NETCAP vs Wireshark
NETCAP
netcap.ioWireshark
wireshark.orgSide by side
| Figure | NETCAP | Wireshark |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | €49/mo | Free |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Free trial | Yes | — |
| Open source | Yes | Yes |
| Web | Yes | — |
| Windows | Yes | Yes |
| macOS | Yes | Yes |
| Linux | Yes | Yes |
| API | Yes | Yes |
| Self-hosted | Yes | Yes |
| Plans published | 3 | 2 |
| Spec score · Network Packet Analyzer Software | 9.2 (#2) | 8.3 (#10) |
| Spec score · Network Protocol Analyzers | 9.1 (#2) | 8.2 (#10) |
| API | The project exposes a Go Writer API for writing Protocol Buffer and CSV audit records, including headers and buffered channels. | The sharkd daemon exposes JSON-RPC over standard input or Unix/TCP sockets for programmatic packet dissection, filtering and analysis. |
| License | Core is GPL-3.0 copyleft; the maker also offers a separately negotiated commercial license for proprietary products. | Wireshark is open-source software released under the GNU General Public License version 2, and the downloaded version is the full version without a license fee. |
| Live capture | NETCAP captures traffic directly from network interfaces and can process saved PCAP or PCAPNG files. | It captures live packet data from network interfaces. |
| Output formats | NETCAP writes compressed Protocol Buffer records and can export CSV, JSON streams and Prometheus metrics. | It can export analysis to XML, PostScript, CSV and plain text, according to TechRadar. |
| Purpose | NETCAP converts network packet streams into structured audit records for network analysis, security research, machine learning, and forensics. | Wireshark captures and interactively browses network traffic as a network protocol analyzer. |
| Self-hosting | Core can be built from source, installed as precompiled binaries, or run from Alpine and Ubuntu Docker images. | The software is distributed as source and native packages, so organizations can build and operate it locally without a hosted service. |
| Support | Pro includes email support, Enterprise offers priority support with an SLA, and Core lists community support. | Community support is available through the Q&A site and Wireshark users mailing list. |
| What it does | NETCAP converts live network traffic or PCAP files into structured, type-safe audit records for security research, forensics, monitoring and machine-learning workflows. | Wireshark captures and interactively examines traffic moving across computer networks for troubleshooting, analysis, development and education. |
Plans
In their own words
NETCAP
NETCAP converts network packet streams into structured audit records for network analysis, security research, machine learning and forensics. Its free Core edition covers 66+ record types for protocols including TCP, UDP, HTTP, TLS, DNS and DHCP. Core captures live traffic, processes PCAP files, supports distributed collection and HTTP proxy capture, and outputs Protocol Buffers, CSV, JSON streams and Prometheus metrics. It is an open-source CLI under GPL-3.0, with platform binaries and Docker images.
Pro adds interactive graph analysis, a network activity timeline, investigation notes and more than 35 analysis modules. It can flag anomalies in decoded traffic and draft incident reports for editing; the maker says Pro analyzes captures locally without an upload step. Pro is available for macOS, Windows and Linux and includes email support. The plan is listed at $548 a month, with a €48/year option also shown, and a 14-day trial without a credit card. Enterprise has custom pricing and includes unlimited team seats, priority support with an SLA, custom integrations and volume licensing.
Wireshark
Wireshark is a free network protocol analyzer for capturing and examining network traffic. It supports live capture and offline analysis through a graphical interface or the TShark terminal utility, and can inspect hundreds of protocols. Display filters narrow what appears during analysis, though their syntax differs from capture filters. Wireshark reads and writes capture formats including pcap and pcapng, and can decompress gzip-compressed files. Analysis features include VoIP tools, packet coloring rules, and exports to XML, PostScript, CSV, or plain text. It can decrypt traffic for protocols including IPsec, Kerberos, SSL/TLS, WEP, and WPA/WPA2. The software is available for Linux, macOS, and Windows under GNU General Public License version 2, with no license fee for the full version. Windows packages include Npcap, which is needed for live packet capture. What a capture can show depends on the operating system, capture library, network interface, and network configuration; switched networks may not expose unicast traffic between other ports. Community help is available through a Q&A site and users mailing list.