IBM SevOne Network Performance Management (NPM) vs Wireshark comparison

IBM SevOne Network Performa...

Read 64 Wireshark reviews

7,419 Views
5,119 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, SolarWinds, Datadog and others in Network Monitoring Software.

To learn more, read our detailed Network Monitoring Software Report (Updated: August 2026).

Network Monitoring Software

August 2026

Download the complete report

Helped 907,816 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 (34th), Server Monitoring (18th), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (34th), Log Management (38th), Cloud Monitoring Software (27th)

Wireshark

Average Rating

9.0

Reviews Sentiment

6.4

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Network Troubleshooting (2nd)

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 1.1%, up 1.0% compared to last year.
Wireshark, on the other hand, focuses on Network Troubleshooting, holds 19.7% mindshare, up 13.2% since last year.

Network Monitoring Software Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
IBM SevOne Network Performance Management (NPM)	1.1%
Zabbix	3.8%
SolarWinds NPM	3.7%
Other	91.4%

Network Monitoring Software

Network Troubleshooting Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
Wireshark	19.7%
AirMagnet Survey PRO	8.3%
DX Spectrum	7.3%
Other	64.7%

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

reviewer2837244

It System Engineer at a manufacturing company with 5,001-10,000 employees

Packet analysis has improved real-time troubleshooting and simplifies mapping complex data flows

The best features that Wireshark offers are everything. Every time I look into Wireshark, I find something new. The ability to capture real-time packets and understand how the packet is working and moving through how many hops and to how many points it reaches makes it a wonderful tool. The specific feature I use most is capturing packets of real-time communication and seeing how the packet is working. I rely on all the filters it has to check the protocols and see the communication between one end and another end and what the hops in between are, and if there is a proxy, how it behaves. Everything helps us check out the issue and troubleshoot it. I do not have anything additional to add about the features; everything looks really fine. The graphics are also good, and you can change its graphical features, making it a pretty nice tool. You can also use it with the PCAP file, which is really nice. Wireshark has positively impacted my organization by giving us the ability to capture packets and see into the network how it is working and what we can clarify about the network, specifically how we can remove many hops in the communication channels. A specific example of a measurable outcome is that we have a few switches in our network that, when we use Wireshark analysis, we find should not be needed or can be replaced with automatic switches instead of manual switches, such as switches which do not have any active features and only passive switches. That has saved us a lot of time.

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

"Its ability to monitor practically any type of network device via SNMP is most valuable. This is the main functionality that we're using. If a network device exposes a metric, such as interface utilization, SevOne will monitor it for us."

"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."

"The network data collection has been very flexible for us. It's been thorough in areas that were lacking. They have a team that I've worked with to add other pieces to it. So if it's missing something out of the box, they work with me to add it. I was able to collect that data. It's not perfect, but it's pretty thorough."

"SevOne's ability to report metrics on specific objects very quickly, whether it is a week, a month, or a year's worth of data points, has improved by leveraging short-term vs. long-term memory to provide necessary statistics so we can alleviate network impacts quickly."

"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."

"Definitely go for it."

"Technical support is 10/10; responses to questions are within 20 minutes and the longest time to be resolved was three days."

"Instant graphs, high frequency polling and the ability to create reports on the fly are the most valuable features we currently use."

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's easy to troubleshoot issues because there's a large online community."

"The initial setup is simple."

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

"The solution is open-source and free to use, and there is a paid tier with more features if a company needs a bit more."

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

"One of the best products that can provide the details of what is happening with an application and the full life cycle of the response time."

"The feature to incorporate Voice over IP (VoIP) incidents into network traffic analysis is valuable. Capturing voice or SIP communication allows for examination of interactions between SIP clients and SIP servers. This helps the team investigate or analyze issues related to call center servers and operators."

More Wireshark pros

Cons

"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..."

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

"Continual UI improvements are needed to reduce number of clicks needed to produce a chart."

"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."

"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."

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

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

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

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."

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

"This product needs to improve the UI."

"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."

"Wireshark is also used for hacking which is a security breach."

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

"It would be better if they offered a hybrid version like My Cloud Control."

"Can be difficult for non packet heads to understand"

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."

"The pricing has been fair."

"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."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"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."

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

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

"The solution is open source so is free."

"Wireshark is open source and gives great value and functionality to the network investigation."

"It is an open-source solution."

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

907,816 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

13%

Construction Company

13%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Comms Service Provider

University

10%

Financial Services Firm

Manufacturing Company

Construction 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	29

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?

Wireshark can be improved if it provides the accessibility of capturing packets from one device that is installed in the network without needing the port-mirrored facility. They could provide somet...

What is your primary use case for Wireshark?

Wireshark's main use case is capturing packets and reviewing the data flow over the network. Regarding my main use case for Wireshark, it is a great tool and would be one of the best tools availabl...

SolarWinds NPM vs IBM SevOne Network Performance Management (NPM)

Comparisons

Compared 5% of the time

Zabbix vs IBM SevOne Network Performance Management (NPM)

Compared 4% of the time

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

Compared 3% of the time

Dynatrace 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

Colasoft Capsa vs Wireshark

Compared 8% of the time

AirMagnet Survey PRO vs Wireshark

Compared 7% of the time

DX Spectrum vs Wireshark

Compared 7% of the time

Observer GigaStor vs Wireshark

Compared 7% of the time

Auvik Network Management (ANM) vs Wireshark

Compared 6% of the time

More Wireshark Competitors

Product Reports

IBM SevOne Network Performance Management (NPM)

July 2026

IBM SevOne Network Performance Management (NPM) report

Download IBM SevOne Network Performance Management (NPM) product report

Download Wireshark product report

July 2026

Also Known As

SevOne

No data available

Overview

IBM SevOne Network Performance Management offers real-time insights, customization, and integration capabilities to efficiently monitor network performance across diverse infrastructures, enhancing operational efficiency.

IBM SevOne NPM is recognized for its ability to provide scalable network monitoring across multi-vendor environments. It delivers real-time data insights essential for maintaining network health and performance. With features like SNMP monitoring, NetFlow data collection, and comprehensive dashboards, it supports proactive tracking and analysis. While challenges in upgrade processes and third-party integration exist, its ability to monitor network availability, capacity, and performance in complex environments makes it valuable for organizations managing data centers and virtual machines.

What are the key features of IBM SevOne NPM?

Real-time Data Insights: Provides immediate visibility into network performance.
Scalability: Supports growing infrastructure and diverse environments.
Customization: Adaptable to specific infrastructure needs.
Extensive Device Support: Monitors a wide range of network devices.
Comprehensive Dashboards: Offers detailed performance assessments.

What benefits and ROI should users expect from IBM SevOne NPM?

Improved Efficiency: Enhances operational processes through ITSM integration.
Proactive Monitoring: Facilitates early detection of network issues.
Flexible Infrastructure Support: Efficient in multi-vendor environments.
Insightful Reporting: Provides baseline comparisons and anomaly detection.

In industries such as IT service providers and large enterprises, IBM SevOne NPM is implemented for its ability to monitor extensive network environments, including data centers and virtual machines. Its proactive monitoring and reporting capabilities are instrumental in maintaining network health and ensuring seamless performance across multiple regions and platforms.

IBM

Wireshark offers robust packet analysis through comprehensive filtering and color-coding features, adaptable across platforms due to its open-source nature. It supports real-time and offline packet captures, multiple protocols, and easy installation, making it a favored tool for network experts.

Renowned for its traffic decryption capabilities and detailed traffic insights, Wireshark provides deep packet inspection and a simple GUI. Ideal for network troubleshooting, it allows users to view VoIP traffic and perform advanced customizations. While Wireshark's interface can be complex and challenging for newcomers, its powerful features make it invaluable in identifying network issues, inspecting protocols, and understanding data flow across wired and wireless environments. Users seek more intuitive filters, better Windows and non-laptop support, as well as features like real-time evolution and graphical analysis tools to enhance usability. Wireshark's wide application includes security research, protocol analysis, and application performance baselining, supporting both on-premises and cloud-based operations.

What are Wireshark's standout features?

Filtering and Color-Coding: Enables detailed packet analysis.
Real-Time and Offline Captures: Supports both capture modes for comprehensive network monitoring.
Traffic Decryption: Provides detailed insights into encrypted traffic.
Deep Packet Inspection: Delivers granular network data examination.
GUI Simplicity: Ensures ease of use despite complex capabilities.

What benefits and ROI should users evaluate?

Network Troubleshooting: Streamlines identification and resolution of network issues.
Protocol Inspection: Facilitates in-depth examination of network communication protocols.
Traffic Monitoring: Ensures effective monitoring of network traffic in real time.
Security Research: Assists in uncovering malicious traffic and vulnerabilities.
Application Performance: Aids in baselining and optimizing app performance.

Wireshark is implemented across industries to manage and troubleshoot networks, analyze traffic flow, and ensure secure, efficient communication. It supports research and security operations, providing insights into protocol usage and application performance across physical and virtual environments. Its deployment spans education, telecommunications, finance, and healthcare, underpinning connectivity and data integrity.

Sample Customers

ATOS, Devereux, Spark New Zealand, Access4, Rogers Communication, Lumen (formerly known as CenturyLink)

Comversion, ADP, Talbots