netcat Alternatives for Linux

There are many alternatives to netcat for Linux and since it's discontinued a lot of people are looking for a replacement. The best Linux alternative is Wireshark, which is both free and Open Source. If that doesn't suit you, our users have ranked more than 10 alternatives to netcat and nine of them are available for Linux so hopefully you can find a suitable replacement. Other interesting Linux alternatives to netcat are socat, pwncat, Ettercap and Packet Sender.

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Alternatives list

  1. Wireshark icon
     969 likes

    Wireshark is a premier network protocol analyzer used globally in industries and education, offering multi-platform support, deep protocol inspection, powerful display filters, and VoIP analysis. It allows both live capture and offline analysis, supporting various networks and protocols.

    57 Wireshark alternatives

    Cost / License

    Platforms

    • Mac
    • Windows
    • Linux
    • BSD
    • Snapcraft
    • Arch Linux
    • Flathub
    • Homebrew
    • Chocolatey
    • Fedora
    • FreeBSD
     
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  2. socat icon
     6 likes

    socat, SOcket CAT, is a relay for bidirectional data transfer between two independent data channels. Each of these data channels may be a file, pipe, device (serial line etc. or a pseudo terminal), a socket (UNIX, IP4, IP6 - raw, UDP, TCP), an SSL socket, proxy CONNECT...

    5 socat alternatives

    Cost / License

    Platforms

    • Linux
     
  3. pwncat icon
     6 likes

    pwncat - netcat on steroids with Firewall, IDS/IPS evasion, bind and reverse shell, self-injecting shell and port forwarding magic - and its fully scriptable with Python (PSE).

    Cost / License

    • Free
    • Open Source (MIT)

    Platforms

    • Mac
    • Windows
    • Linux
    • Chrome OS
    • BSD
     
  4. Ettercap icon
     18 likes

    Ettercap is a suite for man in the middle attacks on LAN. It features sniffing of live connections, content filtering on the fly and many other interesting tricks.

    Cost / License

    Application type

    Platforms

    • Mac
    • Windows
    • Linux
     
  5. Packet Sender icon
     2 likes

    Packet Sender can send and receive UDP, TCP, and SSL on the ports of your choosing. All servers and clients may run simultaneously.

    Cost / License

    • Freemium
    • Open Source

    Platforms

    • Mac
    • Windows
    • Linux
    • Android
    • iPhone
    • Android Tablet
    • iPad
     
  6.  3 likes

    tcpflow, a TCP Flow Recorder, is a program that captures data transmitted as part of TCP connections (flows), and stores the data in a way that is convenient for protocol analysis or debugging. A program like 'tcpdump' shows a summary of packets seen on the wire, but...

    Cost / License

    Platforms

    • Mac
    • Windows
    • Linux
     
  7. Edgeshark icon
     1 like

    Discover and capture container network traffic from your comfy desktop Wireshark, using a containerized service and a Wireshark plugin.

    Cost / License

    • Free
    • Open Source (MIT)

    Application type

    Platforms

    • Self-Hosted
    • Docker
    • Windows
    • Linux
    • Mac
     
  8. NetCrypt icon
     Like

    NetCrypt is a small Open Source command line file-transfer utility providing authentication, confidentiality and integrity validation while still maintaining top-notch performance and transfer speed between machines.

    Cost / License

    • Free
    • Proprietary

    Platforms

    • Linux
     
  9.  Like

    httpry is a tool designed for displaying and logging HTTP traffic. It is not intended to perform analysis itself, but instead to capture, parse and/or log the traffic for later analysis. It can be run in real-time displaying the live traffic on the wire, or as a daemon process...

    18 httpry alternatives

    Cost / License

    • Free
    • Open Source

    Application type

    Platforms

    • Linux
     
9 of 9 netcat alternatives