ntop is a network traffic monitoring application that provides information about network utilisation, communicating hosts and protocol activity.
It was designed to provide network traffic visibility comparable to the process information offered by the Unix top utility. Unlike a simple bandwidth counter, ntop analyses captured packets and organises the results by host, protocol and network service.
The software combines terminal monitoring with an embedded web server, allowing administrators to examine network activity using a browser. It also supports collecting flow information and maintaining historical traffic statistics.
ntop is the predecessor of ntopng. The original application is no longer the focus of upstream development and should be treated as legacy software. For modern network monitoring deployments, ntopng is the maintained successor.
This is free and open source software.
Key Features
- Displays network traffic statistics organised by host, protocol and service.
- Analyses traffic at the data-link and network layers.
- Identifies communicating hosts and reports traffic between them.
- Provides interactive terminal and browser-based monitoring interfaces.
- Supports NetFlow and sFlow traffic collection.
- Records historical traffic measurements using Round Robin Database storage.
- Reports IP protocol distributions and traffic patterns.
- Provides host, subnet, Autonomous System and VLAN statistics.
- Can passively identify operating systems using observed network traffic.
- Includes monitoring facilities for selected VoIP protocols.
- Supports IPv4 and IPv6 traffic analysis.
- Includes an HTTP interface and scripting facilities for integrations.
- Offers HTTPS access to the embedded web interface.
- Supports monitoring multiple network interfaces.
Website: www.ntop.org
Support:
Developer: Luca Deri and contributors
License: GNU General Public License v3.0

ntop is written in C. Learn C with our recommended free books and free tutorials.
Related Software
| Network 'top' Tools | |
|---|---|
| ntopng | Web-based network traffic monitoring application with an open source version |
| NetHogs | Groups bandwidth by process |
| nload | Real time network traffic monitor for the text console |
| IPTraf-ng | Fork of IPTraf |
| iftop | Displays bandwidth usage on an interface by host |
| ntop | Network traffic probe that shows the network usage |
| IPTraf | Interactive Colourful IP LAN Monitor |
| socktop | Remote system monitor with a rich TUI |
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