Item: Wireshark
Rating: 8
Author: Drew Harrison

Overall Satisfaction with Wireshark

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Wireshark was my go-to tool for capturing and analyzing network traffic while building automation technologies (web bots) for years. It allowed me to quickly see what headers, cookies, and data were being sent during web requests and responses. So I could quickly and accurately mimic the data for automation, and it made life so much easier to have all that data collected and presented in one decent interface.

Pros and Cons

Pros

Captures all kinds of packet data in network traffic
Save & restore captured packed data
Show errors and issues in levels below the HTTP protocol

Cons

Can't modify or manipulate things/data on the network (only records data)
A better interface would be nice - it's functional as-is, but it could use some polish

Return on Investment

I can't put a dollar amount on Wireshark's value or the ROI it has provided. Still, it has been an invaluable tool that has saved many, many hours of frustration when it comes to analyzing network traffic.

Alternatives Considered

Fiddler has recently become my preferred network packet capturing tool, as it allows you to manipulate data for testing. Because I'm building automation software, this feature is invaluable to me. Otherwise, Wireshark is the better choice because it can capture ANY type of network traffic, which is crucial for network admins (along with people in other professions).

Support Rating

I don't believe Wireshark has "true" support as the software is open source. However, there is an active & friendly community around Wireshark that are more than happy to help answer questions. From a comprehensive Wiki and FAQ section on the site to the Ask a Question forum and bug tracker section, there's plenty of support options to make sure your questions and issues are addressed.

Key Insights

Do you think Wireshark delivers good value for the price?

Yes

Are you happy with Wireshark's feature set?

Yes

Did Wireshark live up to sales and marketing promises?

Yes

Did implementation of Wireshark go as expected?

Yes

Would you buy Wireshark again?

Yes

Likelihood to Recommend

If you need to analyze packet data across your network and want the low-level details, Wireshark is perfect for the job. It records the necessary data and presents it in a way that's relatively easy to read, analyze, and understand. It's got a ton of features (more than most people will ever need). However, if you're simply interested in HTTP traffic, I believe Fiddler is a slightly better choice, as it is more explicitly geared towards the HTTP protocol.

Comments

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Wireshark is a robust open source network packet capturing tool