Full packet capture takes the whole packet. Traffic travels in packets that include a data payload and a header.

Packet capture involves copying segments of network traffic.

Steel Central Packet Analyzer Plus Packet sniffing tool with customizable views, an alerts system, and reports.

Kismet Wireless network detector, packet sniffer, and intrusion detection tool with 802.11 monitoring.

Tcpdump Free command-line packet capture tool for UNIX that supports TCP, UDP, and ICMP.

Colasoft Capsa Network analyzer that supports over 1800 different protocols.

ManageEngine NetFlow Analyzer NetFlow analyzer tool with reports and a threshold-based alerts system.

Wireshark Open-source packet analyzer that can capture and filter packets.

Includes four packet capture sensors out of the box and users can also create customized packet sniffing methods.

Paessler PRTG Network Monitor (FREE TRIAL) An infrastructure monitoring system with strong network supervision modules.

This system is able to identify more than 1,200 applications and extract just their traffic.

SolarWinds Network Performance Monitor EDITOR’S CHOICE Network monitoring tool with a packet analyzer, quality of experience (QoE) dashboard and custom alerts.

Here is our list of the best packet capture tools: Whether it’s malicious communications or non-essential applications consuming lots of bandwidth, or high latency, a packet sniffer can tell you. Your devices talk with each other every day and a packet capture tool can tell you a lot about the content of those conversations.

Windows pcap viewer