IBM SevOne Network Performance Management (NPM) vs Wireshark comparison

IBM SevOne Network Performa...

Read 63 Wireshark reviews

3,127 Views
1,407 Comparison Views

98% willing to recommend

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Download the report

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: February 2026).

Network Monitoring Software

Download the complete report

Helped 884,076 peers since 2012

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

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,…

Read full review

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.

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

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

"The modules and the performance management reports that come with data insights are two of the most valuable features. I also find the reports for Wi-Fi, Netflow, LAN, and WAN for monitoring to be very good."

"One of the solution's biggest strengths is its capacity management performance, with out-of-the-box reports through NMS, as well as its ability to collect NetFlow-related data from devices. The collection of network performance and flow data is important because we have many critical business applications."

"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 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."

"With this tool it is interesting to show the info to the client and explain where the traffic is."

"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 SMP and the xStats, which is for flat file integration, are both useful for integrating the various metrics that the device provides to monitor the performance of those systems."

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."

"The filter option provided by Wireshark is its most valuable feature...Scalability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten."

"You can use Wireshark to see the traffic packet format, the IP layers, the fields, and the enabled flags."

"The best part about Wireshark, in my opinion, is its ability to analyze packet capture files."

"The solution is easy to install and use."

"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."

"The initial setup is simple."

"The most valuable feature of Wireshark is the ability to choose a destination of flow that has not been working as expected."

More Wireshark pros

Cons

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

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

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

"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."

"Some similar solutions offer end-to-end visibility."

"High-frequency polling is data-intensive because you're pulling more. If SevOne could figure out a way to manage the impact of high-frequency polling on the system, that would be very popular."

"We need to be thinking about streaming telemetry protocols. They already have the port for enhanced visualization, which they already have through Data Insight."

"SevOne should work with the graphs legend functionality."

More IBM SevOne Network Performance Management (NPM) cons

"It needs the ability to follow multiple interfaces for specific traffic from different network zones/virtual networks. It would help to understand how any packet is going through the network."

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

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

"A room for improvement in Wireshark is its ease of use for beginners. It could be better. Another room for improvement in the tool is for it to provide more details about the traffic load. At the moment, Wireshark is adequate for me, so there isn't anything I'd like added to it in its next version."

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

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

"We would like the product to be developed so that it doesn't rely on internet access for installation. We would like to see all of the components required to be integrated into the installer."

"Wireshark could make the filtering rules easier to apply and offer a drag-and-drop option as opposed to type and text."

More Wireshark cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

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

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

"There are cheaper solutions available."

"The tool is not expensive. We were able to negotiate with SevOne on pricing."

"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."

"It is inexpensive compared to other monitoring tools."

"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."

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

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

"The solution is open source so is free."

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

"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."

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

"The tool is free."

"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."

More Wireshark pricing and cost advice

See which vendors are best for you

Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Network Monitoring Software solutions are best for your needs.

See recommendations

884,076 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Manufacturing Company

14%

Financial Services Firm

12%

Computer Software Company

Performing Arts

University

11%

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.

Dynatrace vs IBM SevOne Network Performance Management (NPM)

Comparisons

Compared 4% of the time

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

Compared 3% of the time

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

Compared 3% of the time

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

Compared 3% of the time

Avada Software Infrared360 vs IBM SevOne Network Performance Management (NPM)

Compared 3% of the time

More IBM SevOne Network Performance Management (NPM) Competitors

Microsoft Network Monitor vs Wireshark

Compared 10% of the time

SolarWinds NPM vs Wireshark

Compared 8% of the time

AirMagnet Survey PRO vs Wireshark

Compared 7% of the time

SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer vs Wireshark

Compared 7% of the time

Colasoft Capsa vs Wireshark

Compared 7% of the time

More Wireshark Competitors

Product Reports

IBM SevOne Network Performance Management (NPM)

Download IBM SevOne Network Performance Management (NPM) product report

IBM SevOne Network Performance Management (NPM) report

Download Wireshark product report

Also Known As

SevOne

No data available

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