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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 (29th), Server Monitoring (16th), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (38th), Log Management (35th), Cloud Monitoring Software (29th)
Wireshark
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.4
Number of Reviews
64
Ranking in other categories
Network Troubleshooting (1st)
 

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 16.7% mindshare, up 13.2% since last year.
Network Monitoring Software Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
IBM SevOne Network Performance Management (NPM)1.1%
NETSCOUT Network & Application Observability3.8%
Zabbix3.7%
Other91.4%
Network Monitoring Software
Network Troubleshooting Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Wireshark16.7%
DX Spectrum8.2%
AirMagnet Survey PRO7.8%
Other67.30000000000001%
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

"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)"
"The most valuable feature for us is its flexibility to handle different systems and different functions."
"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."
"The feature that I have found most valuable is the scale-up and scale-down. The scale-up is an operation where the CPU boosts-up and then the memory will boost-up. That works awesomely."
"It's a great solution for highlighting and discovering useful information regarding our network's elements."
"It is a very efficient and highly recommended solution."
"On any outage, SevOne is pretty quick to send an alert, and we've got an operations center that consumes the alert and sends it to the device owners so that they can minimize the time of impact of that alert."
"It is a very good product, easy to stand up, and a good tool for network engineers."
"The most valuable feature is the traffic gate, which shows which IPs are getting more bandwidth or traffic."
"I can save the traffic and analysis when I want to. Also, it's especially helpful to follow the stream (TCP, UDP, etc.)."
"It is a stable product. I would rate the stability a ten out of ten."
"The solution is a good tool for network troubleshooting or management."
"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."
"Wireshark is the world's most powerful network protocol analyzer tool."
"The options that are required to get the details for the packet drops are good."
"Wireshark does exactly what I want and leaves me with no need to look elsewhere."
 

Cons

"The reports are easy to configure but they are a bit outdated in terms of appearance and visualization."
"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."
"Software upgrades can be tricky is not easy."
"If you want one tool for everything this should not be considered."
"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."
"The reporting of NMS is good, but it could be better."
"The only thing that worries me with SevOne is that they were acquired by Turbonomic and now by IBM."
"Their virtualization solution is not compatible with our Kubernetes environment, which is one of the reasons we are ending our relationship with them."
"The solution’s user interface could be improved."
"The product is great but I wish there were more of an emphasis on the command line tools."
"The speed of the Internet could be improved, especially its performance."
"Cannot be used to diagnose any kind of network intrusions and hacking exploits."
"The system could be improved upon by adding a better and more powerful data processing engine."
"Wireshark could make the filtering rules easier to apply and offer a drag-and-drop option as opposed to type and text."
"It is not an easy program. You will need to study to use it to its full capabilities (follow a course)."
"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

"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.)."
"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."
"Choose a SevOne partner who can provide SevOne as a service and can deliver professional services and maintenance."
"There are cheaper solutions available."
"The pricing has been fair."
"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."
"Wireshark is free software, so you don't have to pay any licensing fee. Individual people can use it and then donate to Wireshark."
"It's free."
"This is an open-source product that can be used free of charge."
"Wireshark is an open-source product, so it's free to use."
"It's a stand-alone tool. If there is a commercial license for it I am unaware of it."
"The solution is open source so is free."
"The tool is free."
"Wireshark is free software, so you can download it and use it for free with no licensing fees."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Construction Company
11%
Outsourcing Company
9%
University
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Construction Company
7%
Comms Service Provider
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 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 avai...
What advice do you have for others considering Wireshark?
I do not want to add more about the needed improvements; that is all that I need and what I see can be improved. On a scale of one to ten, I would rate Wireshark a ten. The reason I give it a ten i...
 

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, Auvik, SolarWinds and others in Network Monitoring Software. Updated: October 2026.
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