FAQ

Does the classic NetAssist network debugging assistant support macOS?

First, a quick disambiguation — these are two different products whose names differ only in the trailing "ant":

• NetAssistant (the tool documented on this site): open-source and cross-platform — Windows, Linux and macOS are all supported, with native x64 and ARM64 builds, so it runs on a Mac out of the box → download
• NetAssist (the classic Windows-only tool): no macOS or Linux version

So for TCP/UDP debugging on a Mac or on Linux, just use NetAssistant — it works the same way as the debugging assistants you already know. See Getting Started and the full comparison table.

What is the difference between NetAssistant and NetAssist?

They are different pieces of software with similar names:

	NetAssistant	NetAssist
Platforms	Windows / Linux / macOS (x64 + ARM64)	Windows only
Open source	✅ Apache-2.0	❌ Closed source
TCP decoders (sticky packets)	Raw / line / length-prefix / JSON	Limited
High-concurrency stress testing	✅ QPS + p50/p95/p99	❌

See the full comparison table.

How do I install NetAssistant with winget?

On Windows, the recommended way is winget (with automatic upgrades):

winget install SunJary.NetAssistant

Upgrade later with:

winget upgrade SunJary.NetAssistant

More installation options on the download page.

Is there a deb package for Linux?

Yes. deb, AppImage and tar.gz packages are provided (both x86_64 and aarch64):

• deb (recommended): for Debian/Ubuntu and derivatives — sudo apt install ./netassistant-linux-x86_64.deb resolves dependencies automatically; works on Ubuntu 22.04 and later
• AppImage: portable, works out of the box — great for Fedora/Arch and other distros; first run needs sudo apt install libfuse2
• tar.gz: extract and run, requires GTK3 (sudo apt install libgtk-3-0)

Download links on the download page.

Is NetAssistant free and open source?

Yes. NetAssistant is released under the Apache-2.0 license with all features free. The source code is hosted on GitHub — contributions are welcome.

How do I handle TCP sticky packets?

NetAssistant ships four TCP decoders that split the byte stream automatically, so you never count bytes by hand:

1. Raw data: displayed in arrival order
2. Line-delimited: split by newline
3. Length-prefix: split by the header length field
4. JSON: split per complete JSON object

See the TCP/UDP debugging guide for usage.