IBM SevOne Network Performance Management (NPM) vs Wireshark comparison

IBM SevOne Network Performa...

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98% willing to recommend

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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: January 2026).

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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 (42nd), Server Monitoring (19th), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (40th), Log Management (44th), Cloud Monitoring Software (30th)

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%, down 1.0% compared to last year.
Wireshark, on the other hand, focuses on Network Troubleshooting, holds 12.7% mindshare, down 13.6% since last year.

Network Monitoring Software Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
IBM SevOne Network Performance Management (NPM)	1.0%
Zabbix	6.9%
SolarWinds NPM	3.4%
Other	88.7%

Network Monitoring Software

Network Troubleshooting Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Wireshark	12.7%
LinkRunner	10.1%
AirMagnet Survey PRO	8.9%
Other	68.30000000000001%

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,…

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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.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"With this tool it is interesting to show the info to the client and explain where the traffic is."

"We find that the reporting is particularly valuable in terms of not only communicating with our peer teams but also with the executives."

"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."

"SevOne provides support for all universal connectors. They internally work with other data sources to get features implemented. We have an SD-WAN implementation and use other app data to monitor performance. If you pull that data into one centralized location, that is very useful for management."

"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 most valuable feature is the NMS because that's the core of the system. Without the NMS, the other tools aren't that usable."

"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."

More IBM SevOne Network Performance Management (NPM) pros

"Wireshark helps us to understand network traffic."

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

"It has good basic features."

"The ability to decrypt traffic and the abundance of filters available are both valuable features."

"You can use Wireshark to see the traffic packet format, the IP layers, the fields, and the enabled flags."

"What's best about Wireshark is that it doesn't require installation. It supports cards and monitoring permissions and is sufficient for appending and capturing activities. You won't need to install other tools to use Wireshark, so this saves you time. You can capture packets at any time from your laptop through Wireshark."

"The solution is easy to install and use."

"Wireshark has a lot of features. It's a powerful tool if you're familiar with it. You can see everything on the network with it."

More Wireshark pros

Cons

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

"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"

"There is no service mode setup in this monitoring tool if you want to snooze alerts for any specific amount of time, to account for any activity change or major incident."

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

"We need to be thinking about streaming telemetry protocols. They already have the port for enhanced visualization, which they already have through Data Insight."

"There is room for improvement in the integration with different vendors and the reporting capabilities."

"SevOne should work with the graphs legend functionality."

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

More IBM SevOne Network Performance Management (NPM) cons

"The initial setup depends upon the basics. You need to have a clear understanding of the basics."

"The average person would probably find Wireshark hard to use. When I first installed it, I was overwhelmed by all the data it was shooting out. It doesn't make sense until you start doing some research and figure out what everything means. It isn't the most user-friendly tool. It just provides so much information."

"Big trace files (more than 1,000,000 packets) can be slow, but then you can use "TraceWrangler" (also free) to help with slicing and dicing the data."

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

"We'd like to be able to extract the output into an Excel table."

"It would be better if they offered a hybrid version like My Cloud Control."

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

"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

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

"Have a bank of licenses, because it is about the number of objects (RAM, ports, CPU, etc.)."

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

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

"There are different options available for licensing, with the per-device option being more expensive but more flexible."

"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."

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

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

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

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

"It is an open-source solution."

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

"It's free."

"Wireshark is free software, so you can download it and use it for free with no licensing fees."

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

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

More Wireshark pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Manufacturing Company

15%

Financial Services Firm

14%

Computer Software Company

Performing Arts

University

10%

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.

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Comparisons

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Compared 15% of the time

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SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer vs Wireshark

Compared 8% of the time

Colasoft Capsa vs Wireshark

Compared 7% of the time

AirMagnet Survey PRO vs Wireshark

Compared 6% of the time

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Product Reports

IBM SevOne Network Performance Management (NPM)

Download IBM SevOne Network Performance Management (NPM) product report

IBM SevOne Network Performance Management (NPM) report

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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

Network Monitoring Software