IBM SevOne Network Performance Management (NPM) vs Wireshark comparison

IBM SevOne Network Performa...

Read 63 Wireshark reviews

3,127 Views
1,407 Comparison Views

98% willing to recommend

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Download the report

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

Download the complete report

Helped 884,108 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 (40th), Server Monitoring (18th), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (41st), Log Management (43rd), Cloud Monitoring Software (29th)

Wireshark

Average Rating

9.0

Reviews Sentiment

7.7

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Network Troubleshooting (4th)

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 14.3% mindshare, up 12.9% since last year.

Network Monitoring Software Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
IBM SevOne Network Performance Management (NPM)	1.0%
Zabbix	5.0%
SolarWinds NPM	3.6%
Other	90.4%

Network Monitoring Software

Network Troubleshooting Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
Wireshark	14.3%
AirMagnet Survey PRO	10.3%
LinkRunner	8.1%
Other	67.3%

Network Troubleshooting

Featured Reviews

reviewer1543041

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,…

Read full review

DonniUgalde

Senior I.T. Systems Engineer at Pro Techs MSP

Provides visibility into the network, and the GUI is easy to use

I wish the filters were a little bit more prepopulated. It would have been easy to hit a drop-down and select a filter. If I only wanted to look at DCP, UDP, or IP, it would be easy to filter it out. Advanced network knowledge is required to get a lot out of the tool. However, it's very easy to install and deploy. It would be nice if there were some handheld Android devices with a Wireshark-specialized application that would allow us to mirror a Cisco port. Then, we can just plug into the port and click the green start button, and it will start ingesting the packet capture. Then, we won’t be using a laptop. The only downside is that we must have a laptop and connect a network cable. Some new laptops don't have network ports, so we have to get another adapter. Having an all-in-one device, like NetAlly or Fluke, and some of their network devices would be cool.

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 also gives us the closest thing to real-time insight into network performance that we have, with just a 10-second delay. It's very important for us to know the health of the infrastructure very quickly."

"I like the tool’s scalability and real-time reports. Earlier, we struggled to give real-time reports to clients. I also like the tool’s deployment model where we can deploy it either on-premises or in-house. We don’t have to carry the data all over the globe. Also, I am impressed with the tool's flow reporting and Wi-Fi."

"We've had great feedback from our customers about SevOne support. They're willing to set up a remote session upon request. You have to go through three tiers of support with most vendors, and they ask a lot of screening questions before they will do a remote session. You need to spend a lot of time before an engineer will host a remote session to look at your problematic system."

"SevOne’s data collection functionality is very good. From a collection point of view, we pull SNMP data, which is simple. It is easy to manipulate the pull in the estate. It is really simple compared to some of the other products that we have used. However, for deferred data, i.e., things that we import or don't pull directly, we tend to have a preplanned integration. So, its Universal Collector is really useful."

"The out of the box reports and workflows are pretty good and they meet our requirements well."

"In 90% of the cases, new devices are plug-and-play, so when a new version comes out then SevOne has support for it out of the box."

"I like SevOne's network flow reporting."

"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."

More IBM SevOne Network Performance Management (NPM) pros

"The most valuable feature is the traffic gate, which shows which IPs are getting more bandwidth or traffic."

"It has a good syntax to put the commands in and get information out of."

"It is a stable product. I would rate the stability a ten out of ten."

"The most valuable feature of Wireshark is the ability to choose a destination of flow that has not been working as expected."

"The session-level filtering features are valuable."

"The drill-down available for packet analysis is great. It gives a network security engineer insight into what is going on at the packet level and enables better troubleshooting."

"The strongest feature of this solution, is the ability it gives us to carry out deep-packet inspections on our network, particularly when a function isn't performing as it should."

"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."

More Wireshark pros

Cons

"The customizations are very hard. The person doing it has to be very good at analytics and has to be very good in all languages"

"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..."

"Would benefit with the addition of AI modules for proactive data insights."

"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."

"Some similar solutions offer end-to-end visibility."

"Software upgrades can be tricky is not easy."

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

"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."

More IBM SevOne Network Performance Management (NPM) cons

"Wireshark could be improved by adding more monitoring features."

"DNS could be improved."

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

"The system could be improved upon by adding a better and more powerful data processing engine."

"I would like better control of bandwidth from the service provider."

"I wish the filters were a little bit more prepopulated."

"Wireshark is restricted when any sort of encryption is involved, such as XSL encryption or DLX."

"The Wireshark search function shows green for a correct search and red for an incorrect search. If there were a way to provide a description about what a search - and the similar ones which are available - can do, while a person is typing it, it would make the product easier to use and simultaneously decrease the learning curve."

More Wireshark cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is inexpensive compared to other monitoring tools."

"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."

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

"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."

"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."

"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."

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

"Wireshark is free software, so you don't have to pay any licensing fee. Individual people can use it and then donate to Wireshark."

"We are using a freeware version of this solution, so there are no licence costs involved."

"It is free."

"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."

"It's free."

"The solution is open source so is free."

"It's a stand-alone tool. If there is a commercial license for it I am unaware of it."

More Wireshark pricing and cost advice

See which vendors are best for you

Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Network Monitoring Software solutions are best for your needs.

See recommendations

884,108 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Manufacturing Company

14%

Financial Services Firm

12%

Computer Software Company

Performing Arts

University

11%

Financial Services Firm

Computer Software 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 do you like most about Wireshark?

The GUI is easy to use.

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.

Dynatrace vs IBM SevOne Network Performance Management (NPM)

Comparisons

Compared 4% of the time

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

Compared 3% of the time

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

Compared 3% of the time

SolarWinds Network Device Monitor vs IBM SevOne Network Performance Management (NPM)

Compared 3% of the time

Avada Software Infrared360 vs IBM SevOne Network Performance Management (NPM)

Compared 3% of the time

More IBM SevOne Network Performance Management (NPM) Competitors

Microsoft Network Monitor vs Wireshark

Compared 10% of the time

SolarWinds NPM vs Wireshark

Compared 8% of the time

AirMagnet Survey PRO vs Wireshark

Compared 7% of the time

Colasoft Capsa vs Wireshark

Compared 7% of the time

SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer vs Wireshark

Compared 7% of the time

More Wireshark Competitors

Product Reports

IBM SevOne Network Performance Management (NPM)

March 2026

IBM SevOne Network Performance Management (NPM) report

Download IBM SevOne Network Performance Management (NPM) product report

Download Wireshark product report

February 2026

Also Known As

SevOne

No data available

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