If you’re an IT administrator, anything that can make your job easier is likely a good thing. Especially if it’s free. Luckily there are many such tools floating around, but finding one for your use case can be difficult. So here’s a list of some useful free IT tools and where to find them.
1. PuTTY
PuTTY is a popular, quick, and free terminal emulator with SSH and Telnet support, and is also open source.
2. KiTTY
KiTTY is a fork of PuTTY, so if you’re looking for a client with a few more features, then this may be a better alternative. Additional features include portability, predefined command shortcuts, sessions filter, session launcher, automatic log-on script, URL hyperlinks, automatic command and password, running locally saved scripts in remote sessions, plus more.
3. JuiceSSH
JuiceSSH is a solution if you need a simple terminal client for Android, with SSH Telnet support.
4. PDQ Deploy
PDQ Deploy is a tool that allows you to keep Windows PCs up-to-date easily, without interrupting users. While the full edition does cost, there is still a free version that can still be useful for less complex use cases.
5. MailFlow Monitor
MailFlow Monitor is a useful tool if you want to keep an eye on your email flow. This is EveryCloud’s free cloud based tool that lets you know if there’s an issue, letting you set acceptable delay levels.
6. SQL Fiddle
SQL Fiddle is a good online tool if you want to quickly run some quick tests for a database problem.
7. Switch Miner
Switch Miner is a useful tool for windows if you need to figure out what is connected to where on your network switch. It can help locate all the devices connected to a switch.
8. Googler
Googler is a neat little tool for the command line, allowing you to run quick google searches without having to open a browser.
9. Axence netTools
Axence netTools is a set of network tools allowing for scanning and monitoring. They include tools that allow things such as network port and service scanning, remote register editor, windows event log view, views of in/outbound connections and open ports, bandwidth testing and a bunch more.
10. Wireshark
Wireshark is probably the most well known of these tools. This network traffic monitoring tool is great if you need to see the smaller details of a network.
11. Produkey
ProduKey can help grab the product keys from installed applications if you’re looking to migrate to a new machine. This tool grabs the product ID, key, and software version from over 1000 various software titles.
12. LanSweeper
LanSweeper is a good tool to grab hardware and software information of devices on your network for easy reference.
13. mRemoteNG
mRemoteNG is a popular fork of mRemote, with additional features. If you need an open source remote connections manager, this is an excellent tool.
14. Awesome Sysadmin
Awesome Sysadmin is not a tool, but a curated list of a whole bunch of tools and resources for various things. If you need a tool for something but don’t know what will work best, this is a good place to start.
While there are tools to cover plenty of use cases and problems, finding the right piece of software for your use case can be difficult, and even if you can find it, sometimes you can still need more than just a tool. Prodigi’s managed IT services can help depending on your needs, whether it be procurement of the right hardware or software, or general IT help if you need extra help or don’t have the in-house capabilities for specialist tasks.