Who we are
About Scanlanmax
A small, independent guide for people who have been handed a network and need to find out what is on it.
Last reviewed · ANDIS ZARINS, editor
Why this site exists
A surprising number of networks are looked after by someone whose job title has nothing to do with IT: the practice manager at a dental clinic, the owner of a six-person design studio, the person in a family who “is good with computers”. Sooner or later each of them faces the same moment — a router that lists devices nobody recognises, a printer that has vanished, a request from an insurer to “provide an asset list” — and a web search that returns either vendor marketing or instructions written for security professionals.
Scanlanmax is written for that moment. We treat a network the way a surveyor treats a piece of land: before you change anything, you walk it, you measure it, and you draw a map you can trust. Our reviews compare the tools that help you do that, and our walkthroughs cover the chores that follow — naming an unknown device, checking which ports a machine exposes, untangling an address conflict, turning a scan into an inventory you can keep.
Who writes it
Scanlanmax is edited by ANDIS ZARINS, who plans, researches and signs off every page. Pages are written in the first person plural because the research follows one repeatable process rather than one person’s impressions, but the editor is responsible for every claim on the site and for correcting it when it is wrong. You can reach the editor directly at editor@scanlanmax.biz.
Each review starts with the vendor’s own material: product pages, licensing and pricing terms, release notes and changelogs. Where a vendor offers a public demo or a free trial, we work through it to see what the interface actually shows rather than taking a marketing page’s word for it. We weigh that against how the tool is discussed in the open — admin forums, release threads, support documentation — the kind of praise and complaint that only surfaces once a product has been living on someone else’s network for a while. We never recommend or describe scanning a network you do not own or have written permission to assess, andScanlanmax makes no claim to running a physical facility it does not have.
What we cover, and what we leave out
The atlas currently covers 9 tools across three sheets: IP scanners, port and service scanners, and discovery and inventory tools. We chose them because they are what small organisations actually use, not because anyone asked to be included. We deliberately leave out tools whose main purpose is intrusion, interception or evading detection, and we frame every walkthrough around networks you own or have written permission to assess.
Independence and money
Scanlanmax is not a software vendor, reseller or distributor, and it is not the official website of any product it reviews. We host no files — nothing on this domain can be run or installed. When you want a tool, we link to the vendor’s own product page and explain how to check what you receive.
No link on this site is an affiliate link, and no vendor pays us anything — see ouraffiliate disclosure. We accept no payment for coverage, ranking or wording, and the ordering rules on our methodology page apply to every product the same way. The site is funded by its editor.
Corrections
Software changes faster than any guide. If a licence, platform, price model or screenshot on this site is out of date, email editor@scanlanmax.biz with the page address and what has changed. Vendors are welcome to send factual corrections too; we check them against the product and update the page date when we change anything of substance.