netcat Alternatives

netcat is described as 'Netcat is a featured networking utility which reads and writes data across network connections, using the TCP/IP protocol. It is designed to be a reliable "back-end" tool that can be used directly or easily driven by other programs and scripts' and is a Network Monitor in the network & admin category. There are more than 10 alternatives to netcat for a variety of platforms, including Windows, Linux, Mac, Android and iPhone. The best alternative is Wireshark, which is both free and Open Source. Other great apps like netcat are Ettercap, socat, SmartSniff and pwncat.

netcat alternatives are mainly Network Analyzers but may also be Network Monitors or HTTP(S) Debuggers. Filter by these if you want a narrower list of alternatives or looking for a specific functionality of netcat.

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netcat

Free • Open Source
Network Monitor

Mac
Windows
Linux

Netcat is a featured networking utility which reads and writes data across network connections, using the TCP/IP protocol. ...

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Wireshark
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Free • Open Source
Network Analyzer
Network Monitor
Mac
Windows
Linux
Homebrew
Chocolatey
Flathub
Snapcraft
BSD
52 alternatives to Wireshark
Wireshark is the world's foremost network protocol analyzer. It lets you capture and interactively browse the traffic running on a computer network. It is the de facto (and often de jure) standard across many industries and educational institutions.
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Wireshark Features
Detailed packet analysis
Network Usage History
Support for Android Things
Work Item Tracking
Wireshark vs netcat opinions
pros, cons and recent comments
SuperS06
Wireshark is a tool for monitoring network traffic. Netcat is a tool for generating traffic.
Negative comment•
0
Ettercap
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Free • Open Source
Network Analyzer
Mac
Windows
Linux
17 alternatives to Ettercap
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.
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Ettercap Features
Network Tools
Based on Ubuntu
socat
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No
Free • Open Source
Linux
5 alternatives to socat
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...
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socat Features
1. Portablesocat can be used from a USB stick or similar with no prior installation.
2. Command line interfacesocat either have CLI support or is a CLI-only app.
Data transfer
Port Forwarding
SmartSniff
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No
Free • Proprietary
HTTP(S) Debugger
Windows
33 alternatives to SmartSniff
SmartSniff is a packet sniffer that capture TCP/IP packets and display them as sequence of conversations between clients and servers. You can view the TCP/IP conversations in Ascii mode (for text-based protocols, like HTTP, SMTP, POP3 and FTP) or as hex dump (for non-text base...
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SmartSniff Features
1. PortableSmartSniff can be used from a USB stick or similar with no prior installation.
Sockets
pwncat
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No
Free • Open Source
Mac
Windows
Linux
Chrome OS
BSD
3 alternatives to pwncat
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).
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pwncat Features
Port Forwarding
Add a screenshot
PCAPdroid
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Yes
No
Free • Open Source
Network Analyzer
Network Monitor
Android
F-Droid
41 alternatives to PCAPdroid
PCAPdroid is an android app to capture the phone traffic and analyze it remotely (e.g. via Wireshark). The traffic can be easily downloaded from a remote device thanks to the integrated HTTP server, or streamed to a remote UDP receiver.
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PCAPdroid Features
Traffic Monitoring
HTTP Monitoring
PsPing
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Free • Proprietary
Windows
9 alternatives to PsPing
PsPing is a command-line utility for measuring network performance. In addition to standard ICMP ping functionality, it can report the latency of connecting to TCP ports, the latency of TCP and UDP round-trip communication between systems, and the TCP or UDP bandwidth available...
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PsPing Features
Network Tools
PPerf
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No
Free • Open Source
Windows
8 alternatives to PPerf
PowerShell Iperf GUI - A PowerShell script to start iperf and show the output (similar to Jperf).
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PPerf Features
1. PortablePPerf can be used from a USB stick or similar with no prior installation.
Graphical User Interface
Packet Sender
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No
Freemium • Open Source
Mac
Windows
Linux
Android
iPhone
Android Tablet
iPad
3 alternatives to Packet Sender
Packet Sender can send and receive UDP, TCP, and SSL on the ports of your choosing. All servers and clients may run simultaneously.
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Packet Sender Features
SSL
Network Tools
Packetyzer
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No
Free • Open Source
Windows
25 alternatives to Packetyzer
Packetyzer provides a Windows user interface for the Ethereal packet capture and dissection library. Ethereal is used by network professionals around the world for troubleshooting, analysis, software and protocol development, and education.

Packetyzer has no features, suggest some!
Discontinued