TXT, CNAME, NS, SOA records • Ping — ICMP echo with packet loss + latency stats • Public IP / ASN — your external address and provider in one tap • Subnet Calculator — IPv4 + IPv6 CIDR math, wildcard masks, host counts, binary view • TLS Certificate Inspector — certificate chain, expiry, SAN, signature algorithm, grade • WHOIS Lookup — IANA referral chain for any domain or IP WHAT NETFORGE PRO UNLOCKS ($19.99 one-time) Connectivity & Performance • Traceroute (ICMP + UDP) • TCP port scan with banner grab • Speed test (download / upload / latency) • Cloud region pinger (AWS / GCP / Azure latency comparison) • HTTP latency benchmark with full timing breakdown Email Server Suite • SMTP probe with STARTTLS detection • IMAP / POP3 reachability • SPF, DMARC, DKIM analyzer • Email header parser • RBL / blacklist checker Microsoft 365 & Active Directory • Autodiscover (V2 + DNS lookup paths) • ActiveSync probe • Exchange Web Services probe • Office 365 service endpoints • AD port suite (Kerberos, LDAP, GC, RPC, SMB) • LDAP probe with anonymous bind • OpenID Connect discovery • RADIUS + TACACS+ authentication probes VoIP & Conferencing • SIP OPTIONS ping • STUN binding test (NAT type detection) • MOS / R-Factor calculator • Microsoft Teams network test • Zoom network test • Cisco Unified Communications port reference Vendor Command References Quick offline references for the syntax engineers actually need: • Cisco IOS / NX-OS • Juniper Junos • Palo Alto PAN-OS • Fortinet FortiOS • MikroTik RouterOS • Aruba ArubaOS / AOS-CX • Ubiquiti UniFi / EdgeOS Security & Web • HTTP request inspector (full headers + body) • Security headers grader (CSP, HSTS, X-Frame, more) • CDN detection • Cisco Type 7 password decoder Reference Tools • MAC OUI lookup (offline IEEE database) • IANA port reference • RFC quick-find • Linux networking cheatsheet • STP topology calculator • Database connectivity probe (MySQL, Postgres, Redis, Mongo, MSSQL, Oracle, Cassandra, Elasticsearch, CouchDB) • Bonjour / mDNS browser • Wake-on-LAN Recipes Chain multiple tools into one-tap diagnostic workflows: • Domain Health Check (DNS + TLS + headers + CDN) • Email Security Audit (SPF + DMARC + MX) • Mail Server Reachability • Office 365 Connectivity • VoIP Readiness • Domain Controller Sweep • Web Performance Audit Pro features include unlimited workspaces, saved targets, full run history, and every tool added in future updates. WHY ONE-TIME PRICING Network engineers don't want a subscription tax for a tool they use a few times a week. Pay $19.99 once. Use it forever. Future tools and updates included. PRIVACY NetForge runs every diagnostic on your device. Your queries don't go to a NetForge backend — they go directly from your iPhone to the host you're testing. We don't collect telemetry, we don't sell data, and we don't have ads. Privacy Policy: https://andyarevalo.com/privacy.html Terms of Service: https://andyarevalo.com/terms.html Support: https://andyarevalo.com/support.html
Egress Recon
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You are on a guest Wi-Fi you did not choose. Something will not connect and nobody can tell you why. Egress Recon answers that from your phone, in under a second. WHICH PORTS GET OUT Sixteen common outbound ports, tried against real public services. You get more than "open" or "closed": • Refused and timed out are different answers. One means something on the network actively rejected the connection; the other means it was dropped silently. • Intercepted is its own finding. The connection succeeded, but the thing that replied was not the service you asked for — a portal, a proxy, or a middlebox re-signing TLS. WHAT NAT YOU ARE BEHIND Your public address, and whether your NAT gives you a reusable mapping or a symmetric one — the reason a video call falls back to a relay. Carrier-grade NAT is reported with its confidence and the evidence behind it, never as a bare label. IPv6 and NAT64 state, and whether you can reach your own public address from inside. WHAT IT DOES TO DNS Whether plain DNS gets out. Whether the network's resolver agrees with a public one. Whether it invents answers for names that cannot exist. And whether DNS over HTTPS and DNS over TLS still work when plain DNS does not — each tested with a real query, not just a connection. WI-FI VERSUS CELLULAR The most useful thing a network tool can tell you is "this Wi-Fi blocks it, and your cellular connection does not." Egress Recon runs the same tests over both and shows the difference — attributing it correctly in both directions, because blaming the café for something your carrier blocks helps nobody. BEHIND A CAPTIVE PORTAL It tells you the portal is there, shows the URL it is pushing you to, and labels the results "before you sign in." Sign in, run again, and it shows you exactly what changed. IT SHOWS ITS WORK Every verdict comes with what was actually observed: the banner the server sent, the certificate it presented and who issued it, the exact response that came back. You can check the reasoning instead of trusting a colored label. Where something cannot be determined, it says so and why. Two ports in the standard set have no public server to test against, so they stay untested rather than showing a red cell that means nothing. Share any run as text, a web page, a PDF, or JSON. Saved runs are grouped by network. PRIVACY • No analytics, no telemetry, no accounts, no ads, no third-party SDKs. • It never scans your network. Every probe goes to a public internet service — never your router, never your other devices. That is why it never asks for local network permission. • It does not read your Wi-Fi name. That needs location permission, which it never requests. • Saved runs stay on your device. A report leaves only when you share it. Egress Recon for Mac and for iPhone and iPad are both free apps on one App Store record. Requires iOS 17 or iPadOS 17.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is in-app purchases: Egress Recon at none against NetForge's 1. On price, ads, device support and iOS requirement 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
Both are free to download. NetForge sells 1 one-off in-app purchase. Egress Recon asks for nothing beyond the download.
| Parameter | NetForge | Egress Recon |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 5.0 (1 ratings) — better | — |
| Number of ratings | 1 — better | — |
| Update frequency | Weekly | — |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | Yes | No — better |
| Monetization | Free with in-app purchases | — |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, Mac | iPhone, iPad, Mac |
| Requires iOS | 17.0 | 17.0 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 10 MB | 1 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Andy Arevalo | Brian Reed |
In-app purchases
NetForge
- NetForge Pro$19.99
Egress Recon
No in-app purchases









