PAGES
← all tools
◆ Network Analysis & Monitoring

driftnet

1.2.0 open-source

Driftnet watches network traffic, and picks out and displays JPEG and GIF images for display

source ↗ rss ↗ What is a cyber toolchain? last repo push May 1, 2025

Summary

driftnet is an open-source packet-sniffing tool that watches network traffic and reconstructs JPEG, GIF, PNG and WebP images (plus MPEG audio) as they cross the wire, displaying them in a GTKGTKA cross-platform widget toolkit maintained by the GNOME project for building graphical user interfaces in C, with bindings for many languages, giving cyber tools a native desktop UI without writing platform-specific rendering code. window or a browser-based HTTP/websockets viewer. It runs as a desktop application on Unix systems, built against libpcap and standard image libraries, either sniffing live traffic or reading from a pcappcapA packet capture, recorded network packets that can be inspected later. Analysts use it to reconstruct communication and investigate protocol behavior or suspicious traffic. dump file. It suits penetration testers and network analysts who need to see, rather than just log, what images are passing over a network segment they can observe. The README frames this bluntly as an invasion of privacy rather than positioning it against named competitors, and it sits in a niche of its own within passive network forensics tools. Its history runs back to 2001 with 12 contributors, but there have been no commits in the past year and only one release in recent tracking, so treat it as stable rather than actively developed.

Driftnet watches network traffic, and picks out and displays JPEG and GIF images for display

How driftnet helps

What images have crossed this network segment while I was watching it?

reassembles JPEG, GIF, PNG and WebP data straight out of the captured packets and displays each picture as it completes, in the GTK window or the browser viewer

What is someone on this network listening to right now?

pulls MPEG audio streams out of the same traffic and plays them back as they're captured

Can I see what was in a capture I already took, without being on the wire?

reads a saved pcap dump file instead of a live interface and replays the same image and audio reconstruction against it

Are images being sent inside HTTP POST bodies, not just ordinary downloads?

inspects HTTP POST content in addition to plain responses, so uploads on the segment surface as images too

Is anything worth seeing hidden in traffic on an 802.11 network I'm monitoring?

understands radiotap and 802.11 headers so images can be pulled out of wireless capture, not only wired Ethernet frames

Can I watch this from another machine instead of the box doing the capture?

offers an HTTP and websockets based viewer alongside the GTK window, so the reconstructed images can be watched from a browser on another host

all 3 features, with the evidence for each →

Languages

Not documented

Features

3 capabilities

Built from driftnet's releases, docs, README and our own runs. “Seen” marks the month we first spotted a release the vendor didn't date.

Compare with peers →

  • driftnet covers 2 of the 34 network analysis capabilities we track.
All capabilities 3 capabilities
Network traffic capture shipped Captures raw network traffic for processing. 3 releases · 1 other source · first seen Sep 2018

Shared capability: Packet capture (live and offline)

release

  • Adds support putting network interfaces into monitor mode automatically or explicitly for passive sniffing. 1.2.0 · Sep 2018 · source · release history
  • Adds options to list available capture interfaces for explicit selection during operation. 1.2.0 · Sep 2018 · source · release history
  • Adds basic Windows support via Cygwin, enabling the tool to run on Windows environments. 1.2.0 · Sep 2018 · source · release history

docs

  • Captures network traffic and extracts JPEG, GIF, PNG, WebP images and MPEG audio for display.
HTTP/WebSocket display server shipped Provides a web-based interface to view extracted media via HTTP or WebSocket protocols. 1 release · 1 other source · first seen Sep 2018

release

  • Adds new HTTP and WebSocket-based display capabilities for remote visualization of captured traffic images. 1.2.0 · Sep 2018 · source · release history

docs

  • deiv / driftnet Public Notifications Fork 63 Star 470 v1.2.0 deiv released this 15 Sep 19:11 · 132 commits to master since this release v1.2.0 1449c62 New, http and websockets based, display Basic windows support (cygwin) New option to list capture interfaces Support for putting the interface in monitor mode Assets 2… seen Aug 2026 · source
Image extraction documented Extracts JPEG, GIF, PNG, WebP, and AVIF images from captured traffic. 2 other sources

Shared capability: File extraction from traffic

docs

  • deiv / driftnet Public Notifications Fork 63 Star 470 v1.2.0 deiv released this 15 Sep 19:11 · 132 commits to master since this release v1.2.0 1449c62 New, http and websockets based, display Basic windows support (cygwin) New option to list capture interfaces Support for putting the interface in monitor mode Assets 2… seen Aug 2026 · source
  • Captures network traffic and extracts JPEG, GIF, PNG, WebP images and MPEG audio for display.

Lines in monospace are the tool's own words: help text parsed from its source, or an endpoint from its API document. Under release, a line is our summary of a dated release. Under docs, it is quoted from the tool's own documentation or website. Each links back to the source it came from.

Score card

  1. Shipping velocity releases a month, last 12 months
  2. Documentation quality release-notes rubric, 0–100
  3. Breaking-change discipline how rarely a release breaks users, and notice given
  4. Maintenance risk quiet time against its own cadence, maintainers
  5. Innovation & surface new capabilities, API and MCP surface
  6. Community health
  7. Contributor trend distinct committers, this year against last
  8. Maintainer concentration bus factor now against a year ago
  9. Issue backlog trend issues closed per issue opened, 12 months
  10. Responsiveness median time to a maintainer’s first reply

Nine scores for driftnet, each built from the releases, notes and API history this site tracks — and, on Researcher and Business, where it stands among every measured tool in its category and how that has moved.

Score cards are part of every paid plan.

See plans →

Each score is 0–100 on a published rubric, derived from data this site already shows. A dimension we cannot measure says so — it is never scored 0 and never enters a rank.

How this is scored
  • Shipping velocity — releases a month over the last 12 months, on a log scale where 16 a month scores 100. Needs 3 releases in the window.
  • Documentation quality — the release-notes rubric published on the analytics page, unchanged.
  • Breaking-change discipline — the share of releases carrying a breaking change (none scores 100, half or more scores 0). Only projects that label breaking changes are measured: a clean record cannot be told from an unlabelled one.
  • Maintenance risk — quiet time measured against the tool's own release cadence (quiet longer than 90 days and three typical gaps scores 0), plus the number of active maintainers and whether contributors are growing, where known. Higher is lower risk.
  • Innovation & surface — new capabilities in the feature ledger this year, API and MCP operations added, and the share of commits that are features: the mean of whichever we hold.
  • Community health (open-source tools only) — each is a direction, not a size: contributors this year against last, the bus factor now against a year ago, and issues closed per issue opened, where steady scores 50, doubled 100 and halved 0; plus the median time to a maintainer's first reply (an hour scores about 100, a month or more 0). A commercial card has no repository and carries none of the four.
  • Documented delivery (commercial tools) — when a vendor's documented new capabilities have slowed against its own baseline, that counts against the overall standing as heavily as two low dimensions. Steady delivery, or too little history to judge, leaves the standing alone; it is never a sixth score.
  • Open-source tools are scored on repository signals; commercial tools on their published changelog. Ranks compare tools within one category and one profile and need at least five measured peers; the overall standing needs three ranked dimensions. Best-in-breed or consolidator is a shape, not a quality, and is never scored.

Release-note detail over time

See how much detail driftnet puts in its release notes, quarter by quarter, and compare it with tracked tools in the same category. This history uses up to ten retained, reviewed notes per tool; sparse or blank older quarters may reflect that limit.

Checking release-note history…

Explore the full chart →

Releases

Show

5 entries

  1. September 20261
  3. August 20263
  5. September 20181
    Show

    5 entries

    1. docs update Sep 8, 2026 · issue 068

      driftnet gains HTTP text extraction and live display of captured text in the web UI

      • Adds text extraction from captured HTTP requests, displayable in the web (HTTP) interface alongside existing media.
      • Extends the HTTP/WebSocketWebSocketA protocol that upgrades an HTTP connection into a persistent, full-duplex channel, letting a server push data to a client without repeated polling. Cyber tools use it for real-time event streaming and live command output. display to paint captured text media and send the text media type in WebSocket messages.
      • Adds text extraction from captured HTTP requests, displayable in the web (HTTP) interface alongside existing media.

      1 more in Everything

    2. docs update Aug 31, 2026 · issue 060

      Driftnet 1.2.0 adds an HTTP/WebSocketWebSocketA protocol that upgrades an HTTP connection into a persistent, full-duplex channel, letting a server push data to a client without repeated polling. Cyber tools use it for real-time event streaming and live command output.-based display, Windows (Cygwin) support, interface listing, and monitor mode.

      • Adds a new HTTP and WebSockets-based display mode as an alternative to the traditional GUIGUIA graphical user interface, controls such as windows, buttons and menus. It lets people use software visually rather than entering commands. display.
      • Lets operators run Driftnet under Cygwin to capture and view network images from Windows hosts.
      • Adds options to list available capture interfaces.
      • Adds support for putting a capture interface into monitor mode.

      4 details in Everything

    3. docs update Aug 31, 2026 · issue 060
      • Adds a new HTTP and WebSockets-based display mode for viewing captured media.
    4. docs update Aug 31, 2026 · issue 060

      Driftnet v1.4.0 adds WebP image capture support and libwebsockets >= 4.3.0 compatibility.

      • Adds WebP image format support, enabling capture and display of WebP images from intercepted traffic.
      • Adds support for libwebsockets >= 4.3.0, enabling use with newer versions of the websockets library.

      2 details in Everything

    5. 1.2.0 Sep 15, 2018 · release notes

      driftnet 1.2.0 adds HTTP/WebSocketWebSocketA protocol that upgrades an HTTP connection into a persistent, full-duplex channel, letting a server push data to a client without repeated polling. Cyber tools use it for real-time event streaming and live command output. display, Windows/Cygwin support, and interface listing with monitor mode enablement

      └──▷ GET THIS VERSION 
      $ git clone --branch 1.2.0 https://github.com/deiv/driftnet.git
# already have the repo? check out this version:
$ git checkout 1.2.0
      • Adds new HTTP and WebSocket-based display capabilities for remote visualization of captured traffic images.
      • Adds basic Windows support via Cygwin, enabling the tool to run on Windows environments.
      • Adds options to list available capture interfaces for explicit selection during operation.
      • Adds support putting network interfaces into monitor mode automatically or explicitly for passive sniffing.

      4 details in Everything

    Project health

    Issue, contributor and maintainer activity in deiv/driftnet, 2023-10 – 2026-09, as of 2026-09-25. Twelve-month figures first; the trend lines run the whole window.

    1. Contributors 0 −1 vs prior 12 months
    2. Maintainers 0 +0 joined · −1 left, last 12 months
    3. Bus factor 0 committers behind half the commits
    4. Community-filed 100% of issues opened, last 12 months
    5. Median time to close 8.2 years first maintainer reply 43 hours
    6. Open backlog 5 of 32 issues ever filed
    1. Issues opened / month 0 · 0 communitymaintainers
    2. Open backlog 5
    3. Contributors / month 0
    4. Commits / month 0
    5. Stars 471
    Issue themes, last 12 months
    • other 100%

    Counts from the project's public repository and git history; no individuals are identified. Maintainers are the committers covering 80% of the last year's commits. how we measure this

    Libraries its release ships

    What its latest release locks, checked against known advisories.

    None of its release's images build from a lockfile we can read.

    Add the badge to your README

    Maintain this project? The badge links readers straight to this page, so they can follow every release here.

    Tracked by Cyber Toolchain Choose a badge style and copy the code →
    compare.md

      Free the public facts, no sign-in Any paid plan all other sections Researcher & Business pricing history and category rank

      my-toolchain — 0 tools

        Betas, release candidates and previews. Turn it off to see final releases only. It also applies to changes you ask for over MCP when you're signed in.
        browse all tools → score card for your toolchain →
        cyber-toolchain / feedback

        Send us feedback