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IBM SevOne Network Performance Management (NPM) vs Wireshark comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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
54
Ranking in other categories
Network Monitoring Software (37th), Server Monitoring (17th), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (43rd), Log Management (40th), Cloud Monitoring Software (29th)
Wireshark
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.4
Number of Reviews
64
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 17.1% mindshare, up 13.9% since last year.
Network Monitoring Software Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
IBM SevOne Network Performance Management (NPM)1.1%
Zabbix4.1%
SolarWinds NPM3.7%
Other91.1%
Network Monitoring Software
Network Troubleshooting Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Wireshark17.1%
AirMagnet Survey PRO9.4%
DX Spectrum6.6%
Other66.9%
Network Troubleshooting
 

Featured Reviews

reviewer1543041 - PeerSpot reviewer
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,…
reviewer2837244 - PeerSpot reviewer
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.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"Instant graphs, high frequency polling and the ability to create reports on the fly are the most valuable features we currently use."
"SevOne excels at gathering performance metrics and then making them quickly accessible in ways that I want to view them."
"Technical support is 10/10; responses to questions are within 20 minutes and the longest time to be resolved was three days."
"The platform is as flexible as an open source system can be, and it has a very useful end user GUI interface, which means working with the system is very easy and intuitive."
"The reporting capabilities provided important metrics and data that helped in the oversight of our system, network, and overall IT infrastructure, both in terms of applications and hardware."
"Fantastic – for money laid out vs. what you’re getting back, it's been great."
"With this tool it is interesting to show the info to the client and explain where the traffic is."
"Customer Service: Fantastic – responsive."
"The transmission and reception issues are valuable."
"Wireshark has been getting better and better in the time I've been using it and it is a very helpful tool."
"You can use Wireshark to see the traffic packet format, the IP layers, the fields, and the enabled flags."
"Wireshark helps us to understand network traffic."
"Wireshark is a very useful tool."
"The solution is easy to install and use."
"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 is a pretty good tool if somebody wants to learn packet analysis or just plain, simple debugging of network issues at an L2 or L3 level."
 

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."
"Software upgrades can be tricky is not easy."
"There are a lot of pain points. My main problem is that we don't have a high availability system."
"The reporting of NMS is good, but it could be better."
"There is room for improvement in the integration with different vendors and the reporting capabilities."
"I'm not really sure if this was the software's fault or a server issue, but a couple of years back the disks were failing on our SevOne physical server every month and the server would go down. The secondary server took over from the primary until the disk issue was resolved. That was annoying."
"The reporting of NMS is good, but it could be better."
"SevOne should work with the graphs legend functionality."
"The product is great but I wish there were more of an emphasis on the command line tools."
"Wireshark gets stuck when it is a larger file."
"We'd like to be able to extract the output into an Excel table."
"Great scalability, but they are beginning to sacrifice ease of use for complexity."
"Wireshark is also used for hacking which is a security breach."
"It is not an easy program. You will need to study to use it to its full capabilities (follow a course)."
"It needs the ability to follow multiple interfaces for specific traffic from different network zones/virtual networks."
"It would be better if they offered a hybrid version like My Cloud Control."
 

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."
"Have a bank of licenses, because it is about the number of objects (RAM, ports, CPU, etc.)."
"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."
"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."
"The tool is not expensive. We were able to negotiate with SevOne on pricing."
"Choose a SevOne partner who can provide SevOne as a service and can deliver professional services and maintenance."
"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."
"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."
"We're using the free version of Wireshark."
"It's free."
"Wireshark is free of charge, and there's no license involved."
"The tool is free."
"It is an open-source solution."
"It is free to download and install. It runs on multiple platforms, so how can you go wrong?"
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
13%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Construction Company
10%
Comms Service Provider
7%
University
11%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Healthcare Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business4
Midsize Enterprise6
Large Enterprise45
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business31
Midsize Enterprise11
Large Enterprise29
 

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...
 

Also Known As

SevOne
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

ATOS, Devereux, Spark New Zealand, Access4, Rogers Communication, Lumen (formerly known as CenturyLink)
Comversion, ADP, Talbots
Find out what your peers are saying about Zabbix, Auvik, SolarWinds and others in Network Monitoring Software. Updated: May 2026.
896,298 professionals have used our research since 2012.