SIFT Workstation vs Volatility 3

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.

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.