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Wireshark Foundation

The Wireshark Foundation supports Wireshark, an open-source network protocol analyzer, and its TShark command-line tool. Wireshark is free software under the GNU GPL version 2 with no licence fee and no restrictions on use.

Licensing at a Glance

  • Open source
  • Freeware

  1. Wireshark is free software licensed under the GNU General Public License version 2; it can be downloaded without a licence fee and the download is the full version, not a demo.[1]

  2. Organisations may use Wireshark commercially, for example to capture and analyse traffic on their own or their customers' networks.[2]

  3. Using Wireshark code in a commercial product is subject to GPL conditions; the project recommends keeping Wireshark and the product separate, communicating over sockets or pipes.[3]

  4. The source README states there are no restrictions on use, only on distribution, and that most parts of Wireshark are under GPL version 2 or later.[4]

Products

References

  1. Wireshark • Go Deep · wireshark.org · retrieved 2026-09-27
  2. Wireshark • Go Deep · wireshark.org · retrieved 2026-09-27
  3. Wireshark • Go Deep · wireshark.org · retrieved 2026-09-27
  4. Wireshark README.md · gitlab.com · retrieved 2026-09-27
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