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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

"We have increased our capability a hundred-fold over, so it was more of a customer performance thing than ROI."
"SevOne is like a Swiss Army Knife."
"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."
"But it is a good tool that works nicely; so far, we don't regret it."
"I like SevOne's network flow reporting."
"The features I find most valuable are-- Availability (provides continuous monitoring without loss of functions), and Performance management (takes data for troubleshooting and reporting network issues)"
"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."
"Instant graphs, high frequency polling and the ability to create reports on the fly are the most valuable features we currently use."
"One of the best products that can provide the details of what is happening with an application and the full life cycle of the response time."
"The options that are required to get the details for the packet drops are good."
"The filter option provided by Wireshark is its most valuable feature...Scalability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten."
"The best part about Wireshark, in my opinion, is its ability to analyze packet capture files."
"Wireshark is very good for network engineers; it's free software, you can install it very easily, and there are a lot of features."
"The solution is easy to install and use."
"This is the de-facto standard network protocol analysis tool."
"For example, while debugging through food issues, we can draw the graph of the data captured in the solution and see how the throughput is moving."
 

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."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"If you want one tool for everything this should not be considered."
"On a scale of one to ten, I am neutral because it is not too good and not too bad."
"Continual UI improvements are needed to reduce number of clicks needed to produce a chart."
"A room for improvement in Wireshark is its ease of use for beginners; it could be better."
"The volume of data on a typical TCP segment is so large that it can be challenging to capture and find the right data."
"I would like better control of bandwidth from the service provider."
"It is not an easy program. You will need to study to use it to its full capabilities (follow a course)."
"In the future, it would be nice to see color coding. It is just black and white."
"We'd like to be able to extract the output into an Excel table."
"Wireshark could be improved by adding more monitoring features."
"I would like to see Wireshark improve the ease of application of the command. The command is very powerful, but not easy to apply."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"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.)."
"The pricing has been fair."
"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."
"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."
"The tool is not expensive. We were able to negotiate with SevOne on pricing."
"It's free."
"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."
"It is free to download and install. It runs on multiple platforms, so how can you go wrong?"
"Wireshark is open source and gives great value and functionality to the network investigation."
"We are using a freeware version of this solution, so there are no licence costs involved."
"We're using the free version of Wireshark."
"This is an open-source product that can be used free of charge."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
13%
Construction Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Outsourcing Company
8%
University
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
9%
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.
912,006 professionals have used our research since 2012.