IBM SevOne Network Performance Management (NPM) vs Wireshark comparison

IBM SevOne Network Performa...

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between IBM SevOne Network Performance Management (NPM) and Wireshark based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out what your peers are saying about Zabbix, Auvik, Datadog and others in Network Monitoring Software.

To learn more, read our detailed Network Monitoring Software Report (Updated: March 2026).

Network Monitoring Software

March 2026

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Helped 886,858 peers since 2012

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

Ranking in other categories

Network Monitoring Software (39th), Server Monitoring (17th), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (42nd), Log Management (41st), Cloud Monitoring Software (31st)

Wireshark

Average Rating

9.0

Reviews Sentiment

7.7

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Network Troubleshooting (3rd)

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 1.0%, up 1.0% compared to last year.
Wireshark, on the other hand, focuses on Network Troubleshooting, holds 15.0% mindshare, up 13.3% since last year.

Network Monitoring Software Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
IBM SevOne Network Performance Management (NPM)	1.0%
Zabbix	4.3%
SolarWinds NPM	3.6%
Other	91.1%

Network Monitoring Software

Network Troubleshooting Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
Wireshark	15.0%
AirMagnet Survey PRO	9.8%
LinkRunner	7.2%
Other	68.0%

Network Troubleshooting

Featured Reviews

Grzegorz Nowak

Solution Architect at Wingu

Improves infrastructure planning by helping us analyze network traffic

We use SevOne to collect and report on network flows SevOne improves infrastructure planning by helping us analyze network traffic. We can look at bandwidth for specific endpoints on the customer's network and analyze traffic to identify issues. For example, maybe some connectors are unavailable.…

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Vijay Duggal

Network Specialist at Squarepoint Capital

Provides detailed traffic analysis and helps troubleshoot issues

There is a disadvantage when it comes to sampling intervals. While the solution supports sampling as fine as one millisecond, it requires a copy at that interval. My Python script allows me to achieve a granularity of up to ten microseconds, but I can't go beyond that. When dealing with provisioning on both issues, it would be beneficial if I could go down to the microsecond level, if not the nanosecond. Additionally, I've heard from a colleague that Wireshark might be less effective in the voice domain.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It's good to go with SevOne because the creation of thresholds, of policies, the grouping of servers, that is easy."

"We have benefited mainly from the use of the dashboard interface. It makes the network visually interesting for other people who are not in the network. A lot of people are not network techies who understand streams in the network. Based on location, we have streams coming in and out. They can see visually when there is some problem. They don't need to understand all the network technology behind it to be able to understand if everything is working well or if there is a problem."

"SevOne really did a number for us, during the pandemic, of isolating which load balances were overloaded with users working from home, so that right there was worth its weight in gold because the management created all these reports for load balancers for access for remote workers and that's all they focused on for a couple of months."

"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."

"The monitoring of the network is very customizable."

"The modules and the performance management reports that come with data insights are two of the most valuable features. I also find the reports for Wi-Fi, Netflow, LAN, and WAN for monitoring to be very good."

"It is a very efficient and highly recommended solution."

"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."

More IBM SevOne Network Performance Management (NPM) pros

"It helps in analyzing if something looks suspicious, such as a brute force attack or scanning from somewhere."

"Wireshark is a great tool to help network engineers identify network problems like broadcasting, injection, poisoning, etc."

"It is free, easy to use, getting better with every release."

"Wireshark is the world's most powerful network protocol analyzer tool."

"The best thing about Wireshark is the community/ecosystem."

"It helped in the sense that it allowed the team to troubleshoot networks faster."

"I use the filters very often, to determine what type of traffic I am looking for. The use of filter allows traffic to be segmented so that a value can be looked at individually apart from the other traffic."

"Wireshark does exactly what I want and leaves me with no need to look elsewhere."

More Wireshark pros

Cons

"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."

"The one area with room for improvement is probably administration. They added data insights to make a better user experience, but I'd like to see some improvements in the way the system is administered."

"This product needs a lot of handholding and close collaboration with network design resources, in terms of choosing the appliance and the number of licenses."

"User-friendly, multi-tenancy."

"When I started using it, I tried adding one of the BroadWorks application servers into SevOne... it created thousands and thousands of objects from that one application server and we immediately ran out of license... It would help, when new objects are discovered, if there were a way to categorize those objects and to pick the part of the object you need..."

"Licensing costs can add up quickly, so know what you need to monitor and what you don’t."

"The tool needs improvement in non-Cisco SD-WAN."

"The reporting of NMS is good, but it could be better."

More IBM SevOne Network Performance Management (NPM) cons

"The solution has a steep learning curve. There are so many filters and features that are frequently being updated, it takes research, experience and familiarity to be able to use them. It could be a lot more user-friendly."

"Wireshark's UI isn't easy to handle and doesn't have as nice a view as Omnipeek."

"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."

"Wireshark could make the filtering rules easier to apply and offer a drag-and-drop option as opposed to type and text."

"Bigger memory footprint."

"Wireshark is also used for hacking which is a security breach."

"DNS could be improved."

"The speed of the Internet could be improved, especially its performance."

More Wireshark cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is inexpensive compared to other monitoring tools."

"There are cheaper solutions available."

"The tool is not expensive. We were able to negotiate with SevOne on pricing."

"Prices per license are not huge, but they exist."

"Choose a SevOne partner who can provide SevOne as a service and can deliver professional services and maintenance."

"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."

"A blocking point is the high upfront cost because it is challenging to get it accepted and the purchase approved."

"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."

More IBM SevOne Network Performance Management (NPM) pricing and cost advice

"Wireshark is open-source and free of charge."

"It is free to download and install. It runs on multiple platforms, so how can you go wrong?"

"Wireshark is free of charge, and there's no license involved."

"I've never personally had to pay for it, making it a highly valuable internet resource that's accessible for use. While they offer some paid versions, our firm has utilized the free version for the past three years."

"We're using the free version of Wireshark."

"Wireshark is open source and gives great value and functionality to the network investigation."

"The tool is free."

"It is an open-source solution."

More Wireshark pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

13%

Manufacturing Company

12%

Construction Company

10%

Computer Software Company

University

10%

Financial Services Firm

Healthcare Company

Government

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	4
Midsize Enterprise	6
Large Enterprise	45

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	31
Midsize Enterprise	11
Large Enterprise	27

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?

The speed of the Internet could be improved, especially its performance. Performance can sometimes be a challenge due to numerous factors.

What is your primary use case for Wireshark?

We are using Wireshark for inspecting the vertical line to know the data flow in and out of the cables. This is to determine if there is real traffic flow through the physical connections or not. A...

Zabbix vs IBM SevOne Network Performance Management (NPM)

Comparisons

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Splunk Enterprise Security vs IBM SevOne Network Performance Management (NPM)

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SolarWinds Hybrid Cloud Observability vs IBM SevOne Network Performance Management (NPM)

Compared 3% of the time

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Colasoft Capsa vs Wireshark

Compared 8% of the time

SolarWinds NPM vs Wireshark

Compared 7% of the time

AirMagnet Survey PRO vs Wireshark

Compared 7% of the time

Microsoft Network Monitor vs Wireshark

Compared 7% of the time

Auvik Network Management (ANM) vs Wireshark

Compared 6% of the time

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Product Reports

IBM SevOne Network Performance Management (NPM)

April 2026

IBM SevOne Network Performance Management (NPM) report

Download IBM SevOne Network Performance Management (NPM) product report

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March 2026

Also Known As

SevOne

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Overview

The IBM® SevOne Network Performance Management (IBM SevOne NPM) solution helps you spot, address, and prevent network performance issues early with machine learning-powered analytics from a single source. Boost network performance and improve your user application experience by proactively monitoring your multivendor end-to-end network across enterprise, communication, and managed service provider networks.

Transform raw network performance data into intelligent and actionable insights. The IBM SevOne NPM solution goes beyond detection, combining industry-leading expertise and advanced technology to help your IT team plan and optimize your network and act on what matters: improving network performance to provide an exceptional customer experience.

For further information, please visit www.ibm.com/cloud/sevo...

IBM

Wireshark is the world's foremost network protocol analyzer.

Sample Customers

ATOS, Devereux, Spark New Zealand, Access4, Rogers Communication, Lumen (formerly known as CenturyLink)

Comversion, ADP, Talbots