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: January 2026).

Network Monitoring Software

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

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

"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."

"The most valuable feature as of late has been the API integration with ServiceNow."

"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 also gives us the closest thing to real-time insight into network performance that we have, with just a 10-second delay. It's very important for us to know the health of the infrastructure very quickly."

"The comprehensiveness of this solution's collection of network performance and flow data is one of the basics in the field for what it does. It meets all of our needs. So for all those areas, for the most straightforward collection capabilities, right up to NetFlow and even telemetry, it meets all those demands. Not only just basic or fundamental SNMP collection capability, but the product also supports what we need for the future with telemetry streaming. So it's very comprehensive."

"I like the tool’s scalability and real-time reports. Earlier, we struggled to give real-time reports to clients. I also like the tool’s deployment model where we can deploy it either on-premises or in-house. We don’t have to carry the data all over the globe. Also, I am impressed with the tool's flow reporting and Wi-Fi."

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

More IBM SevOne Network Performance Management (NPM) pros

"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."

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

"The options that are required to get the details for the packet drops are good."

"The solution is easy to install and use."

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

"It is a stable product. I would rate the stability a ten out of ten."

"Wireshark's best feature is that it's adaptive, which means it's the go-to tool for network-related developers."

More Wireshark pros

Cons

"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."

"In terms of having a complete view of our network performance, I would rate it a nine out of 10. The reason for not giving it a 10 is that there is no packet capture associated with SevOne, but we do have other tools in place to do that."

"Telemetry is hot these days, and IBM can improve SevOne's support for telemetry correction. Reporting is another feature that could be better. It provides the bare minimum functionality, which is good enough for most engineers, but the management isn't advanced. The new portal provides a much lighter view and better visualization, but the management is not so good."

"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."

"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..."

"There are a lot of pain points. My main problem is that we don't have a high availability system. There are 20 peers. We're going to lose the end-of-life appliances that are old. If we lose a peer and it doesn't come back, we lose all that data. The reason we don't have high availability is because it's double the charge."

"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's administered."

"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."

More IBM SevOne Network Performance Management (NPM) cons

"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."

"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."

"Its user interface was a little less friendly. They can make its user interface a little bit more friendly. It is for technical people, and most of the technical people would be able to figure it out, but it would be good to improve its user interface. They can maybe build artificial intelligence into it. Currently, it takes a lot of manpower to analyze and dissect all the data."

"Sometimes I need to use tcpdump when I need to check the packets on CLI."

"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. It could be a lot more user-friendly."

"I would like better control of bandwidth from the service provider."

"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."

"In the future, it would be nice to see color coding. It is just black and white."

More Wireshark cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

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

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

"The pricing has not evolved with the market, which is one of the reasons we are moving to a new product."

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

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

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

"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."

"The pricing has been fair."

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

"The solution is open source so is free."

"It's free."

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

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

"Wireshark is open-source and free of charge."

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

"The tool is free."

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

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

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.

Zabbix vs IBM SevOne Network Performance Management (NPM)

Comparisons

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SolarWinds Network Device Monitor vs IBM SevOne Network Performance Management (NPM)

Compared 4% of the time

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Compared 15% of the time

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Compared 11% of the time

Colasoft Capsa vs Wireshark

Compared 8% of the time

SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer 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)

December 2025

IBM SevOne Network Performance Management (NPM) report

Download IBM SevOne Network Performance Management (NPM) product report

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December 2025

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