Paraben E3 Forensic Platform vs Volatility 3
Paraben E3 Forensic Platform
paraben.comVolatility 3
volatilityfoundation.orgSide by side
| Figure | Paraben E3 Forensic Platform | Volatility 3 |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | $58.25/mo | Free |
| Free plan | — | Yes |
| Free trial | Yes | — |
| Open source | — | — |
| Windows | Yes | Yes |
| macOS | Yes | Yes |
| Linux | Yes | Yes |
| iOS | Yes | — |
| Android | Yes | — |
| Self-hosted | — | Yes |
| Plans published | 10 | 1 |
| Spec score · Computer Forensics Software | 8.2 (#4) | 7.3 (#12) |
| Spec score · Digital Forensics Software | 8.2 (#9) | 7.3 (#22) |
| Purpose | The E3 Forensic Platform is a complete digital investigation solution for professionals in digital forensics, incident response, OSINT, cyber, and eDiscovery. | Volatility 3 extracts digital artifacts from volatile memory (RAM) samples to provide visibility into a system’s runtime state. |
| 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 project directs bug reports to GitHub Issues and community support questions to its Slack. |
| Training | Paraben says E3 purchase includes four complimentary classes with Level 1 operator certification labs. | The Foundation offers an endorsed malware and memory forensics training course designed and taught by the framework’s creators. |
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.
Volatility 3
Volatility 3 is a free, open-source framework for extracting digital artifacts from volatile memory (RAM) samples. It gives investigators visibility into a system's runtime state and focuses on memory forensics rather than disk imaging or mobile forensics. It supports memory images from Windows, macOS, and Linux, and offers CSV, JSON, JSONL, pretty, and quick export formats.
Volatility 3 requires Python 3.8.0 or later and is published on PyPI. Windows symbols can be queried, downloaded, generated, and cached when missing; Mac and Linux symbol tables must be produced manually. A 2024 release added support for Amazon S3 and Google Cloud Storage. Documentation is generated from doc strings with Sphinx and available online. Bug reports go to GitHub Issues, while community questions can be taken to Slack. The license permits free use, sharing, and building, but requires public source sharing for additions made available to others. It provides the software as is, without warranty or condition to the extent allowed by law.