No more typing reviews! Try our Samantha, our new voice AI agent.

IBM SevOne Network Performance Management (NPM) vs Wireshark comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

IBM SevOne Network Performa...
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
54
Ranking in other categories
Network Monitoring Software (34th), Server Monitoring (18th), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (34th), Log Management (38th), Cloud Monitoring Software (27th)
Wireshark
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.4
Number of Reviews
64
Ranking in other categories
Network Troubleshooting (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

While both are Network Management solutions, they serve different purposes. IBM SevOne Network Performance Management (NPM) is designed for Network Monitoring Software and holds a mindshare of 1.1%, up 1.0% compared to last year.
Wireshark, on the other hand, focuses on Network Troubleshooting, holds 19.7% mindshare, up 13.2% since last year.
Network Monitoring Software Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
IBM SevOne Network Performance Management (NPM)1.1%
Zabbix3.8%
SolarWinds NPM3.7%
Other91.4%
Network Monitoring Software
Network Troubleshooting Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Wireshark19.7%
AirMagnet Survey PRO8.3%
DX Spectrum7.3%
Other64.7%
Network Troubleshooting
 

Featured Reviews

reviewer1543041 - PeerSpot reviewer
Network monitoring engineer at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Provides consistent infrastructure monitoring with excellent usability and support
The primary use case of IBM SevOne Network Performance Management (NPM) is network monitoring. It helps to maintain the infrastructure's availability and ensure that alerts are generated when needed The most valuable features of IBM SevOne Network Performance Management (NPM) are its stability,…
reviewer2837244 - PeerSpot reviewer
It System Engineer at a manufacturing company with 5,001-10,000 employees
Packet analysis has improved real-time troubleshooting and simplifies mapping complex data flows
The best features that Wireshark offers are everything. Every time I look into Wireshark, I find something new. The ability to capture real-time packets and understand how the packet is working and moving through how many hops and to how many points it reaches makes it a wonderful tool. The specific feature I use most is capturing packets of real-time communication and seeing how the packet is working. I rely on all the filters it has to check the protocols and see the communication between one end and another end and what the hops in between are, and if there is a proxy, how it behaves. Everything helps us check out the issue and troubleshoot it. I do not have anything additional to add about the features; everything looks really fine. The graphics are also good, and you can change its graphical features, making it a pretty nice tool. You can also use it with the PCAP file, which is really nice. Wireshark has positively impacted my organization by giving us the ability to capture packets and see into the network how it is working and what we can clarify about the network, specifically how we can remove many hops in the communication channels. A specific example of a measurable outcome is that we have a few switches in our network that, when we use Wireshark analysis, we find should not be needed or can be replaced with automatic switches instead of manual switches, such as switches which do not have any active features and only passive switches. That has saved us a lot of time.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"The most valuable feature is the NMS because that's the core of the system. Without the NMS, the other tools aren't that usable."
"On any outage, SevOne is pretty quick to send an alert, and we've got an operations center that consumes the alert and sends it to the device owners so that they can minimize the time of impact of that alert."
"I don't think the product cost compares to the savings we get by detecting a problem and resolving a problem faster."
"SevOne's ability to report metrics on specific objects very quickly, whether it is a week, a month, or a year's worth of data points, has improved by leveraging short-term vs. long-term memory to provide necessary statistics so we can alleviate network impacts quickly."
"It's given us the ability to create various real-time network performance reports and distribute them to any colleague who can access these reports immediately."
"SevOne enables us to look at the data and see that the customer has disconnected so we can stop billing and reimbursing them."
"Definitely go for it."
"Another useful feature is that SevOne gives you real-time insights into your network performance. It polls every five minutes. That is important for our customers because there are some network teams that are always monitoring their networks."
"It has good basic features."
"Wireshark is a dynamic software that has developed and adapted to the latest technology advancements and network challenges."
"The best network analyzer tool out there in the market."
"It helps in analyzing if something looks suspicious, such as a brute force attack or scanning from somewhere."
"Wireshark has been getting better and better in the time I've been using it and it is a very helpful tool."
"It is free, easy to use, getting better with every release."
"Wireshark's best features are that it lets us see what traffic is in the network and what data should be encrypted."
"Wireshark is a great tool to help network engineers identify network problems like broadcasting, injection, poisoning, etc."
 

Cons

"If you want one tool for everything this should not be considered."
"Setup was very complex as there were issues with the device pipes. We needed a lot of intervention and technical assistance."
"The tool needs improvement in non-Cisco SD-WAN."
"The reports are easy to configure but they are a bit outdated in terms of appearance and visualization."
"From the operator’s point of view, it is quite painful to have to remember that every device costs us some cash if added to SevOne (CAPEX and, later, yearly OPEX)."
"There is room for improvement in the integration with different vendors and the reporting capabilities."
"With the administrative management of the appliance, if some object appears from SevOne because something changed in the network or whatever, then as an administrator you will not be aware. If you are using this object in a report, this object will disappear from the report and you will not be aware of it. So, if you have 1,000 reports, you cannot always check these reports everyday to see if objects are missing or information has disappeared. We don't have any information on alerts, saying that something is happening there and maybe we need to take action. If an object was replaced by another one, or if a link was replaced by another one, then the graph needs to be changed because it doesn't exist in the graph anymore. However, we don't have this information."
"Licensing costs can add up quickly, so know what you need to monitor and what you don’t."
"Wireshark could make the filtering rules easier to apply and offer a drag-and-drop option as opposed to type and text."
"Great scalability, but they are beginning to sacrifice ease of use for complexity."
"It’s helpful only if you have the basic knowledge of networking."
"I wish the filters were a little bit more prepopulated."
"Wireshark could be improved by adding more monitoring features."
"The speed of the Internet could be improved, especially its performance."
"DNS could be improved."
"A room for improvement in Wireshark is its ease of use for beginners. It could be better. Another room for improvement in the tool is for it to provide more details about the traffic load. At the moment, Wireshark is adequate for me, so there isn't anything I'd like added to it in its next version."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is inexpensive compared to other monitoring tools."
"There are cheaper solutions available."
"The pricing has not evolved with the market, which is one of the reasons we are moving to a new product."
"Many tools price things based on the number of KPIs that you're collecting around a device. In many cases, there could be hundreds of metrics that you need to collect. SevOne provides device-level pricing. That gives us the flexibility to turn on, and expand on, the metrics that we're collecting around those devices, without taking a financial hit."
"Although I don't have exact details in terms of cost, my experience has been that SevOne is willing to make a deal with the customer."
"The tool is not expensive. We were able to negotiate with SevOne on pricing."
"Have a bank of licenses, because it is about the number of objects (RAM, ports, CPU, etc.)."
"Prices per license are not huge, but they exist."
"Wireshark is free software, so you don't have to pay any licensing fee. Individual people can use it and then donate to Wireshark."
"The solution is open source so is free."
"It's free."
"Wireshark is open source and gives great value and functionality to the network investigation."
"Wireshark is open-source and free of charge."
"Wireshark is an open-source product, so it's free to use."
"It is free."
"We are using a freeware version of this solution, so there are no licence costs involved."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Network Monitoring Software solutions are best for your needs.
908,402 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Construction Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Comms Service Provider
6%
University
10%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Construction Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business4
Midsize Enterprise6
Large Enterprise45
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business31
Midsize Enterprise11
Large Enterprise29
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with SevOne Network Data Platform?
There is room for improvement in the integration with different vendors and the reporting capabilities. It would be beneficial to have out-of-the-box integration with third-party vendors and improv...
What is your primary use case for SevOne Network Data Platform?
The primary use case of IBM SevOne Network Performance Management (NPM) ( /products/ibm-sevone-network-performance-management-npm-reviews ) is network monitoring. It helps to maintain the infrastru...
What advice do you have for others considering SevOne Network Data Platform?
To compete with custom-built tools, IBM SevOne Network Performance Management (NPM) should accommodate the desired features and be timely in the delivery of feature updates. I would rate the overal...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Wireshark?
Wireshark is priced at a medium range, not too high, not too low. The pricing could be more flexible, and they might make it more expensive. That said, compared to other products, it is competitive.
What needs improvement with Wireshark?
Wireshark can be improved if it provides the accessibility of capturing packets from one device that is installed in the network without needing the port-mirrored facility. They could provide somet...
What is your primary use case for Wireshark?
Wireshark's main use case is capturing packets and reviewing the data flow over the network. Regarding my main use case for Wireshark, it is a great tool and would be one of the best tools availabl...
 

Also Known As

SevOne
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

ATOS, Devereux, Spark New Zealand, Access4, Rogers Communication, Lumen (formerly known as CenturyLink)
Comversion, ADP, Talbots
Find out what your peers are saying about Zabbix, SolarWinds, Datadog and others in Network Monitoring Software. Updated: August 2026.
908,402 professionals have used our research since 2012.