Modbus Poll vs Easy Modbus — which should I use?

Q: Modbus Poll vs Easy Modbus — which should I use?

They are built for different moments. Modbus Poll is a mature Windows master for the desk and the bench — excellent for development, scripted polling and long soak tests, and paid, with slave simulation sold as a second product. Easy Modbus is built for the field: it runs on the phone in your pocket, it is free, it works out what unknown registers mean, and it saves that register map to reuse and export. If your work is at a Windows workstation, Modbus Poll. If it is in front of equipment, or you want a free tool that decodes and remembers, Easy Modbus.

Updated 18 September 2026

Short answer

They are built for different moments. Modbus Poll is a mature Windows master for the desk and the bench — excellent for development, scripted polling and long soak tests, and paid, with slave simulation sold as a second product. Easy Modbus is built for the field: it runs on the phone in your pocket, it is free, it works out what unknown registers mean, and it saves that register map to reuse and export. If your work is at a Windows workstation, Modbus Poll. If it is in front of equipment, or you want a free tool that decodes and remembers, Easy Modbus.

Side by side

	Modbus Poll	Easy Modbus
Made by	Witte Software	First Impact Development
Platform	Windows desktop	Android, plus a Windows version
Price	Paid licence; Modbus Slave is a separate purchase	Free; optional one-time purchase removes ads and unlocks unlimited control panels
Transports	TCP, RTU, ASCII, RTU-over-TCP	Modbus TCP and RTU-over-TCP
Direct serial (USB–RS485)	Yes, with a COM port	No — reaches serial through a gateway
Reading	Fast, mature, many concurrent windows	Block reads, live values, hex and decimal
Writing	Yes	Yes — off by default, confirmed, read back, with one-tap Put it back
Works out data type & word order	You choose them	Ranks the plausible readings and explains each — the standout feature
Saves what a register means	Saves poll definitions	Named, scaled register map exported as CSV
Simulate a slave	Yes, via Modbus Slave (separate)	Built-in emulator in the Windows version
Scripting / automation	Excel DDE/OLE, strong	Not a scripting tool

Choose Modbus Poll if…

You work at a Windows workstation and want the established, heavily-featured master.
You need to plug a USB-to-RS485 adapter straight into a bare serial chain with no network anywhere.
You script Modbus from Excel, or run many polling windows and long unattended soak tests.
You do bench simulation and don't mind buying Modbus Slave alongside it.

Choose Easy Modbus if…

You are standing in front of the equipment and would rather use the phone in your pocket than find a laptop and a network port.
The registers are undocumented and you need the tool to work out what they are — float versus integer, word order, scaling — not just show a raw number. See why your value looks wrong.
You want to save the register map and leave a documented device behind, exported as a CSV.
You want it to be free.

Plenty of people use both: Modbus Poll on the workbench, Easy Modbus in the field. They are not really rivals so much as tools for two different places. If you only want the free options in general — desktop included — see free Modbus Poll alternatives.