What is the Difference Between tracert and pathping

The main difference between tracert and pathping is that tracert helps to find the actual path from the source to the destination device while pathping is a command that provides information about network latency and network loss at intermediate hops between the source and the destination devices.

A computer network is a set of devices that allows communicating and exchanging data. System or network administrators create and do the configurations of the network. They also manage the whole network and relevant maintenance tasks. When there are issues in the network, they solve them by troubleshooting. In this,  tracert and pathping are two utilities or commands to troubleshoot a network. Overall, pathping is a combination of the commands tracetr and ping.

Key Areas Covered

1. What is tracert
     -Definition, Functionality
2. What is pathping
    -Definition, Functionality
3. Difference Between tracert and pathping
   -Comparison of Key Differences

Key Terms

pathping, ping, tracert

Difference Between tracert and pathping - Comparison Summary

What is tracert

The tracert is the trace route command which helps to find the path of the packet to the destination. In other words, it explains the exact path the packet has to take to the destination. The user can type tracert <ip address> and press enter key. Then, the packet will go to the defined ip address. When the packet passes a specific router, it sends information of that router to the sending device. The information is the ip address and the time to travel among each hop. If there is no information, it means the packet has not reached the destination. Therefore, it is possible to find whether the paths of the network are working properly. Likewise, tracert helps to trace the path from the source to destination with every hop along the way.

What is pathping

The general ping command helps to the test the network issues such as connectivity and name resolution. The pathping command combines the functionality of both ping and tracert. It helps to find information about the network delays at the hops between the sender and receiver.

Difference Between tracert and pathping

 

Moreover, it sends several echo request messages to each router between the sender and receiver over a period of time and calculates the results based on the packets returned from each router. It also displays the packet losses at any given router. Therefore, it is possible to find the routers that have network issues.

Overall, pathping works similar to tracert by figuring out the routers in the path. Then it sends requests periodically to all the routers within that defined time period and computes the results using the returned packets from each router.

Difference Between tracert and pathping

Definition

tracert is a command-line utility that can be used to trace the path that an Internet Protocol (IP) packet takes to its destination. On the other hand, pathping is a command-line utility supplied in Windows 2000 and beyond that combines the functionality of ping with tracert.

Usage

Furthermore, tracert helps to find the exact path of the data packet to reach the destination while pathping helps to locate spots that have network latency and network loss.

Conclusion

In brief, the tracert and pathping are two command-line utilities that allow the system or network administrators to locate problems of a network. However, the main difference between tracert and pathping is that tracert help to find the actual path from the source to destination device while pathping is a command that provides information about network latency and network loss at intermediate hops between the source and the destination devices.

References:

1.Support.microsoft.com, Available here.
2.Coreyp-At-Msft. “Pathping.” Microsoft Docs, Available here.
3.“PathPing.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 18 May 2019, Available here.

Image Courtesy:

1.”Depicts a sample, hypothetical network diagram” By SilverStartalk – Made using Dia (CC BY 2.5) via Commons Wikimedia

About the Author: Lithmee

Lithmee holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Systems Engineering and is reading for her Master’s degree in Computer Science. She is passionate about sharing her knowldge in the areas of programming, data science, and computer systems.

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