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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

"One of the solution's biggest strengths is its capacity management performance, with out-of-the-box reports through NMS, as well as its ability to collect NetFlow-related data from devices. The collection of network performance and flow data is important because we have many critical business applications."
"But it is a good tool that works nicely; so far, we don't regret it."
"SevOne has rich API capabilities, giving us the flexibility to control what we collect and customize the collection, creation, and manipulation of now metrics as necessary."
"Our ROI is excellent."
"Flexible architecture: You can extend the system and its capacity by attaching another cluster pair."
"It provides accurate data, which is critical, and I also like the very quick real-time reporting with one-minute polling, as I can pull up graphs and charts very quickly."
"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."
"SevOne enables us to look at the data and see that the customer has disconnected so we can stop billing and reimbursing them."
"Wireshark saves a lot of time, especially with network troubleshooting."
"The transmission and reception issues are valuable."
"Wireshark is very user-friendly; even someone with basic IT knowledge can use it."
"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."
"I use this free, open-source solution daily for packet analysis, and the packet details pane is particularly valuable."
"It helped in the sense that it allowed the team to troubleshoot networks faster."
"The product is simple to implement."
"Being able to dissect email data and figure out what is inside email messages was the most valuable feature. Such a feature is pretty helpful for an ongoing forensic investigation or when there is a potential insider threat that you are trying to investigate. It allows you to see the network activity of the users you are investigating. It also gives you more visibility into your network. It was very easy to set up. There is a lot of information out there on Google and YouTube about how to use it. There is also community support. If you have any trouble, it is pretty easy to find an answer online. You will have to do some digging only if you have a very specific use case."
 

Cons

"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."
"Enhanced baselining capability would be an improvement."
"Licensing costs can add up quickly, so know what you need to monitor and what you don’t."
"I'm not really sure if this was the software's fault or a server issue, but a couple of years back the disks were failing on our SevOne physical server every month and the server would go down. The secondary server took over from the primary until the disk issue was resolved. That was annoying."
"Continual UI improvements are needed to reduce number of clicks needed to produce a chart."
"We need to be thinking about streaming telemetry protocols. They already have the port for enhanced visualization, which they already have through Data Insight."
"But keep in mind that if you're using the the PLA version of SevOne, the hardware support runs out in five years, so if something were to happen to the hardware after this period, it would not be covered."
"In terms of having a complete view of our network performance, I would rate it a nine out of 10. The reason for not giving it a 10 is that there is no packet capture associated with SevOne, but we do have other tools in place to do that."
"It would be better if they offered a hybrid version like My Cloud Control."
"It is easy to get overwhelmed with the amount of data you are looking at."
"I was unable to use Wireshark on Windows, and I couldn't capture it, as I'm unsure how to configure the wireless card into monitoring mode on Windows."
"It’s helpful only if you have the basic knowledge of networking."
"Wireshark does not allow you to make any changes relevant to the network; in other words, you can only observe the network."
"It needs the ability to follow multiple interfaces for specific traffic from different network zones/virtual networks. It would help to understand how any packet is going through the network."
"DNS could be improved."
"A room for improvement in Wireshark is its ease of use for beginners; it could be better."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The tool is not expensive. We were able to negotiate with SevOne on pricing."
"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."
"Choose a SevOne partner who can provide SevOne as a service and can deliver professional services and maintenance."
"Have a bank of licenses, because it is about the number of objects (RAM, ports, CPU, etc.)."
"There are different options available for licensing, with the per-device option being more expensive but more flexible."
"A blocking point is the high upfront cost because it is challenging to get it accepted and the purchase approved."
"For the value that you get from SevOne, it's worth the price. There are a lot of cheaper alternatives on the market, and even free options. But they require more staff, more resources, and engineers with more advanced knowledge of monitoring. That's what makes SevOne worth the price."
"Wireshark is open source and gives great value and functionality to the network investigation."
"The solution is open source so is free."
"It is an open-source solution."
"It's free."
"It's a stand-alone tool. If there is a commercial license for it I am unaware of it."
"The tool is free."
"I am using the free version of this solution."
"We're using the free version of Wireshark."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Construction Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Outsourcing Company
9%
University
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Construction Company
7%
 

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.
913,924 professionals have used our research since 2012.