netcat Alternatives for Windows

There are many alternatives to netcat for Windows and since it's discontinued a lot of people are looking for a replacement. The best Windows 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 12 are available for Windows so hopefully you can find a suitable replacement. Other interesting Windows alternatives to netcat are pwncat, Ettercap, Packet Sender and tcpflow.

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Alternatives list

  1. Wireshark icon

    Wireshark

     951 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

    • Free
    • Open Source

    Application types

    Platforms

    • Mac
    • Windows
    • Linux
    • BSD
    • Snapcraft
    • Flathub
    • Homebrew
    • Chocolatey
    Wireshark screenshot 1
     
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    1
    Comments about Wireshark as an Alternative to netcat
    SuperS06
    Negative
    0

    Wireshark is a tool for monitoring network traffic. Netcat is a tool for generating traffic.

    Wireshark icon
    Wireshark icon
    • Wireshark is Free and Open Sourcenetcat is also Free and Open Source
    • Wireshark is Privacy focusednetcat is not according to our users
  2. pwncat icon

    pwncat

     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

    Ettercap

     19 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
    Ettercap screenshot 1
     
  5. Packet Sender icon

    Packet Sender

     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
    Packet Sender screenshot 1
     
  6. T

    tcpflow

     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
    tcpflow screenshot 1
     
  7. SmartSniff icon

    SmartSniff

     13 likes

    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...

    Cost / License

    • Free
    • Proprietary

    Platforms

    • Windows
    SmartSniff screenshot 1
     
  9. Packetyzer icon

    Packetyzer

     6 likes

    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.

    Cost / License

    • Free
    • Open Source

    Alerts

    • Discontinued

    Platforms

    • Windows
    Decode View
     
  10. TcpLogView icon

    TcpLogView

     3 likes

    TcpLogView is a simple utility that monitors the opened TCP connections on your system, and adds a new log line every time that a TCP connection is opened or closed.

    Cost / License

    • Free
    • Proprietary

    Application type

    Platforms

    • Windows
    TcpLogView screenshot 1
     
  11. PsPing icon

    PsPing

     2 likes

    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...

    10 PsPing alternatives

    Cost / License

    • Free
    • Proprietary

    Platforms

    • Windows
    PsPing screenshot 1
     
  12. Edgeshark icon

    Edgeshark

     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
    Edgeshark screenshot 1
     
  13. P

    PPerf

     2 likes

    PowerShell Iperf GUI - A PowerShell script to start iperf and show the output (similar to Jperf).

    Cost / License

    • Free
    • Open Source

    Platforms

    • Windows
    PPerf screenshot 1
     
  14. AirSnare icon

    AirSnare

     Like

    AirSnare is another tool to add to your Wireless Intrusion Detection Toolbox. AirSnare will alert you to unfriendly MAC addresses on your network and will also alert you to DHCP requests taking place.

    Cost / License

    • Free
    • Proprietary

    Application type

    Alerts

    • Discontinued

    Platforms

    • Windows
     
12 of 12 netcat alternatives