Arkime vs SentryWire

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.

SentryWire is a packet-capture appliance and network security monitoring platform for retaining and examining network traffic. It captures from 1 Mbps to above 1 Tbps and supports retention measured in weeks, months, or years. Distributed storage and compute enable searches across historical packet data, while forensic replay helps investigate traffic. Integrated Suricata IDS provides real-time detection and retrospective review. Analysis includes IDS search-back, BPF-syntax filtering, file-artifact extraction, JA3 hashing, GeoIP and ASN enrichment, Kibana dashboards, and display filters. Integrations named by the maker include Splunk, Elastic, Cisco, Palo Alto Networks, Fortinet, IBM, and Dell, with 25+ others supported. Deployment options include virtual machines, hardware appliances, portable systems, and cluster nodes; virtual machines capture up to 500 Mbps. SentryWire supports live capture, offline trace analysis, and PCAP files, and can retrieve packets from Splunk SOAR or Cortex XSOAR playbooks. Pricing is provided through sales contact.