What is Wireshark used for?

Wireshark is a network protocol analyzer that captures and inspects packets, with a graphical interface and the command-line TShark for scripting. It is a good fit for troubleshooting network problems and analyzing protocol traffic for security work.

Is Wireshark open source?

Yes. Wireshark is open source under the GPL-2.0 licence. Its source code is on GitHub at wireshark/wireshark and is written mainly in C.

Yes. Wireshark is open source, so the software itself is free to use.

What are some alternatives to Wireshark?

Similar open-source tools in the Networking & VPN category include Pi-hole, AdGuard Home and Cilium. SaaS products in the same category include Akamai, Cloudflare and CyberGhost.

Is Wireshark actively maintained?

Yes. The most recent commit to Wireshark was on 2 October 2026. The project has 9.9k stars on GitHub.

Wireshark: open-source networking & VPN

About Wireshark

Wireshark is a network traffic analyzer, sometimes called a sniffer, that captures packets and lets you inspect them in detail. It runs on Linux, macOS, BSD and other Unix-like systems as well as Windows, and is widely used for troubleshooting networks and studying protocols.

The graphical interface is built with Qt, and packet capture and filtering rely on libpcap and npcap. The distribution also includes TShark, a line-oriented sniffer similar to tcpdump that uses the same dissection, capture file reading and writing, and packet filtering code, and editcap, which converts capture files and can remove packets. Official installers exist for Windows and macOS, and packages are available for many Linux and BSD distributions.

The code is written in C and licensed under GPL-2.0. This GitHub repository is a read-only mirror of the project's GitLab repository, where changes and pull requests are submitted. The official home of the project is wireshark.org, where the latest releases are published.

Key features

Live packet capture and inspection
Qt graphical interface
TShark command-line analyzer
editcap for converting capture files
Display and capture filtering
Runs on Windows, macOS, Linux and BSD

Good fit for

→Troubleshooting network problems
→Analyzing protocol traffic for security work

Built with: C
Tags: packet-analyzer; network; protocol-analysis; tshark; security; pcap; troubleshooting

Wireshark: questions and answers

What is Wireshark used for?: Wireshark is a network protocol analyzer that captures and inspects packets, with a graphical interface and the command-line TShark for scripting. It is a good fit for troubleshooting network problems and analyzing protocol traffic for security work.
Is Wireshark open source?: Yes. Wireshark is open source under the GPL-2.0 licence. Its source code is on GitHub at wireshark/wireshark and is written mainly in C.
Is Wireshark free?: Yes. Wireshark is open source, so the software itself is free to use.
What are some alternatives to Wireshark?: Similar open-source tools in the Networking & VPN category include Pi-hole, AdGuard Home and Cilium. SaaS products in the same category include Akamai, Cloudflare and CyberGhost.
Is Wireshark actively maintained?: Yes. The most recent commit to Wireshark was on 2 October 2026. The project has 9.9k stars on GitHub.