While Plato is a source of knowledge about Socrates, there are other 5th century BCE Athenians who talk about him as well (Xenophon being the first that comes to mind). If you want to look for a "counter-point" to the portrait of Socrates painted by Plato, you could find it in the satire of Aristophanes.

Aristophanes' award-nominated ^2 comedy of 423 BCE, "The Clouds"^1 , tells the story a disenfranchised youth, Strepsiades, seeking forgiveness for his family's debts by enrolling in The Thinkery (a spoof of The Academy, which predicated Aristotle's Lyceum). Much of the humor comes from the logical fallacies that are reached using Aristophanes' interpretation of the Socratic method, e.g.

• Thunder is the combined, simultaneous farts of cloud godesses,
• Thunderbolts are analogous to exploding haggis, and
• the Very Worst Argument - which utilized the gendered declination of Greek nouns to befuddle a debate opponent

The plot itself is a critique of changing generational influence, children rising up to overthrow the language, morals, and ideals of their parents. This is made all the more tense with the dramatic irony of Socrate's fate, which would not transpire for another two decades after the play's initial performance. The theme of "generational divide" was humorously explored, and being inherent to the human experience of all cultures, is still a popular one to this day. But popularity often leads to misconceptions.

For example: this play is often falsely cited (by Profs who should know better) as having it's character of Socrates say:

"The children now love luxury. They have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise."

That line is Not in the play (I had to find a source on it here) and, while Socrates does begin a good number of his lines by criticizing Strepsiades, the resolution of the play involves the elder generation (including Strepsiades' father: Phidippides) burning down The Thinkery once and for all - which would contradict this sentiment.

"The Clouds" was quite the personal project for the Aristophanes. Following the play's third place finish (thank you u/EnclavedMicrostate)^2 he continued to work on it, drafting the only surviving copies in a revised format. Regarding Aristophanes choice of labeling Socrates directly rather than giving him some sort of impersonator name or humorous euphemism (two practices regularly used in his writing); Socrates was alive at this time. He very likely could have been in the audience.

Does this mean the play was a targeted political statement? a genuine, artistic attempt at finding flaws in a fellow mortal man- misguided, yet admired? or can we conclude that Aristophanes wrote this play as a big middle finger to everyone's favorite ancient philosopher? Not jumping that deep yet. K.I.S.S.

tl;dr

This period in the 5th century BCE had a little bit of pre-Hellenic Greek cultural assimilation going on, and not just in Athens. It would be fair to say that the life of Socrates was interpreted by differing people from different places very differently, even in his own day.

I think as brief, jumping-off point; a general consensus could look like:

"Socrates was a very polarizing teacher."

While boring, for now, it's certainly accurate. Can anyone more familiar with Xenophon, or and of Socrates' other contemporaries add more?

I'm basing my analysis of "The Clouds" from the updated Loeb edition.

^1 Aristophanes, and James Loeb. Clouds - Wasps - Peace. Translated by Jeffrey Henderson, Harvard Univ. Press, 1998.