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 11 are available for Windows so hopefully you can find a suitable replacement. Other interesting Windows alternatives to netcat are Ettercap, SmartSniff, pwncat and Packetyzer.

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.

netcat alternatives page was last updated

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
Is this is a good alternative?
Yes
No
Free • Open Source
Network Analyzer
Network Monitor
Mac
Windows
Linux
BSD
Snapcraft
Flathub
Homebrew
Chocolatey
52 Wireshark alternatives
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.
- - Wireshark is the most popular Windows, Mac & Linux alternative to netcat.
- - Wireshark is the most popular Open Source & free alternative to netcat.
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Wireshark Features
Detailed packet analysis
Network Usage History
Support for Android Things
Work Item Tracking
Comments about Wireshark as a Alternative to netcat
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
Is this is a good alternative?
Yes
No
Free • Open Source
Network Analyzer
Mac
Windows
Linux
17 Ettercap alternatives
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
SmartSniff
Is this is a good alternative?
Yes
No
Free • Proprietary
HTTP(S) Debugger
Windows
33 SmartSniff alternatives
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...
Suggest and vote on features
SmartSniff Features
1. PortableSmartSniff can be used from a USB stick or similar with no prior installation.
Sockets
pwncat
Is this is a good alternative?
Yes
No
Free • Open Source
Mac
Windows
Linux
Chrome OS
BSD
3 pwncat alternatives
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
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Packetyzer
Is this is a good alternative?
Yes
No
Free • Open Source
Windows
25 Packetyzer alternatives
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
PPerf
Is this is a good alternative?
Yes
No
Free • Open Source
Windows
8 PPerf alternatives
PowerShell Iperf GUI - A PowerShell script to start iperf and show the output (similar to Jperf).
Suggest and vote on features
PPerf Features
1. PortablePPerf can be used from a USB stick or similar with no prior installation.
Graphical User Interface
PsPing
Is this is a good alternative?
Yes
No
Free • Proprietary
Windows
9 PsPing alternatives
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
Packet Sender
Is this is a good alternative?
Yes
No
Freemium • Open Source
Mac
Windows
Linux
Android
iPhone
Android Tablet
iPad
3 Packet Sender alternatives
Packet Sender can send and receive UDP, TCP, and SSL on the ports of your choosing. All servers and clients may run simultaneously.
- - Packet Sender is the most popular iPhone, iPad & Android Tablet alternative to netcat.
Suggest and vote on features
Packet Sender Features
SSL
Network Tools
tcpflow
Is this is a good alternative?
Yes
No
Free • Open Source
Mac
Windows
Linux
14 tcpflow alternatives
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...
tcpflow has no features, suggest some!
TcpLogView
Is this is a good alternative?
Yes
No
Free • Proprietary
Network Monitor
Windows
10 TcpLogView alternatives
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.
TcpLogView has no features, suggest some!
AirSnare
Is this is a good alternative?
Yes
No
Free • Proprietary
Network Analyzer
Network Monitor
Windows
35 AirSnare alternatives
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.
AirSnare has no features, suggest some!
Discontinued
The official website is no longer available. Last version, 1.5, released in May 2006, can be still downloaded from Download.com
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11 of 11 netcat alternatives

Wireshark Features

Comments about Wireshark as a Alternative to netcat

Ettercap Features

SmartSniff Features

pwncat Features

PPerf Features

PsPing Features

Packet Sender Features