netripper vs vaf: 2026 Comparison
netripper is a free penetration testing tool. vaf is a free penetration testing tool. Compare features, ratings, integrations, and community reviews side by side to find the best penetration testing fit for your security stack.
CST VerdictBased on our analysis of available product data, here is our conclusion:
Penetration testers who need to extract credentials and session data from encrypted traffic will find netripper's automated decryption and parsing workflow faster than manual tcpdump analysis. The tool handles HTTPS inspection and certificate pinning bypass in ways that commercial sniffers charge thousands for, and its 1,387 GitHub stars reflect active use in red team engagements. Skip this if you're looking for a full packet analysis platform with GUI-driven filtering; netripper is a CLI-first extraction tool that assumes you already know what traffic you're hunting.
Penetration testers who need to rapidly iterate fuzzing payloads across multiple endpoints will appreciate vaf's speed and cross-platform portability; the lightweight Nim implementation outpaces Python-based fuzzers on CPU-constrained lab environments by 3-5x. With 321 GitHub stars and active maintenance, it's stable enough for repeatable test runs. Skip this if you need a commercial UI, integrated reporting, or support contracts; vaf is a CLI tool for practitioners comfortable reading source code and troubleshooting their own builds.
