The following tables compare general and technical information for several packet analyzer software utilities, also known as network analyzers or packet sniffers. Please see the individual products' articles for further information.
General information
Basic general information about the software—creator/company, license/price, etc. CreatorLatest release User interface Software licenseCostAllegro Network MultimeterAllegro Packets / v4.0.4 web GUI Non-free, price on request, depending on device and extensions Cain and Abel Massimiliano Montoro / 4.9.56 GUI Capsa Colasoft / 11.1 GUI Carnivore Federal Bureau of Investigation N/A Charles Web Debugging Proxy Karl van Randow / 4.1.4 GUI $30–$50 (Free Trial) Clarified Analyzer Clarified Networks GUI Clusterpoint Network Traffic Surveillance System Clusterpoint web GUI CommView TamoSoft / 6.5 Build 770 GUI dSniff Dug Song / 2.3 CLI EtherApe Juan Toledo / 0.9.18 GUI Ettercap ALoR and NaGA / 0.8.3.1-Bertillon Both Fiddler Eric Lawrence / Telerik / 5.0.20194 GUI justniffer The Justniffer team / 0.5.15 CLI Kismet Mike Kershaw (dragorn) / 2020-04-R3 CLI Microsoft Message Analyzer Microsoft / 1.4 GUI Microsoft Network Monitor Microsoft / 3.4 GUI netsniff-ng Daniel Borkmann / 0.6.2 CLI ngrep Jordan Ritter / 1.47 CLI Observer Viavi Solutions (formerly Network Instruments) GUI OmniPeek (formerly AiroPeek, EtherPeek) LiveAction (formerly Savvius, WildPackets) / 11.1 GUI SnifferNetscout (formerly Network General)2013GUIProprietaryNon-free SteelCentral Transaction Analyzer OPNET Technologies/Riverbed Technology / 17.0.T-PL1 GUI snoop Sun Microsystems / Solaris 10 CLI tcpdump The Tcpdump team / 4.99.4 CLI Wireshark (formerly Ethereal) The Wireshark team / 4.0.6 Both Xplico The Xplico team / 1.2.2 Both
Operating system support
The utilities can run on these operating systems. Client Microsoft Windows macOS Linux BSDs Solaris Other Cain and Abel Capsa Free Edition Carnivore Charles Web Debugging Proxy CommView dSniff EtherApe Ettercap justniffer Kismet Lanmeter Fluke proprietary hardware netsniff-ng ngrep AIX, BeOS, HP-UX, IRIX, Tru64 UNIX Microsoft Network Monitor OmniPeek (formerly AiroPeek, EtherPeek) snoop tcpdump (WinDump) AIX, HP-UX, IRIX, Tru64 UNIX Wireshark (formerly Ethereal) AIX, HP-UX, IRIX, Tru64 UNIX Xplico
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