Wireshark VS lsof

Compare Wireshark VS lsof and see what are their differences

Rating: 0 reviews
Pricing: Open source

Rating: 0 reviews

Measure.sh

Measure helps mobile teams monitor and fix crashes, ANRs, bugs, and performance issues. The open source alternative to Firebase Crashlytics. sponsored

Which is more popular?

Based on our record, Wireshark seems to be more popular. It has been mentioned 12 times since March 2021.

social mentions: 12 vs 0
Monitoring Tools popularity: 96% vs 4%
alternatives listed: 240+ vs 22

Base details

Website, pricing, platforms and company facts side by side.

	Wireshark	l lsof
Website	wireshark.org	people.freebsd.org
Pricing	Open source	—
Listed in	Monitoring Tools Log Management Performance Monitoring Network Monitoring +1	Monitoring Tools Command Line Tools Performance Monitoring Accounting +1

Features and specs

What each product offers, as listed by its team.

Wireshark 5 features

lsof 0 features

Comprehensive Protocol Support
Wireshark supports a vast number of protocols out of the box, allowing for detailed inspection and analysis of network traffic.
Free and Open-Source
Wireshark is free to use and its source code is openly available, enabling customization and community-driven improvements.
Cross-Platform Compatibility
Wireshark runs on various operating systems including Windows, macOS, and Linux, making it accessible to a wide audience.
Rich Feature Set
It offers features like live capture, offline analysis, deep inspection of hundreds of protocols, and powerful display filters for granular traffic analysis.
Strong Community Support
A large and active community provides extensive documentation, tutorials, and support forums, making it easier for users to troubleshoot and learn.

Possible disadvantages

Steep Learning Curve
Due to its extensive feature set and technical nature, Wireshark can be challenging for beginners to master.
Resource Intensive
Live traffic capture and analysis can consume considerable system resources, which may affect performance, especially on less powerful machines.
Security Risks
Running packet capture tools like Wireshark on production systems carries inherent security risks, as it could potentially expose sensitive data.
Interface Complexity
The user interface, while powerful, can be overwhelming and non-intuitive for new users, making navigation and finding specific features difficult.
Limited Support for Encrypted Traffic
Wireshark has limited capabilities when it comes to analyzing encrypted traffic, as decryption support requires additional setup and access to encryption keys.

No features have been listed yet.

Analysis

An editorial look at what each product does well and who it suits.

Wireshark

lsof

Overall verdict

Yes, Wireshark is considered an excellent tool for network analysis. Its open-source nature, regular updates, and strong community support further enhance its reputation as a reliable and robust tool.

Why this product is good

Wireshark is widely regarded as a leading network protocol analyzer due to its comprehensive features, user-friendly interface, and extensive protocol support. It allows users to capture and examine data packets in real-time, making it invaluable for diagnosing network issues, performing security audits, and educational purposes.

Recommended for

Network administrators looking to troubleshoot connectivity issues.
Security professionals conducting penetration tests and analyzing network traffic for vulnerabilities.
Students and educators who need a practical tool to learn about network protocols and behaviors.
IT professionals managing complex networks who require detailed traffic analysis.

Overall verdict

lsof (List Open Files) is a mature, battle-tested Unix/Linux utility that reliably reveals which files, sockets, and resources are opened by processes, making it an indispensable diagnostic tool for system administrators and developers.

Why this product is good

Provides comprehensive visibility into open files, network sockets, pipes, and devices tied to running processes
Extremely useful for troubleshooting 'device busy' errors, port conflicts, and locating processes holding onto deleted files
Highly portable across many Unix-like systems including FreeBSD, Linux, macOS, and Solaris
Long history of stable, well-maintained releases with extensive documentation and community support
Powerful filtering options let you query by user, process, port, file, or network connection

Recommended for

System administrators diagnosing resource and file-locking issues
Developers debugging network connections and socket usage
Security professionals investigating suspicious process activity and open network ports
Anyone needing to identify which process is using a specific file, directory, or port before unmounting or killing

Videos

Walkthroughs and reviews on video.

Wireshark 3 videos + Add

lsof 2 videos + Add

Wireshark Tutorial for Beginners

Category popularity

How often each product is chosen within a category, 0–100% relative to the other.

Score bands 0–20 21–40 41–50 51–60 61–100

Wireshark

lsof

96% 96%

Monitoring Tools

4% 4%

0% 0%

Command Line Tools

100% 100%

Log Management

0% 0%

92% 92%

Performance Monitoring

8% 8%

User comments

Share your experience with using Wireshark and lsof. For example, how are they different and which one is better?

Reviews and articles

External articles and on-site reviews we used to compare the two products.

Wireshark no reviews yet

lsof no reviews yet

9 Best Angry IP Scanner Alternatives Reviewed 2021 (Free & Paid)
www.comparitech.com · Oct 2021

The beauty in Wireshark is that your network scans can be as broad or as granular as you make them. With a few clicks, you can begin capturing a snapshot of all packet traffic across your local area network. It can be...
10 Best WireShark Alternatives for Android Devices in 2021
techreen.com · Aug 2021

If you are well enough into network communication, you must know about WireShark. WireShark is the most popular network analyzer for PC. You can use WireShark to see anything on your network that’s not encrypted....
11 Best Wireshark Alternatives in 2020
www.guru99.com · Sep 2020

Wireshark is a widely used network monitoring and WiFi troubleshooting tool. However, with Wireshark tool is that you can only gather information from the network but cannot send this information.

We have no reviews of lsof yet. Be the first one to post

Social recommendations and mentions

Recommendations tracked on public social media and blogs since March 2021.

Wireshark 12 mentions

lsof 0 mentions

Ask HN: What Are You Working On? (February 2026)
I recently retired after 37 years of working in tech so of course I am working on open source. My retirement treat was to spend three months learning OpenGL and 3D game programming by porting a classic Java RTS game, Tribal Trouble, to... - Source: Hacker News / 7 months ago
Wifi problematic, wired connections seem okay. Help?
Https://wireshark.org, opening that, go to edit preferences and enable "IP network" in the name resolution area, to show website names instead of only IP addresses. Source: over 3 years ago
Eeros in bridge mode with wired home
To prove this, download wireshark Https://wireshark.org/. Source: over 3 years ago

Tracking lsof since Mar 2021.

Alternatives to Wireshark and lsof

When comparing Wireshark and lsof, you can also consider the following products.

Datadog
See metrics from all of your apps, tools & services in one place with Datadog's cloud monitoring as a service solution. Try it for free.

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htop
htop - an interactive process viewer for Unix. This is htop, an interactive process viewer for Unix systems. It is a text-mode application (for console or X terminals) and requires ncurses. Latest release: htop 2.

Compare htop to Wireshark or lsof:

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Zabbix
Track, record, alert and visualize performance and availability of IT resources

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Sysdig
Sysdig is an open source, system-level exploration that capture system state and activity from a running Linux instance, then save, filter and analyze.

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SolarWinds NPM
Advanced network monitoring for on-premises, hybrid, and cloud. Download a FREE 30-day trial of SolarWinds Network Performance Monitor (NPM) today!

Compare SolarWinds NPM to Wireshark or lsof:

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vtop
vtop is a graphical command-line tool that uses unicode braille to chart CPU and memory usage.

Compare vtop to Wireshark or lsof:

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