IBM SevOne Network Performance Management (NPM) vs Wireshark comparison

IBM SevOne Network Performa...

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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).

Network Monitoring Software

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 (39th), Server Monitoring (17th), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (42nd), Log Management (41st), Cloud Monitoring Software (31st)

Wireshark

Average Rating

9.0

Reviews Sentiment

7.7

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Network Troubleshooting (3rd)

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 15.0% mindshare, up 13.3% since last year.

Network Monitoring Software Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
IBM SevOne Network Performance Management (NPM)	1.0%
Zabbix	4.3%
SolarWinds NPM	3.6%
Other	91.1%

Network Monitoring Software

Network Troubleshooting Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
Wireshark	15.0%
AirMagnet Survey PRO	9.8%
LinkRunner	7.2%
Other	68.0%

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

"Another useful feature is that SevOne gives you real-time insights into your network performance. It polls every five minutes. That is important for our customers because there are some network teams that are always monitoring their networks."

"Scalability. I have never had to worry about how to handle really big environments."

"SevOne has much faster performance than our previous solution."

"Customer Service: Excellent, customer service is 10/10."

"Data Insight reporting tool is the most valuable feature. They came up with it a couple of years ago. The most pleasing factor is the dark theme. You don't have a white background. It has templates that you can create for all kinds of reports that you can hit on the fly. It's much better printing of the reports. If you want to send PDFs to people, the reports are actually decent. Whereas for years, the old architecture of the PDFs was rubbish and even our customers said, "We have to manipulate your PDFs because they all have bad margin breaks. SevOne fixed that a couple of years ago with the new Data Insight. It's fantastic."

"It's a great solution for highlighting and discovering useful information regarding our network's elements."

"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."

"SevOne excels at gathering performance metrics and then making them quickly accessible in ways that I want to view them."

More IBM SevOne Network Performance Management (NPM) pros

"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."

"It gives us the ability to pinpoint problems and to communicate network problems with software and hardware vendors."

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

"Wireshark is very good for network engineers; it's free software, you can install it very easily, and there are a lot of features."

"I find Wireshark a very useful tool. Its best feature is that it allows me to deeply understand what's going on at the packet level, as well as any adverse signatures that I can analyze."

"Wireshark's best feature is that it's adaptive, which means it's the go-to tool for network-related developers, as when the new protocol comes up, it's rapidly applied to the system, so I can just look into the packet."

"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."

"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."

More Wireshark pros

Cons

"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."

"The reports are easy to configure but they are a bit outdated in terms of appearance and visualization."

"Setup was very complex as there were issues with the device pipes. We needed a lot of intervention and technical assistance."

"You need to plan integrations; that has been the biggest bug with SevOne so far."

"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."

"I think that the downstream suppression could be improved."

"In the area of server monitoring, it has some areas for improvement."

"The reporting of NMS is good, but it could be better."

More IBM SevOne Network Performance Management (NPM) cons

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

"The solution has a steep learning curve. There are so many filters and features that are frequently being updated, it takes research, experience and familiarity to be able to use them."

"I have not used Wireshark to an advanced point where I could provide a detailed opinion on improvements needed."

"It is not an easy program. You will need to study to use it to its full capabilities (follow a course)."

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

"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."

"Wireshark does not allow you to make any changes relevant to the network; in other words, you can only observe the network."

"It’s helpful only if you have the basic knowledge of networking."

More Wireshark cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."

"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."

"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 cheaper solutions available."

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

"It is inexpensive compared to other monitoring tools."

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

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

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

"The tool is free."

"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."

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

"I am using the free version of this solution."

"It is free."

"This is an open-source product that can be used free of charge."

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

10%

Financial Services Firm

Healthcare 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 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.

What is your primary use case for Wireshark?

We are using Wireshark for inspecting the vertical line to know the data flow in and out of the cables. This is to determine if there is real traffic flow through the physical connections or not. A...

Zabbix vs IBM SevOne Network Performance Management (NPM)

Comparisons

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SolarWinds NPM vs IBM SevOne Network Performance Management (NPM)

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

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

Compared 3% of the time

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Colasoft Capsa vs Wireshark

Compared 8% of the time

SolarWinds NPM vs Wireshark

Compared 7% of the time

AirMagnet Survey PRO vs Wireshark

Compared 7% of the time

Microsoft Network Monitor vs Wireshark

Compared 7% of the time

Auvik Network Management (ANM) vs Wireshark

Compared 6% of the time

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Product Reports

IBM SevOne Network Performance Management (NPM)

April 2026

IBM SevOne Network Performance Management (NPM) report

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March 2026

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