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IBM SevOne Network Performance Management (NPM) vs Wireshark comparison

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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 (30th), Server Monitoring (16th), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (35th), Log Management (35th), 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 19.1% mindshare, up 12.6% since last year.
Network Monitoring Software Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
IBM SevOne Network Performance Management (NPM)1.1%
Zabbix3.6%
SolarWinds NPM3.6%
Other91.7%
Network Monitoring Software
Network Troubleshooting Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Wireshark19.1%
AirMagnet Survey PRO8.3%
DX Spectrum7.5%
Other65.1%
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

"Technical support is 10/10; responses to questions are within 20 minutes and the longest time to be resolved was three days."
"It has been a godsend and has brought us 11 months of stability, the likes of which I'd never seen before in 15 years with the company."
"The monitoring of the network is very customizable. That is its unique feature."
"It's a great solution for highlighting and discovering useful information regarding our network's elements."
"The tool has given a great visibility of what is going on our network and has helped to troubleshoot network-related issues quickly and accurately."
"The most valuable feature for us is its flexibility to handle different systems and different functions."
"Instant graphs, high frequency polling and the ability to create reports on the fly are the most valuable features we currently use."
"The platform is as flexible as an open source system can be, and it has a very useful end user GUI interface, which means working with the system is very easy and intuitive."
"Wireshark is incredibly powerful, user-friendly, and a free tool, which is capable of live capture and offline analysis of traffic on any size network."
"It's easy to troubleshoot issues because there's a large online community."
"Wireshark does exactly what I want and leaves me with no need to look elsewhere."
"Wireshark is a network analytic tool which provides such intelligent information in a network."
"If you're dealing with troubleshooting network, voice issues, or network operations, having a tool like Wireshark to dive into packet details is important. The initial setup is straightforward. Anyone starting out or looking to deploy it on your personal PC or machine can do it easily."
"The product is simple to implement."
"Wireshark is a great tool to help network engineers identify network problems like broadcasting, injection, poisoning, etc."
"Wireshark analyzes networks, captures traffic and decrypts information passed through the communication channels into a form that is readable and can thus be used to learn how network protocols work."
 

Cons

"The reports are easy to configure but they are a bit outdated in terms of appearance and visualization."
"The support is excellent, but the features are average."
"The out-of-the-box reports and workflows for automatically helping to understand what is normal and what is abnormal in our network are very poor if you only have NMS and that is the only portion of step one that you own."
"We previously have had discussions on some reporting enhancements. So, we raised a feature request, which was delivered from SevOne."
"We need to be thinking about streaming telemetry protocols. They already have the port for enhanced visualization, which they already have through Data Insight."
"NMS has several areas for improvement. It should be more user-friendly inside of NMS for some of the functionality in there. It's been getting better the last version or two, but the there have been bugs in there whenever I've gone to new versions."
"You need to plan integrations. That has been the biggest bug with SevOne so far. For the things that SevOne pulls directly, those are easy to understand, modify, and put into the database. For things that need to use the Universal Collector or xStats, you need to plan that stuff well in advance."
"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 a disadvantage when it comes to sampling intervals. Additionally, I've heard from a colleague that Wireshark might be less effective in the voice domain."
"Whenever we select one of the packets, in terms of the number of bytes, for example, there are three planes, and in the detailed plane, I have to count the number of bytes manually."
"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."
"Running Wireshark through an admin account for multiple exploits is unsecured."
"I have not used Wireshark to an advanced point where I could provide a detailed opinion on improvements needed."
"You need some basic knowledge to work with Wireshark. Maybe it could be more user-friendly just for new users. Just for the new generation."
"DNS could be improved."
"Wireshark's UI isn't easy to handle and doesn't have as nice a view as Omnipeek."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Have a bank of licenses, because it is about the number of objects (RAM, ports, CPU, etc.)."
"The pricing has not evolved with the market, which is one of the reasons we are moving to a new product."
"Prices per license are not huge, but they exist."
"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."
"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."
"A blocking point is the high upfront cost because it is challenging to get it accepted and the purchase approved."
"The pricing has been fair."
"It is inexpensive compared to other monitoring tools."
"Wireshark is free software, so you can download it and use it for free with no licensing fees."
"Wireshark is free of charge, and there's no license involved."
"It's free."
"The solution is open source so is free."
"It is free to download and install. It runs on multiple platforms, so how can you go wrong?"
"We're using the free version of Wireshark."
"Wireshark is free software, so you don't have to pay any licensing fee. Individual people can use it and then donate to Wireshark."
"I am using the free version of this solution."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
13%
Construction Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Outsourcing Company
9%
University
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
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: September 2026.
912,753 professionals have used our research since 2012.