Monitor Bandwidth Usage

[ComputerWhiz305]

My home network has a rather small bandwidth cap. There are probably about 6 devices (3 PC/Laptop & 3 Tablet/Phone) that browse the internet on the network.

Is there I program that I can install on all of the devices to track what programs are using the most data and how much each device is using? I'd like to know who to yell at when we have to flick the internet off half way through the month to avoid overage charges.

I need a program(s) that will work on Windows and Android. The program needs to be free as well.

P.S. Yes, I am looking into a better ISP.

 

[basroil]

Try to check if your router supports logging, some models actually have fairly good logging.

If you need not just monitoring, but also management, and your router doesn't support it, you can use a linux based software router (especially if you have a Pro version of 8 or 10, with Hyper-V installed, though virtualbox and other methods are possible too) as the primary gateway and not only monitor every packet that goes outside the network, but also set limits to each device.

 

[bill001g]

It greatly depends on your router. Most routers will not even tell you what you current load is. Some show the last couple of minutes and to a point you can see who is using it.

The only real option is to load third party firmware but again it depends which router you have. There are a couple ways to get reports it mostly depends what you need. The only firmware I know that can actually enforce a caps by user is called gargoyle. It is not as popular as some of the other well known firmware so it does not support as many routers.

Now if you really want to install software on your end devices that track usage on each device there are a huge number of programs that can do that. The android app store has more than 100 things like that so picking one is going to be hard.

The huge problem is I have never seen one that can collect data from all these end device and combine it into a big report, you end up manually having to combine the data.