A free network analyzer from WildPackets

After talking about enhanced capabilities of Wireshark (formerly Ethereal) and new style of upcoming Microsoft Network Monitor 3, another sniffer is worth to mention: WildPackets OminPeek.

Originally called EtherPeek, OmniPeek offers more than a basic sniffer, with statistical analysis of traffic, advanced protocol decoders and support for hardware capture card (to name a few).
It's a highly appreciated product along with Observer (Network Instruments) and Fluke (Fluke Networks).

Since some time WildPackets offers for free the OminPeek 4.0 Personal Edition.



It has some limitations:

• Able to capture from a single network interface at one time only


• Expert analysis limited to 25 active conversations


• Licensed for use on networks up to 200 nodes only


• No support for matrix switches


• No specialized Gigabit or WAN Analyzer Card support


• No VoIP analysis experts or options

but it's still fully working and is worth a full evaluation.

OminPeek has some clear advantages over Wireshark in statistical analysis (which is updated in real-time, during capture):


while it suffers in filtering capabilities (Wireshark language filtering is unbeatable).
Anyway it can count on a very interesting filtering builder which someone could prefer over Wireshark boolean conditions:


Until Wireshark will not get serious enhancements on traffic analysis, I would consider OmniPeek Personal it's mandatory complement.