Paraben E3 Forensic Platform vs SIFT Workstation
Paraben E3 Forensic Platform
paraben.comSIFT Workstation
sans.orgSide by side
| Figure | Paraben E3 Forensic Platform | SIFT Workstation |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | $58.25/mo | Free |
| Free plan | — | Yes |
| Free trial | Yes | — |
| Open source | — | — |
| Windows | Yes | Yes |
| macOS | Yes | — |
| Linux | Yes | Yes |
| iOS | Yes | — |
| Android | Yes | — |
| Self-hosted | — | Yes |
| Plans published | 10 | 1 |
| Spec score · Computer Forensics Software | 8.2 (#4) | 7.5 (#8) |
| Spec score · Digital Forensics Software | 8.2 (#9) | 7.5 (#19) |
| Founded | 1999 | 2007 |
| Purpose | The E3 Forensic Platform is a complete digital investigation solution for professionals in digital forensics, incident response, OSINT, cyber, and eDiscovery. | SIFT Workstation is a collection of free and open-source incident response and forensic tools for detailed digital forensic examinations. |
| Support | Paraben offers online support from 8 AM to 6 PM Eastern Time, email responses within 24 hours during business hours, and phone and chat support. | The page directs users to [email protected] for download problems and to the GitHub project page for bugs and feature requests. |
Plans
Paraben E3 Forensic Platform
- Basic-Monthly$60 a month
- Essential-Monthly$80 a month
- Premium-Monthly$160 a month
- Professional-Monthly$320 a month
- Basic-Annual$699 a year
- Membership Essential-Annual$950 a year
- Premium-Annual$1,900 a year
- Professional-Annual$3,800 a year
- Enterprise-Annual$9,500 a year
- Elite-Annual$20,000 a year
In their own words
Paraben E3 Forensic Platform
Paraben E3 Forensic Platform is a digital investigation tool for digital forensics, incident response, OSINT, cyber, and eDiscovery work. It collects evidence from smartphones, cloud services, computers, and IoT devices, then supports automated parsing and carving, filtering, full-text and Boolean search, visualizations, data recovery, and malware scanning. Investigators can process Cellebrite XML and UFD data, parse GrayKey data, import Passware data, and export to Relativity. Remote collection connects to services including Amazon AWS, Microsoft Azure, Facebook, Dropbox, Slack, and Microsoft Teams. The Free Edition supports a narrower set of tasks, including social-media backups, SQLite databases, SIM card acquisition, Facebook via cloud, and Leaps Open Source Mobile. Paid plans include support and training, with higher tiers adding premium functionality or multiple licenses. The stated annual starting price is $699 per year, and a 10-day trial is available. The software requires Windows 10 or 11 64-bit,.NET Framework 4.6.1, at least 16 GB RAM, and internet access for web-license authentication.
SIFT Workstation
SIFT Workstation is a free, open-source collection for incident response and detailed digital forensic examinations. It supports analysis of file systems, network evidence, memory images, threat intelligence and indicators of compromise. Included software includes Plaso, Rekall, Volatility, ClamAV, SleuthKit and hundreds of additional tools. Evidence image formats listed are raw, AFF, EWF, split raw, split EWF, VMDK, VHD/VHDX and QCOW. Supported file systems include NTFS, HFS+, FAT12/16/32, ext2/3/4, UFS1/2, ISO9660, swap, raw data and memory data. SIFT runs on Linux and Windows and can be self-hosted. Users can download an OVA virtual machine appliance listed at 8.81 GB, install natively on Ubuntu 22.04 with the Cast installer, or use Ubuntu 22.04 through Windows Subsystem for Linux with WSL 1 or WSL 2. REMnux components can be added. SANS directs download issues to [email protected] and bugs or feature requests to the GitHub project.