Ettercap vs OpenGrep
Ettercap
ettercap-project.orgOpenGrep
github.comSide by side
| Figure | Ettercap | OpenGrep |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | Free | Free |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Free trial | — | — |
| Open source | — | Yes |
| Windows | — | Yes |
| macOS | Yes | Yes |
| Linux | Yes | Yes |
| API | — | Yes |
| Self-hosted | Yes | Yes |
| Plans published | 1 | 1 |
| Spec score · Network Protocol Analyzers | 8.0 (#13) | 8.6 (#5) |
| Build requirements | Source compilation requires libraries and tools including libpcap, libnet, pthread, zlib, CMake, Flex, and Bison. | Developer builds require OCaml 5.5.0, dune, opam, a C toolchain, PCRE and GMP libraries, make and git. |
| Purpose | Ettercap is a suite for man-in-the-middle testing with live connection sniffing, on-the-fly content filtering, protocol dissection, and network and host analysis. | OpenGrep is an open-source static code analysis engine for finding security issues and searching code patterns. |
| Supported systems | The project lists Debian/Ubuntu, Fedora, Gentoo, Pentoo, Mac OS X, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, and NetBSD as tested distributions or systems. | The README provides installation instructions for Linux, macOS, and Windows. |
Plans
In their own words
Ettercap
Ettercap is a free, open-source suite for man-in-the-middle testing, live connection sniffing and network analysis. It dissects protocols actively or passively, filters packet payloads through compiled etterfilter rules, and performs network and host analysis. Passive LAN scanning can extract host, operating-system, port and gateway information from observed traffic. Command-line, graphical and ncurses interfaces are available, along with PCAP support, remote capture, traffic decryption and flow analysis. The project lists Linux and macOS platforms and supports self-hosted deployment. Tested systems include Debian/Ubuntu, Fedora, Gentoo, Pentoo, Mac OS X, FreeBSD, OpenBSD and NetBSD. The latest listed release is 0.8.4.1-Garofalo, released April 7, 2026, with a fix for an etterfilter heap out-of-bounds read identified as CVE-2026-3606. Downloads include SHA256 checksums. Source builds require libraries and tools such as libpcap, libnet, pthread, zlib, CMake, Flex and Bison. The project is community run under GPL-2.0.
OpenGrep
OpenGrep is a free, open-source static analysis engine for finding security issues and searching patterns in source code. It runs on Linux, macOS, and Windows, with self-hosted deployment. The project supports more than 30 languages, including Python, Java, JavaScript, Go, Rust, PHP, and Visual Basic, and existing Semgrep rules and rulesets work without changes. Its intrafile taint analysis tracks constructor and field assignments, flow between methods, higher-order functions across 12 languages, and collection operations such as map, filter, and reduce. OpenGrep produces JSON and SARIF output and documents a CI subcommand for workflow use. The project distributes self-contained binaries and says releases are signed with Cosign. OpenGrep is a Semgrep fork under the LGPL 2.1 license. The security policy requests vulnerability reports by email and lists only the latest version as supported.