Arkime vs tcptraceroute: Side-by-Side Comparison (2026)
Features, pricing, ratings, and pros & cons — compared head-to-head.
Arkime is a free network detection and response tool. tcptraceroute is a free network detection and response tool. Compare features, ratings, integrations, and community reviews side by side to find the best network detection and response fit for your security stack.
CST VerdictBased on our analysis of available product data, here is our conclusion:
Security teams operating on-premises or hybrid networks with packet capture requirements should adopt Arkime for PCAP indexing and retrospective threat hunting; the open-source model means zero licensing friction at scale, and the tool's ability to ingest and search months of network traffic at line rate beats commercial alternatives on cost-per-terabyte. Arkime excels in the Detect function of NIST CSF 2.0, particularly for forensic investigation after an incident surfaces. This is not suitable for organizations needing real-time alerting, automated response, or managed service support; you're running it yourself.
Network engineers and incident responders who need to map routing paths through restrictive firewalls should use tcptraceroute; it exploits TCP traffic that firewalls typically allow, bypassing the UDP and ICMP blocks that stop standard traceroute. The tool is free and runs on Linux, BSD, and macOS, making it trivial to deploy across your existing infrastructure without licensing friction. Skip this if your team relies on GUI-based network mapping tools or needs real-time graphical dashboards; tcptraceroute is command-line only and shows you the path, nothing more.
