SquirrelOps for macOS · Free
Know your network. Control your network.
Your home network has dozens of connected devices. Do you know what all of them are doing right now?
The App
A native macOS experience.
Dashboard1 / 7
Your router sees a list of IP addresses. Maybe it shows you a hostname like ESP_2F8A01 or unknown-device-7. That's about it. Meanwhile, every smart speaker, security camera, IoT sensor, and forgotten Raspberry Pi on your network is making connections — and you have no idea where those connections go or whether every device on your LAN actually belongs to you.
SquirrelOps for macOS changes that. It watches your network, knows every device by name, and tells you the moment something unexpected happens — with zero false alarms.
What It Does
Four layers of network awareness.
Discovers and identifies every device
SquirrelOps Home continuously scans your LAN and builds a complete inventory of everything connected. It doesn't just show you MAC addresses — it fingerprints devices using multiple discovery methods and classifies them by type. That mystery device at 192.168.1.47? It's your partner's Kindle. The one at .83? That's the Philips Hue bridge in the living room. With optional local AI classification, even unusual devices get identified without any data leaving your home.
Learns what normal looks like
During a short learning period, SquirrelOps Home observes your network's natural rhythms — which devices talk to each other, what ports they use, when they're active. Once it knows your baseline, it alerts you when something changes: a new device appears, a known device starts behaving differently, or a connection pattern breaks from the norm.
Deploys decoy tripwires
This is where SquirrelOps Home goes beyond any consumer network scanner. It places realistic-looking fake services on your network — a file share with enticing names, a fake Home Assistant instance, a development server with debug endpoints. These decoys are tailored to blend in with what's actually running on your LAN. Your real devices never interact with them, so if anything touches a decoy, you know immediately that something is wrong. No tuning, no noise, no false positives. Every single alert is real.
Plants credential canaries
SquirrelOps Home can scatter realistic-looking credentials throughout your network — fake AWS keys, SSH private keys, .env files with database passwords, GitHub tokens. These files sit quietly until someone — or something — tries to use them. The moment a canary credential is accessed, you get an alert. If malware is crawling your file shares or an unauthorized user is poking around, you'll know.
How It Works
Set it up once. Forget about it.
SquirrelOps for macOS has two parts: a lightweight sensor that runs on any machine on your network, and a native macOS app that serves as your control plane.
The sensor does the heavy lifting — scanning, fingerprinting, running decoys, monitoring baselines, and storing everything in a local database. The macOS app pairs with the sensor over an encrypted connection and gives you a clean dashboard where you can see your device inventory, manage decoys, review alerts, and configure notifications.
Set it up once, and it runs quietly in the background. You'll hear from it only when it matters.
What You Get
Confidence in your own network.
A complete picture of your network
See every device, when it joined, what ports it exposes, and how it behaves over time. Spot unfamiliar devices instantly instead of wondering whether that new entry in your router's client list is your kid's new phone or something you should worry about.
Alerts you actually trust
Most security tools bury you in notifications until you start ignoring them. SquirrelOps Home takes the opposite approach. Decoy trip alerts are structurally impossible to trigger by normal activity. When your phone buzzes, it means something.
Insight without surveillance
SquirrelOps Home analyzes connection metadata — which device talked to which, on what port, and when. It never performs deep packet inspection and never reads the content of your traffic. It's security through awareness, not surveillance.
Push notifications where you look
Get alerts on your iPhone or Mac through Apple Push Notifications. Prefer Slack? That works too. You choose where and how you want to be notified.
What It Isn't
It watches. It learns. It alerts. That's it.
Not a firewall.
SquirrelOps doesn't block traffic, throttle connections, or modify anything on your network. It doesn't require you to change your router, install browser extensions, or redirect your DNS.
Not a cloud service.
There's no account to create, no subscription to manage, and no telemetry being sent anywhere. Your device inventory, behavioral baselines, and alert history live in a local database on your own hardware.
Who It's For
Built for people who care about their network.
Smart home enthusiasts who have dozens of IoT devices and want to know they're all behaving as expected.
Privacy-conscious households who want network visibility without handing their data to a cloud service.
Remote workers who want confidence that their home office network is clean.
Anyone who has ever looked at their router's device list and thought, I don't recognize half of these.
Built on Proven Technology
Enterprise-grade engines.
Home-network simplicity.
SquirrelOps for macOS packages the same PingTing monitoring engine and ClownPeanuts deception engine used by security professionals — adapted for home networks and wrapped in a native macOS experience. The deception techniques running on your LAN are the same ones used to trap and study real adversaries in enterprise environments. They just happen to work exceptionally well at catching anything that doesn't belong on your home network, too.
FAQ
Common questions.
Is my network data sent to the cloud?
No. SquirrelOps for macOS is entirely local. Your device inventory, behavioral baselines, and alert history live in a local database on your own hardware. There is no account to create, no subscription, and no telemetry sent anywhere.
What devices can SquirrelOps monitor?
Any device connected to your local network — smart speakers, security cameras, IoT sensors, phones, laptops, Raspberry Pis, and anything else with an IP address. The app discovers devices via ARP and nmap scanning, then fingerprints and classifies each one.
How do decoy tripwires work on a home network?
SquirrelOps places realistic-looking fake services on your network — file shares, admin panels, development servers. Your real devices never interact with them, so if anything touches a decoy, you know immediately that something unauthorized is happening. Every alert is real, with zero false positives.
Does it slow down my network?
No. SquirrelOps analyzes connection metadata — which device talked to which, on what port, and when. It never performs deep packet inspection and never reads the content of your traffic. The sensor runs as a lightweight background process.
Is SquirrelOps for macOS really free?
Yes. The app is source-available under PolyForm Noncommercial 1.0.0, which means it is free to download and use for personal, research, and educational purposes. Commercial use requires a separate license.
Free. Local. Yours.
Source-available under PolyForm Noncommercial. Download, run it, and know your network.
Download Free on GitHub