Introducing Path Analysis: A New Way to Visualise Traceroute Changes in RIPE Atlas
19/02/2026
By Stephen Suess , UX/UI/Frontend Developer with the RIPE NCC since February 2019.
The article was originally published on RIPE Labs
RIPE Atlas now includes a new path analysis tool that makes it easier to understand how traceroute paths evolve over time. By comparing runs side by side, it highlights where the path changed and what kind of change it was. This gives you a fast, visual starting point for incident investigation, validation work, and troubleshooting without having to manually scan hop-by-hop traceroute output.
Traceroute data is invaluable for understanding network behaviour, but comparing the same traceroute over time manually is tedious. When investigating an incident, you might need to answer questions like:
- When did the path to my target change?
- Did my traffic shift to a different AS or IXP?
- Is this latency increase happening at a specific hop?
The new path analysis tool in RIPE Atlas provides clear visual answers to these questions. By putting two runs of the same traceroute measurement side by side, it lets you quickly see how and where the path changed over time. Instead of scanning hop by hop, you can immediately see at a glance where things diverged.
Two ways to explore changes
The tool distinguishes three types of change, each marked by a different colour:
- Yellow – routing changes (hops added or removed)
- Purple – performance degradation (significant RTT increases, with graduated intensity based on severity)
- Red – ASN or IXP transitions (traffic moved to a different network)
With that colour key in mind, you can explore changes in two different ways, depending on whether you want an overview of when the path changed or a close look at what changed in a specific comparison.
(Free access, no subscription required)
Sequential mode lets you navigate through all detected changes in a time window. An interactive timeline shows each point where something changed, with badges indicating the type of change. This is ideal for questions like “what happened to this path over the last 24 hours?” or “when exactly did the routing change?”
Sequential Mode
Comparison mode lets you compare two specific time periods directly – useful when you already know the “before” and “after” windows you want to examine. This is perfect for investigating maintenance windows or comparing performance before and after a change.
