Airward vs LanScan
LanScan answers “what is on my network right now?” — quickly, and for free. Airward answers “tell me when that changes.” The second question is harder and is most of what Airward is.
Updated 21 August 2026
Fairness note. LanScan facts are from iwaxx.com in August 2026 and may change. It is a genuinely good free tool, and if it is all you need you should keep using it.
The short version
LanScan discovers active devices on your LAN and shows IP addresses, MAC addresses and vendor information, resolving hostnames over mDNS, SMB and DNS. It is free, with a $5.99 Pro version that lifts a limit on how many hostnames are displayed. It does that job well and cheaply.
Airward starts where that ends. The inventory is the beginning, not the product: it keeps running, remembers what it has seen, lets you mark devices as trusted, and tells you when something unrecognised appears — or when an access point starts broadcasting your network’s name.
| Airward | LanScan | |
|---|---|---|
| Lists devices on your LAN | Yes | Yes |
| Vendor and hostname resolution | Yes | Yes — mDNS, SMB, DNS |
| Remembers devices between scans | Yes, with history | Scan-time snapshot |
| Trust / label devices | Yes | Custom hostnames |
| Alerts when something new joins | Yes, in Pro | No |
| Rogue access point detection | Yes, in Pro | No |
| Runs continuously | Yes, menu bar | Opened when you need it |
| Price | Free tier; Pro €39.99 once | Free; Pro $5.99 |
Be honest about the price gap
LanScan Pro is $5.99 and Airward Pro is €39.99. If what you want is a device list, LanScan is a seventh of the price and you should buy it. We are not going to pretend otherwise.
What the difference buys is the watching: a baseline of what is normal on your network, alerts when that changes, an event timeline you can scroll back through, and detection of access points impersonating your SSID. If none of that matters to you, the cheaper tool is the right tool.
A note on first runs
Any scanner shows a wall of unfamiliar devices the first time. Airward treats that first scan as your network’s baseline rather than seventy separate alarms, and only alerts on what appears afterwards — because an intruder, by definition, arrives later.