Arkime vs CAINE
Arkime
arkime.comCAINE
caine-live.netSide by side
| Figure | Arkime | CAINE |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | Free | Free |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Free trial | — | — |
| Open source | Yes | Yes |
| Web | Yes | — |
| Windows | — | Yes |
| Linux | Yes | Yes |
| API | Yes | — |
| Self-hosted | Yes | Yes |
| Plans published | 1 | 2 |
| Spec score · Digital Forensics Software | 9.0 (#1) | 8.8 (#3) |
| Extensibility | The project documents capture rules, tagger plugins, command sockets, Python support, WISE sources and S3 storage. | The project says its open distribution can be rebuilt into a differently branded version. |
| Licence | Arkime is distributed under the permissive Apache License 2.0. | CAINE and its Windows-side tools are offered under the GNU Lesser General Public License version 2.1 or later, while bundled components retain their own licences. |
| Project origin | The project README says Arkime was created at AOL in 2012 to replace commercial full-packet systems. | CAINE began in 2008 as a graduation thesis at the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia. |
| Purpose | Arkime is an open-source network analysis and session search tool that passively watches network traffic and creates searchable session records. | CAINE is an Italian GNU/Linux live distribution created as a digital forensics project. |
| Support | The project offers a Slack workspace and office hours for questions, and GitHub Issues for bugs and feature requests. | The site provides a contact form for questions or problems and links to a user forum. |
| What it does | Arkime passively captures network traffic, indexes session metadata and can retain packets as standard PCAP for investigation. | CAINE is an Italian GNU/Linux live distribution designed as a computer-forensics environment. |
Plans
In their own words
Arkime
Arkime is a free, open-source network analysis and session search tool that passively observes traffic and creates searchable session records. It parses layers 3–7 and indexes fields including protocols, DNS names, HTTP headers, TLS/JA4 fingerprints, file hashes, and GeoIP in OpenSearch or Elasticsearch. Operators can store full packets in standard PCAP format or use metadata-only capture, with rules to select traffic for saving. Users can search sessions, inspect packet data, and export results as PCAP or CSV. Cont3xt enriches supported indicators using commercial and OSINT sources, including VirusTotal, Censys, and Shodan; phone enrichment is limited to the U.S. Parliament groups clusters and displays cluster issues and Elasticsearch health. Capture can scale by adding machines or increasing CPU and disk. Arkime has no license fees or paid-only features. Installation guidance covers Linux, recommends Debian or Ubuntu LTS, and links to a container guide. OpenSearch or Elasticsearch is required for session metadata. Authentication options include basic, form, digest, header, and OIDC, while the project advises against anonymous authentication.
CAINE
CAINE is a free Italian GNU/Linux live distribution for digital forensics. It combines existing forensic programs as modules behind a graphical interface and is intended to support investigators through four investigation phases. The current listed download is CAINE 14.0 “LIGHTSTREAM,” dated 24/Mar/2025. That release sets block devices to read-only by default, while UnBlock can change the setting. rbfstab supports read-only mounting, and Mounter provides graphical mounting and unmounting. Included analysis utilities include Autopsy, FTK Imager, PhotoRec, TestDisk, hashcat, and memory-analysis scripts, alongside Windows incident-response tools such as Nirsoft utilities, WinAudit, FTK Imager, and USB Write Protector. CAINE supports disk imaging, memory and mobile forensics, and sources including raw/dd images, EnCase files, databases, internet histories, and Windows registries. Reports can be exported as raw/dd, EnCase, or text. The ISO is approximately 4000 MB, and third-party software keeps its own licenses.