ntopng CE: Network Traffic Visibility That Just Works (Mostly Out of the Box) ntopng isn’t your average network tool. It’s not just about pings, port scans, or SNMP polling. It gives you actual insight — who’s talking to whom, how much, when, and over what protocol. And it does it in real time, with flow-based stats, active host lists, and deep packet labeling.

The Community Edition (CE) is the free version — and for many small-to-medium setups, it’s more than enough. You get a slick web UI, pe

Wireshark: When You Need to See *Everything* on the Wire Some tools are optional. Wireshark isn’t. If the problem is buried in a packet — whether it’s a bad TLS handshake, misrouted DNS request, or a rogue broadcast storm — this is the microscope that shows what’s really happening.

It’s a protocol analyzer, packet sniffer, and traffic visualizer all in one. It doesn’t abstract. It decodes. Layer by layer, byte by byte. From Ethernet frame to application payload, it tells the whole story.

There

Unicornscan: Not Polished, Just Powerful Unicornscan isn’t flashy. It doesn’t have a web UI, there’s no slick config wizard, and good luck finding official support. But for network pros who need to map out huge spaces quickly — or quietly — this odd little scanner still has a role to play. It was built for speed. Real speed. The kind you need when scanning entire subnets or bouncing probes off distant nodes and want answers now — not in an hour. It works by firing off packets asynchronously, wit

Nmap + Zenmap: When You Want to See the Network — and Actually Understand It There’s scanning… and then there’s knowing. Nmap has been the go-to tool for mapping networks and probing ports for decades. It’s fast, flexible, scriptable — but also, let’s be honest, not exactly user-friendly at first glance. That’s where Zenmap steps in. Zenmap gives Nmap a face — a visual interface that makes crafting, running, and analyzing scans way less intimidating. Together, they turn raw scanning power into s