Kathará vs OMNEST
Kathará
kathara.orgOMNEST
omnest.comSide by side
| Figure | Kathará | OMNEST |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | Free | — |
| Free plan | Yes | — |
| Free trial | — | Yes |
| Open source | — | — |
| Windows | Yes | Yes |
| macOS | Yes | Yes |
| Linux | Yes | Yes |
| API | Yes | Yes |
| Self-hosted | Yes | Yes |
| Plans published | 1 | 2 |
| Spec score · Network Simulation Software | 8.0 (#9) | 7.5 (#21) |
| Headquarters | Rome, Italy | Umm Al Quwain, United Arab Emirates |
| Purpose | Kathará is an open-source container-based network emulation system for interactive lessons and demos, sandbox testing of production networks, and network protocol development. | OMNEST provides infrastructure for creating, running and evaluating simulations of communication networks, hardware interconnects and other systems. |
Plans
OMNEST
- Commercial annual licensePrice not published
- Commercial perpetual licensePrice not published
In their own words
Kathará
Kathará is a free, open-source system for emulating networks in interactive lessons, demos, production-network sandbox tests, and protocol development. It represents network devices with containers connected through virtual Layer-2 LANs, and scenarios can use Docker or Kubernetes as their virtualization backend. Built-in images include Quagga, FRRouting, Bind, P4, and OpenVSwitch; users can also supply their own container images. A Python package exposes APIs for custom code. Kathará supports Linux, macOS on Intel or Apple Silicon, and Windows 10 and 11. Debian and Ubuntu installations are available through apt, with precompiled packages for other listed distributions. Settings cover IPv6, terminal behavior, volume mounts, and remote Docker or Kubernetes connections. The software depends on Docker by default, and rootless Docker and Podman are unsupported. The project lists version 3.8.3 as covered by security patches. It is free, with a listed price of free.