No more typing reviews! Try our Samantha, our new voice AI agent.

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 (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
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 19.7% mindshare, up 13.2% since last year.
Network Monitoring Software Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
IBM SevOne Network Performance Management (NPM)1.1%
Zabbix3.8%
SolarWinds NPM3.7%
Other91.4%
Network Monitoring Software
Network Troubleshooting Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Wireshark19.7%
AirMagnet Survey PRO8.3%
DX Spectrum7.3%
Other64.7%
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

"Customer Service: Excellent, customer service is 10/10."
"SevOne is excellent for transforming raw network performance data into actionable insights."
"It is a very efficient and highly recommended solution."
"SevOne provides us with continuous analytics of our network and that gives us an idea of the health of our network, where our weaknesses are, and what needs to be fixed."
"But it is a good tool that works nicely; so far, we don't regret it."
"We find that the reporting is particularly valuable in terms of not only communicating with our peer teams but also with the executives."
"Technical support is 10/10; responses to questions are within 20 minutes and the longest time to be resolved was three days."
"Our ROI is excellent."
"What's best about Wireshark is that it doesn't require installation. It supports cards and monitoring permissions and is sufficient for appending and capturing activities. You won't need to install other tools to use Wireshark, so this saves you time. You can capture packets at any time from your laptop through Wireshark."
"Being able to dissect email data and figure out what is inside email messages was the most valuable feature."
"The filter option provided by Wireshark is its most valuable feature...Scalability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten."
"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."
"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 transmission and reception issues are valuable."
"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."
"Wireshark is the world's most powerful network protocol analyzer tool."
 

Cons

"NMS has several areas for improvement. It should be more user-friendly inside of NMS for some of the functionality in there. It's been getting better the last version or two, but the there have been bugs in there whenever I've gone to new versions."
"Licensing costs can add up quickly, so know what you need to monitor and what you don’t."
"Their virtualization solution is not compatible with our Kubernetes environment, which is one of the reasons we are ending our relationship with them."
"We need to be thinking about streaming telemetry protocols. They already have the port for enhanced visualization, which they already have through Data Insight."
"On a scale of one to ten, I am neutral because it is not too good and not too bad."
"The method of searching for SIP and the way to create the groups."
"The out-of-the-box reports and workflows for automatically helping to understand what is normal and what is abnormal in our network are very poor if you only have NMS and that is the only portion of step one that you own."
"As I mentioned before, there are cheaper solutions available."
"It’s helpful only if you have the basic knowledge of networking."
"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."
"You need good network connectivity to download during the setup, otherwise, it might take a while."
"Built-in help system is not robust."
"Wireshark could be improved by adding more monitoring features."
"Wireshark does not allow you to make any changes relevant to the network; in other words, you can only observe the network."
"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."
"The volume of data on a typical TCP segment is so large that it can be challenging to capture and find the right data."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"The pricing has not evolved with the market, which is one of the reasons we are moving to a new product."
"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."
"There are different options available for licensing, with the per-device option being more expensive but more flexible."
"There are cheaper solutions available."
"It is inexpensive compared to other monitoring tools."
"Have a bank of licenses, because it is about the number of objects (RAM, ports, CPU, etc.)."
"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."
"It's free."
"Wireshark is an open-source product, so it's free to use."
"It is an open-source solution."
"Wireshark is free of charge, and there's no license involved."
"Wireshark is free software, so you can download it and use it for free with no licensing fees."
"Wireshark is free software, so you don't have to pay any licensing fee. Individual people can use it and then donate to Wireshark."
"We're using the free version of Wireshark."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Network Monitoring Software solutions are best for your needs.
909,153 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Construction Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Comms Service Provider
6%
University
10%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Construction 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?
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...
 

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, SolarWinds, Datadog and others in Network Monitoring Software. Updated: August 2026.
909,153 professionals have used our research since 2012.