netcat
No written verdict yet. Here is what commenters said.
5recommend
0warn against
Nov 16, 2025first mention
Aug 27, 2026latest mention
Why people recommend it
“Original netcat has no required third party dependencies, no recommended third party dependencies”
“nc is basically just a nicer interface for the same thing, in the same way that curl is.”
Show 3 more
“netcat or socat make fine ad-hoc clients”
“I used telnet(1) as a generic TCP text client for many years before switching to GNU/BSD netcat.”
switched from telneton “The Day the Telnet Died”
“which I am a proud user of nc localhost 9999”
Caveats and dissent
No one in these comments warned against it.
Threads where it came up
Data: netcat.json. Quotes are verbatim; the verdict and theme labels are written by a model from these comments, and every clause links to its sources.
All comments 7
“Original netcat has no required third party dependencies, no recommended third party dependencies”
“nc is basically just a nicer interface for the same thing, in the same way that curl is.”
“`netcat`ing it out”
“If netcat is compiled with -DTELNET, the -t argument enables it to respond to telnet option negotiation”
“netcat or socat make fine ad-hoc clients”
“I used telnet(1) as a generic TCP text client for many years before switching to GNU/BSD netcat.”
“which I am a proud user of nc localhost 9999”