Colasoft Capsa vs Sniffnet

Colasoft Capsa is a Windows network analyzer for monitoring, analyzing and troubleshooting wired and wireless networks. The Enterprise edition captures packets in real time from local networks and can save transmitted data. It analyzes more than 1,800 protocols and sub-protocols, including VoIP, and displays packet details in Hex, ASCII and EBCDIC. Capsa can diagnose network problems and suggest solutions, monitor conversations, reconstruct packet streams and generate reports for selected items, the whole network or a particular network group. Its security analysis detects DoS and DDoS attacks, worm activity, ARP attacks, TCP port scans and suspicious conversations in real time. Users can set email or sound alerts and schedule capture once, daily or weekly. Capsa Free monitors up to 10 IP addresses, ends sessions after four hours and lacks WiFi connection monitoring. Professional is listed at $695, paid once for a single-seat perpetual license, one machine and one year of maintenance. Enterprise is $1,295, paid once and has a 30-day trial.

Sniffnet is a free network monitoring app for Linux, macOS, and Windows. It displays overall internet traffic statistics and real-time charts, and can show which programs use bandwidth. Users can choose a network adapter, filter observed traffic, and import or export PCAP capture reports. Sniffnet identifies local network connections, shows remote hosts’ geographical locations, and finds host domain names and ASNs. It recognizes more than 6,000 upper-layer services, protocols, trojans, and worms. Users can configure notifications for network events and import custom IP blacklists to highlight potentially dangerous connections. The app supports live capture, display filters, protocol dissectors, and offline trace analysis; it reads PCAPNG and CAP files as well as PCAP. Custom themes and 26 languages are available. The listed Sniffnet plan is free and the software is open-source under MIT or Apache-2.0. A 2025 security audit reported one low-severity finding, which had been fixed. Most functionality uses offline databases, while reverse DNS lookups provide hostnames for IP addresses.