Whosthere
Ranked 3 of 8 network diagnostic tools by recommenders
A clean terminal tool for exploring devices on a local network without elevated privileges. Critics mainly report that it won't run on macOS without lowering security settings.
A clean terminal tool for exploring devices on a local network without elevated privileges. Critics mainly report that it won't run on macOS without lowering security settings.
25 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 16
- criticize it
- 9
- approval share
- 64%
Recommended in 1 of 13 months
- November 2025: not recommended
- December 2025: not recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: not recommended
- March 2026: not recommended
- April 2026: not recommended
- May 2026: not recommended
- June 2026: not recommended
- July 2026: not recommended
- August 2026: not recommended
- September 2026: not recommended
- October 2026: not recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 16 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 1.7 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, not met.
- Recommended in 1 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, not met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Works well on home networks
“Installed on raspbian, works wonders, much better than the thing i vibecoded yesterday.”
Comment from 23 Jan 2026 in “Show HN: Whosthere: A LAN discovery tool with a modern TUI, written in Go” “otherwise awesome tool, i am definitely going to be using this more often.”
Comment from 23 Jan 2026 in “Show HN: Whosthere: A LAN discovery tool with a modern TUI, written in Go” “So far works great on my network!”
Comment from 23 Jan 2026 in “Show HN: Whosthere: A LAN discovery tool with a modern TUI, written in Go” Polished, feature-rich look
“it looks more complete and feature rich and Go is a better choice for sure”
Comment from 24 Jan 2026 in “Show HN: Whosthere: A LAN discovery tool with a modern TUI, written in Go” “much nicer on the eye than most (all?) nmap-guis out of the box”
Comment from 23 Jan 2026 in “Show HN: Whosthere: A LAN discovery tool with a modern TUI, written in Go”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Limited on Wayland and SSH
“I wouldn't call it modern if Wayland is outright not supported.”
Comment from 23 Jan 2026 in “Show HN: Whosthere: A LAN discovery tool with a modern TUI, written in Go” “So I can't run this TUI over SSH or a virtual terminal.”
Comment from 23 Jan 2026 in “Show HN: Whosthere: A LAN discovery tool with a modern TUI, written in Go” “It means it has a dependency on X11.”
Comment from 23 Jan 2026 in “Show HN: Whosthere: A LAN discovery tool with a modern TUI, written in Go” Blocked by macOS security checks
“Couldn't run it on macOS Tahoe. I believe this requires me lowering the security to allow it”
Comment from 23 Jan 2026 in “Show HN: Whosthere: A LAN discovery tool with a modern TUI, written in Go” “Apple could not verify `whosthere' is free of malware that may harm your Mac”
Comment from 23 Jan 2026 in “Show HN: Whosthere: A LAN discovery tool with a modern TUI, written in Go” Shows no open ports
“I think it just performs a full scan initially on my laptop, following scans either didn't success or didn't involve TCP connect scan”
Comment from 23 Jan 2026 in “Show HN: Whosthere: A LAN discovery tool with a modern TUI, written in Go” “It says 'Open ports: (None)' for all devices on my network, despite there being open ports on many of them”
Comment from 23 Jan 2026 in “Show HN: Whosthere: A LAN discovery tool with a modern TUI, written in Go”
Other network diagnostic tools people recommend
The four most recommended other network diagnostic tools, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
See all 8 network diagnostic tools, rankedWhat people said
21 of the 25 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“this does not scale if you have 20-30 small utilities installed on your system”
“Great tool, I will test the tool”
“it looks more complete and feature rich and Go is a better choice for sure”
“Seems IPv4-only, which most LANs aren't since a good while.”
“much nicer on the eye than most (all?) nmap-guis out of the box”
“Love it! I already have some ideas for additional improvements, might jump in and contribute a PR or two.”
“this stopped me from go installing it too on nixos. I'm not gonna put the effort in to run it.”
“So far works great on my network!”
“This looks great! I've been searching for something like this for ever.”
“Apple could not verify `whosthere' is free of malware that may harm your Mac”
“Installed on raspbian, works wonders, much better than the thing i vibecoded yesterday.”
“Couldn't run it on macOS Tahoe. I believe this requires me lowering the security to allow it”
“So I can't run this TUI over SSH or a virtual terminal.”
“Great tool, only thing I miss is it doesn't show SAMBA names.”
“this saves me the trouble of going through router GUI”
“I wouldn't call it modern if Wayland is outright not supported.”
“It means it has a dependency on X11.”
“I think it just performs a full scan initially on my laptop, following scans either didn't success or didn't involve TCP connect scan”
“otherwise awesome tool, i am definitely going to be using this more often.”
“It says 'Open ports: (None)' for all devices on my network, despite there being open ports on many of them”
“designed to help you explore devices on your local network without requiring elevated privileges”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.