Angry IP Scanner vs Unicornscan

Angry IP Scanner is a free, open-source desktop tool for scanning IP addresses and ports. It accepts address ranges, random addresses, or files in any format as scan input. The scanner checks whether hosts respond to pings and can optionally resolve hostnames, identify MAC addresses, and scan ports. It also supports NetBIOS information, favorite IP ranges, web server detection, and customizable openers. Java plugins can extend scanning and data gathering with fetchers, pingers, exporters, and feeders. Results can be saved as CSV, TXT, XML, or IP-Port list files, and a command-line interface is available. It runs on Linux, macOS, and Windows under GPLv2. The maker says installation is unnecessary and that the software can be copied and used anywhere. It is described as particularly useful to network administrators monitoring and managing networks. The FAQ notes that some antivirus vendors have flagged the older ipscan.exe, while saying version 3.x is not detected.

Unicornscan is a free network reconnaissance tool that sends asynchronous, stateless probes and records responses. Its documented scan modes include TCP SYN scans, UDP probes with protocol-specific payloads, local-network ARP discovery, and stateless TCP traceroute. Alicorn provides a web interface for reviewing results, with scan history, host and port statistics, OS fingerprinting, and network topology visualization. The pgsqldb module can export results to PostgreSQL, which Alicorn uses for storage; Alicorn also starts a PostgREST API with its web server. Optional free DB-IP Lite databases add country, city, and ASN lookups to scan output and the interface. Packages are listed for Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora, RHEL-compatible distributions, and macOS through Homebrew or DMG. Linux capabilities are set automatically so scans can run without root privileges. The Alicorn interface requires Docker and PostgreSQL. Compound scan modes that begin with ARP are limited to targets on the local broadcast domain because ARP requests cannot cross routers. The install guide directs users to the project website and GitHub Issues for support.