Colasoft Capsa
Colasoft Capsa is a Windows network analyzer for monitoring, analyzing, and troubleshooting wired and wireless networks.
What Colasoft Capsa is
Colasoft Capsa is a Windows network analyzer for monitoring, analyzing, and troubleshooting wired and wireless networks. Its Enterprise edition captures packets in real time and can save data transmitted over local networks. The Enterprise overview lists support for more than 1,800 protocols and sub-protocols, including VoIP, while packet details can be displayed in Hex, ASCII, and EBCDIC. Capsa can diagnose network problems and suggest solutions, monitor conversations, and reconstruct packet streams. Security analysis detects DoS and DDoS attacks, worm activity, ARP attacks, TCP port scanning, and suspicious conversations in real time. Users can receive email or sound alerts and schedule captures once, daily, or weekly. Reports can cover selected network items, the whole network, or a specific network group. The free edition monitors up to 10 IP addresses, has a four-hour session timeout, and does not monitor WiFi connections. Professional is a single-seat perpetual license for one machine with one year of maintenance, listed at $695, paid once. Enterprise is $1,295, paid once and includes unlimited IP addresses and session time. The Enterprise evaluation download is fully functional for 30 days.
Good
- Analyzes more than 1,800 protocols and sub-protocols.
- Diagnoses network problems and suggests solutions.
- Detects several attack and suspicious-traffic types.
- Supports scheduled captures and email or sound alerts.
- Generates reports for networks and selected items.
Watch out
- Capsa Free monitors up to 10 IP addresses.
- Free sessions time out after four hours.
- Capsa Free does not monitor WiFi connections.
- Professional is listed at $695, paid once.
Who it suits
Capsa is aimed at network administrators and engineers in small businesses and enterprises. The free edition may suit users monitoring up to 10 IP addresses who do not need WiFi connection monitoring.
Verdict
Capsa combines packet analysis, troubleshooting, alerts, and reporting, with limits varying by edition. Review the free edition's IP, session, and WiFi restrictions before choosing it.
Plans and prices
From Colasoft Capsa's own pricing page, checked 15 Oct 2026.
| Plan | Price | What it gives you |
|---|---|---|
| Capsa Free | Free | 10 IP addresses · 4-hour session timeout · no WiFi monitoring · no commercial workplace use |
| Capsa Standard | $295, paid once | 50 IP addresses · unlimited session timeout · no WiFi monitoring · perpetual license |
| Capsa Professional | $695, paid once | single seat · maintenance renewal from $155 · single-seat perpetual with 1 year maintenance |
| Capsa Enterprise | $995, paid once | unlimited IP addresses · unlimited session timeout · WiFi monitoring · advanced security and reporting views · perpetual license |
The facts
Each one read from Colasoft Capsa's own pages, with the date it was checked.
What it does
- Alerts and scheduling
- Capsa can notify users by email or sound when an alarm triggers, and schedule packet capture to run once, daily, or weekly.checked 5 Oct 2026
- Behavior monitoring
- Built-in monitoring covers HTTP, email, DNS, FTP, MSN and Yahoo Messenger traffic.checked 15 Oct 2026
- Built-in tools
- The package includes packet creation and replay tools plus IP scanning and ping utilities.checked 15 Oct 2026
- Command-line extensibility
- Capsa supports command-line launching and allows customization with external Windows applications and tools.checked 15 Oct 2026
- Conversation analysis
- Capsa monitors conversations and reconstructs packet streams.checked 5 Oct 2026
- Diagnosis
- Automatic expert diagnosis identifies network problems and suggests solutions.checked 15 Oct 2026
- Documentation
- The vendor provides version 15.1 user guide, datasheet, technical specifications and whitepaper documents.checked 15 Oct 2026
- Hardware requirements
- Minimum hardware is a 2.8GHz Pentium 4 and 4GB RAM; the recommended configuration is a 3.2GHz Core Duo and at least 8GB RAM.checked 15 Oct 2026
- Integrations
- The pages opened describe protocol and application analysis, but do not identify named third-party integrations.checked 5 Oct 2026
- Intended users
- Colasoft describes Capsa Enterprise as designed for small business and enterprise users, including network administrators and engineers.checked 5 Oct 2026
- Licence
- The EULA describes copyrighted proprietary software with perpetual single-seat and five-seat licensing and prohibits reverse engineering or redistribution of full versions.checked 15 Oct 2026
- Limit: scalability and API
- The TrustRadius reviewer reports a performance cutoff near 3Gb/s and requests 10Gb/s scaling, capture-trigger APIs and remote-capture agents.checked 15 Oct 2026
- Network diagnosis
- Capsa automatically diagnoses network problems and suggests solutions.checked 5 Oct 2026
- Packet capture
- Enterprise captures and saves packets from wired and 802.11a/b/g/n wireless networks in real time.checked 15 Oct 2026
- Packet decoding
- Captured packets can be inspected in Hex, ASCII and EBCDIC representations.checked 15 Oct 2026
- Praise: network troubleshooting
- The G2 reviewer praises real-time capture, host and IP monitoring and the ability to pinpoint network problems.checked 15 Oct 2026
- Praise: robustness and value
- A verified TrustRadius reviewer praises robust business-traffic handling, easy setup and filtering, and relatively low cost.checked 15 Oct 2026
- Praise: visualization
- A Gartner reviewer praises rich performance indicators, strong visualization and effective identification of business performance problems.checked 15 Oct 2026
- Protocol analysis
- The product analyzes more than 1800 protocols and sub-protocols, including VoIP traffic.checked 15 Oct 2026
- Purpose
- Capsa is a portable network analyzer for monitoring, analyzing, and troubleshooting wired and wireless networks.checked 5 Oct 2026
- Rating on Capterra
- Capterra lists Capsa at 0.0 out of 5 from 0 user reviews.checked 15 Oct 2026
The company
- Company facts
- Gartner describes Colasoft as a private company founded in 2001, headquartered in Kowloon, China, with 501–1000 employees.checked 15 Oct 2026
Money
- Limit: complexity and cost
- The G2 reviewer says the many features are difficult to learn, the price is high for small deployments and heavy traffic can slow the system.checked 15 Oct 2026
Where it runs
- Platform requirement
- The Enterprise trial download lists Windows 10, Windows 11, and Windows Server 2019 as requirements.checked 5 Oct 2026
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