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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Helped 884,873 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

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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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

"Flexible architecture: You can extend the system and its capacity by attaching another cluster pair."

"One of the most valuable features is the graphs, which you can build instantly. I have used some open-source platforms in the past, but they are not as good. With SevOne, the sampling in the graph can be every few seconds, not just every few minutes, and that's really helpful. It's really fast."

"We have benefited mainly from the use of the dashboard interface. It makes the network visually interesting for other people who are not in the network. A lot of people are not network techies who understand streams in the network. Based on location, we have streams coming in and out. They can see visually when there is some problem. They don't need to understand all the network technology behind it to be able to understand if everything is working well or if there is a problem."

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

"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."

"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."

"Based on my experience, the stability of IBM SevOne Network Performance Management (NPM) is excellent."

More IBM SevOne Network Performance Management (NPM) pros

"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."

"The transmission and reception issues are valuable."

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

"The product is simple to implement."

"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."

"If you're dealing with troubleshooting network, voice issues, or network operations, having a tool like Wireshark to dive into packet details is important. The initial setup is straightforward. Anyone starting out or looking to deploy it on your personal PC or machine can do it easily."

"Wireshark has a lot of features. It's a powerful tool if you're familiar with it. You can see everything on the network with it."

"Wireshark is very user-friendly; even someone with basic IT knowledge can use it."

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. That has to do with naming. It's minor."

"With the administrative management of the appliance, if some object appears from SevOne because something changed in the network or whatever, then as an administrator you will not be aware. If you are using this object in a report, this object will disappear from the report and you will not be aware of it. So, if you have 1,000 reports, you cannot always check these reports everyday to see if objects are missing or information has disappeared. We don't have any information on alerts, saying that something is happening there and maybe we need to take action. If an object was replaced by another one, or if a link was replaced by another one, then the graph needs to be changed because it doesn't exist in the graph anymore. However, we don't have this information."

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

"We previously have had discussions on some reporting enhancements. So, we raised a feature request, which was delivered from SevOne."

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

"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."

"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."

"There is room for improvement in the integration with different vendors and the reporting capabilities."

More IBM SevOne Network Performance Management (NPM) cons

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

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

"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."

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

"You need some basic knowledge to work with Wireshark. Maybe it could be more user-friendly just for new users. Just for the new generation."

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

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

More Wireshark cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

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

"There are cheaper solutions available."

"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."

"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."

"The pricing has been fair."

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

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

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

"We're using the free version of Wireshark."

"It's free."

"The solution is open source so is free."

"It is free to download and install. It runs on multiple platforms, so how can you go wrong?"

"The tool is free."

"It is an open-source solution."

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

"It is free."

More Wireshark pricing and cost advice

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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

Manufacturing 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.

Dynatrace vs IBM SevOne Network Performance Management (NPM)

Comparisons

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

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

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Microsoft Network Monitor vs Wireshark

Compared 9% of the time

SolarWinds NPM vs Wireshark

Compared 9% 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

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Product Reports

IBM SevOne Network Performance Management (NPM)

March 2026

IBM SevOne Network Performance Management (NPM) report

Download IBM SevOne Network Performance Management (NPM) product report

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February 2026

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