Packetbeat is a tool designed to capture and analyze network data, sending the processed information to Elasticsearch for visualization in Kibana, and it is particularly suited for monitoring protocols such as HTTP, PostgreSQL, MySQL, Redis, and Thrift. Unlike Logstash, which focuses on log data, Packetbeat specializes in network traffic, although both tools can feed data into Elasticsearch. Installation and configuration of Packetbeat involve downloading the appropriate package, adjusting the packetbeat.yml file to set parameters such as server name, tags, and network interfaces, and specifying the protocols and ports to monitor. Packetbeat can also handle sensitive data by using parameters like hide_keywords and real_ip_header, and supports multiple output options, with Elasticsearch being the most common. The tool allows for visualization through Kibana, though it requires users to create custom dashboards as it does not include any by default.