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: March 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 (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

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 given us the ability to create various real-time network performance reports and distribute them to any colleague who can access these reports immediately."

"The monitoring of the network is very customizable. That is its unique feature."

"While some competitors have a feature here or there that might be better on the whole, this is the best solution for us on the market for the dollar with the simplest ramp up and ease of administration."

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

"The monitoring of the network is very customizable."

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

"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."

"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."

More IBM SevOne Network Performance Management (NPM) pros

"Wireshark's best features are that it lets us see what traffic is in the network and what data should be encrypted."

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

"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."

"I have found the most valuable feature you can design your sniffer the way you want to."

"Wireshark is incredibly powerful, user-friendly, and a free tool, which is capable of live capture and offline analysis of traffic on any size network."

"I like the filtering feature as we can filter data easily. This feature is also available in tcpdump, but it's a simple piece of software. Wireshark is more advanced and has many features. It allows you to filter a lot of things. The output can be filtered easily. The most important feature is colorization. If I say, "Okay, this particular SMB protocol in red, it will show me red." It's easy to identify that protocol or capture data."

"It has good basic features."

"Wireshark is a pretty good tool if somebody wants to learn packet analysis or just plain, simple debugging of network issues at an L2 or L3 level."

More Wireshark pros

Cons

"The user management features need to be improved; it would be nice if we had more granular control, or layers of control, out of the box."

"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."

"There are some tweaks and enhancements that I've already requested. One is to be able to make changes per device rather than as a global setting. That has to do with naming. It's minor."

"The GUI: both the dashboard/user view and the admin tool."

"On a scale of one to ten, I am neutral because it is not too good and not too bad."

"Software upgrades can be tricky is not easy."

"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..."

"I am impressed with their LAN side, WAN side on the Wi-Fi domains, but the SD WAN has room to improve."

More IBM SevOne Network Performance Management (NPM) cons

"There is a disadvantage when it comes to sampling intervals. Additionally, I've heard from a colleague that Wireshark might be less effective in the voice domain."

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

"The solution’s user interface could be improved."

"I would like to see Wireshark improve the ease of application of the command. The command is very powerful, but not easy to apply."

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

"Built-in help system is not robust."

"Its user interface was a little less friendly. They can make its user interface a little bit more friendly."

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

More Wireshark cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."

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

"It is inexpensive compared to other monitoring tools."

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

"There are cheaper solutions available."

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

"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."

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

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

"It's free."

"The solution is open source so is free."

"Wireshark is an open-source product, so it's free to use."

"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."

"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."

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

11%

Financial Services Firm

Computer Software Company

Healthcare Company

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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Product Reports

IBM SevOne Network Performance Management (NPM)

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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