netsniff-ng vs Termshark

netsniff-ng is a free Linux network analyzer and toolkit for network development, debugging, analysis, auditing, and reconnaissance. It captures, analyzes, replays, and redirects traffic using zero-copy packet mechanisms, with live capture, command-line operation, display filters, and offline trace analysis. Supported capture files include tcpdump-capable pcap, a nanosecond-resolution tcpdump-capable variant, Alexey Kuznetzov's pcap, and netsniff-ng pcap. Low- and high-level filtering include Berkeley Packet Filter expressions. The toolkit combines netsniff-ng, trafgen, mausezahn, ifpps, curvetun, astraceroute, flowtop, and bpfc. Its dissector covers Ethernet, WLAN, ARP, MPLS, VLAN, LLDP, IPv4, IPv6, ICMP, IGMP, TCP, and UDP. Mausezahn and curvetun are experimental and not advised for production. The toolkit is GPL 2.0 open source. Release checks use Git tags and GPG signatures; support is through a mailing list and online FAQ.

Termshark is a terminal interface for tshark, inspired by Wireshark, for inspecting saved packet captures and live network traffic. It can read pcap files and sniff live interfaces when tshark permits, then apply Wireshark display filters to either. Users can inspect and reassemble TCP and UDP flows, search packets, copy packet ranges, and view conversations involving Ethernet, IPv4, IPv6, UDP, and TCP. Version 2.4 added packet search and profiles for colors and columns. It supports 16-color, 256-color, and truecolor terminal modes. The project lists Linux, macOS, BSD variants, Android through Termux, and Windows, with precompiled executables available through GitHub releases. Termshark is aimed at remote debugging where a large capture can be examined on the remote machine rather than copied to a desktop. It is free and MIT licensed. Packet analysis requires tshark 1.10.2 or newer in PATH; the project notes that tshark has features Termshark does not expose.