February 23, 2026
Bite-sized packets, big fights
Show HN: Babyshark – Wireshark made easy (terminal UI for PCAPs)
Babyshark brings network snooping to your keyboard—fans cheer, skeptics cry copycat
TLDR: Babyshark is a new text-based tool to inspect recorded and live network traffic with simple guides and “weird flow” highlights. The crowd is split between grateful newcomers and critics yelling “copycat” and “AI-generated,” sparking a bigger debate about whether easier interfaces can teach real networking skills.
Babyshark promises “Wireshark made easy” in your terminal—a text-only app to browse packet capture files (PCAPs, a recording of internet traffic) and even live traffic using tshark (Wireshark’s command-line tool). It adds friendly hints like “What should I click?” and a Weird stuff panel to spotlight odd connections. Offline viewing works without Wireshark; live capture needs tshark and sometimes admin permissions. The GitHub release dropped in alpha, and the vibe is scrappy, helpful, and proudly nerdy.
Then the comments rolled in and the waters got choppy. One camp cheers: wonger_ says they’re overwhelmed by older tools and love the hand-holding—plus they flagged real UX nits like Esc not being obvious. Another camp storms in with clone drama and AI-made accusations, with jetbalsa calling it basically termshark and “90% done by an AI agent.” A networking instructor counters that the real hurdle isn’t the interface; it’s understanding how the internet’s plumbing works, which no tool can shortcut. Practical folks ask, “How does it compare to tshark?” while meme lords spam “WHILE DO; DO; DO” like a bug stuck in a loop. The verdict? A tiny terminal toy with big ambitions—and a comment section with teeth that’s half mentorship, half roast.
Key Points
- •Babyshark is an alpha-stage terminal UI for analyzing .pcap/.pcapng files and live network traffic.
- •Offline viewing works without Wireshark; live capture mode requires tshark (Wireshark’s CLI).
- •Features include flow and packet browsing, follow stream, stream search, display filters, bookmarks, and markdown report export.
- •Installation options include prebuilt binaries from GitHub Releases, building from source with Rust/cargo, or cargo install from the Git repository.
- •tshark installation and permission guidance is provided for macOS, Debian/Ubuntu, and Fedora; usage examples demonstrate live capture and filtering.