Wireshark
The world’s leading network protocol analyzer.
Overview
Wireshark is a powerful, free, and open-source tool for network traffic analysis. It captures data packets on a network in real-time and displays them in a human-readable format. It is widely used by network administrators, security professionals, and developers for troubleshooting network issues, examining security problems, and debugging protocols.
✨ Key Features
- Live packet capture and offline analysis
- Deep inspection of hundreds of protocols
- Powerful display filters
- Rich VoIP analysis
- Read/write many different capture file formats
- Color coding for intuitive analysis
- Cross-platform: Runs on Windows, Linux, macOS, and others
🎯 Key Differentiators
- Comprehensive support for hundreds of protocols
- Powerful and intuitive graphical user interface
- Extensive filtering and color-coding capabilities
- Vibrant and active open-source community
Unique Value: Provides unparalleled, deep visibility into network traffic for free, empowering anyone to troubleshoot, analyze, and secure computer networks.
🎯 Use Cases (5)
✅ Best For
- Used globally by network professionals for real-time traffic analysis and troubleshooting.
💡 Check With Vendor
Verify these considerations match your specific requirements:
- Disk forensics or memory analysis, as it is purely a network protocol analyzer.
🏆 Alternatives
Compared to command-line tools like tcpdump, Wireshark offers a much richer user experience with its GUI, filters, and protocol dissectors. It is more focused on protocol analysis than web debugging proxies like Fiddler or Charles.
💻 Platforms
✅ Offline Mode Available
💰 Pricing
Free tier: The software is completely free and open source.
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