Reviewed 30 September 2026. This page lists the tools that practitioners and researchers
use and cite for network-time and clock analysis. For each, it says what the tool is good at,
where ntpstats overlaps, and how the two work together. ntpstats aims to interoperate with
these tools, not to replace them. Corrections are welcome as issues or pull requests.
Frequency-stability analysis (metrology)
| Tool |
What it is |
Relation to ntpstats |
| Stable32 (W. Riley; free from IEEE UFFC since 2017) |
The reference Windows program for stability analysis, cited throughout the literature |
The target for cross-validation (#28); data file import/export planned (#33) |
| TimeLab (J. Miles, KE5FX) |
Acquisition and plotting for counters and phase-noise analysers; the time-nuts favourite |
.tim import/export planned (#33) |
| allantools (Python, LGPL) |
Library of ADEV-family statistics; used in many papers and in BIPM training |
Independent implementation here, checked against a frozen allantools table; an allantools-compatible API is planned (#33) |
MATLAB allanvar, R allanvar |
Generic Allan variance functions |
ntpstats adds EDF-based CIs, noise identification, gap handling and time-transfer inputs |
NTP / NTS operations
| Tool |
What it is |
Relation to ntpstats |
chrony / chronyc |
The default client on most Linux distributions; logs tracking, measurements, statistics and refclocks |
All of these logs are parsed, and chrony can be polled live |
| ntpd-rs |
Rust NTP/NTS daemon with experimental NTPv5; planned default in Ubuntu 27.04 |
NTPv5 interop tested; its Prometheus metrics are read with ntpstats prom (Sources) |
NTPsec ntpviz |
Percentile plots from loopstats/peerstats |
Same inputs; ntpstats adds stability statistics, network metrics and chrony support |
| ntpperf (M. Lichvar) |
Load and timestamp-accuracy tester for NTP servers and PTP masters |
Complementary: ntpstats analyses the resulting NTP and PTP captures |
chrony_exporter + Prometheus/Grafana |
Operational dashboards |
ntpstats exports OpenMetrics with a Grafana dashboard (Monitoring) and imports Prometheus range queries (ntpstats prom) |
PTP and telecom
| Tool |
What it is |
Relation to ntpstats |
linuxptp (ptp4l, phc2sys, ts2phc, pmc) |
The Linux PTP stack |
Logs parsed; live polling via pmc (ntpstats watch ptp4l) |
| Meinberg PTP Track Hound (free, closed source) |
Captures and decodes PTP traffic, groups devices, monitors |
Complementary: ntpstats computes offset, PDV and time-error statistics from the captures (PTP & time error) |
| Calnex CAT, VIAVI, Keysight, Microchip software |
Vendor analysis for test equipment: TE, cTE, dTE, MTIE, TDEV, FPP with standard masks |
ntpstats offers transparent, scriptable TE/cTE/dTE/MTIE/TDEV on exported data (PTP & time error); instrument import profiles planned (#35) |
| facebook/time (ptpcheck, sptp, ptp4u, fbclock) |
Meta's open-source PTP/NTP tools and TrueTime-style uncertainty |
ptpcheck stats live polling (ntpstats watch ptpcheck); fbclock windows validated with ntpstats bounds |
| OCP TAP Time Card / Open Time Server |
Open-hardware grandmaster (GNSS + atomic oscillator) |
Planned self-monitoring and holdover analysis; sample data welcome (#21, #26) |
| AWS ClockBound |
Clock-error bound daemon for EC2 |
Bounds validated against a reference (ntpstats bounds) |
| Windows w32tm |
The Windows time service |
w32tm /stripchart output read directly |
| White Rabbit (CERN OHWR) |
Sub-ns time transfer |
Its phase logs can be analysed as phase data; a dedicated format could arrive as a plugin (#37) |
| Wireshark |
General capture and dissection |
ntpstats reads the same pcap/pcapng files and computes the timing statistics |
GNSS and time transfer
| Tool |
What it is |
Relation to ntpstats |
CGGTTS tools (BIPM r2cggtts, OpenTTP, rtk-rs cggtts) |
GNSS common-view time transfer between laboratories |
CGGTTS import and common-view differencing planned (#34) |
| RTKLIB, IGS clock products, BIPM Circular T |
GNSS processing; satellite/station clocks; UTC−UTC(k) |
RINEX clock and Circular T import planned (#34) |
| Tool |
What it is |
Relation to ntpstats |
| OMNeT++/INET (gPTP models), ns-3 |
Network simulators used for TSN/PTP studies |
Planned export of realistic oscillator noise and PDV traces, and import of simulation results (#29) |
| RIPE Atlas NTP measurements, NTP Pool monitor data |
Internet-scale public measurements used in recent studies (PACMCS 2024, NDSS 2026) |
Import planned (#34); ntpstats' own weekly interop data to be published (#30) |
Where ntpstats is different
- One tool across the chain: daemon logs, packet captures, instruments and live measurement
(NTPv4, NTS, NTPv5) feed the same statistics, confidence intervals and reports.
- Validation, not only plotting: a simulator with ground truth, reference estimators and
benchmarks, so an algorithm or a device can be scored.
- Open and dependency-light: MIT-licensed, numpy only, runs anywhere Python runs, a small web
UI, and scriptable in CI.