IBM SevOne Network Performance Management (NPM) vs Wireshark comparison

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

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

"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."

"The comprehensiveness of this solution's collection of network performance and flow data is one of the basics in the field for what it does. It meets all of our needs. So for all those areas, for the most straightforward collection capabilities, right up to NetFlow and even telemetry, it meets all those demands. Not only just basic or fundamental SNMP collection capability, but the product also supports what we need for the future with telemetry streaming. So it's very comprehensive."

"SevOne provides support for all universal connectors. They internally work with other data sources to get features implemented. We have an SD-WAN implementation and use other app data to monitor performance. If you pull that data into one centralized location, that is very useful for management."

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

"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."

"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."

"The ability to decrypt traffic and the abundance of filters available are both valuable features."

"Wireshark is a good tool to start with network analyzing and packet capturing."

"It is a stable product. I would rate the stability a ten out of ten."

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

"I can save the traffic and analysis when I want to. Also, it's especially helpful to follow the stream (TCP, UDP, etc.)."

"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. 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."

"Wireshark's best features are that it lets us see what traffic is in the network and what data should be encrypted."

"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."

"I would like to see live maps as an added feature. Also, build modules on AI and EML to provide better data insights that would proactively tell us what we should be looking after."

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

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

"SevOne could improve its flexibility because it isn't fully customizable and its out-of-the-box configuration doesn't cover all use cases."

"Software upgrades can be tricky is not easy."

"Would benefit with the addition of AI modules for proactive data insights."

"You need to plan integrations. That has been the biggest bug with SevOne so far. For the things that SevOne pulls directly, those are easy to understand, modify, and put into the database. For things that need to use the Universal Collector or xStats, you need to plan that stuff well in advance."

"The system could be improved upon by adding a better and more powerful data processing engine."

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

"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 is similar to an OS defense tool, meaning that it runs on an OS such as Ubuntu and Fedora, but I'm unsure if it's compatible with Windows or if it's a straightforward process to run it on Windows. Right now, my team needs to run Wireshark from a dongle to use it, so it's an OS-dependable tool, and that's an area for improvement. I was unable to use Wireshark on Windows, and I couldn't capture it, as I'm unsure how to configure the wireless card into monitoring mode on Windows. The process was straightforward on Linux, but it wasn't the case on Windows OS. It seems Wireshark isn't compatible with all OS. For example, you can analyze the log, and you can analyze it on the Windows server, but you can't do a capture in Windows. Configuring Wireshark for Windows isn't as easy as configuring it for Linux."

"The product is great but I wish there were more of an emphasis on the command line tools."

"It is difficult to scale this solution."

"Big trace files (more than 1,000,000 packets) can be slow, but then you can use "TraceWrangler" (also free) to help with slicing and dicing the data."

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

"There are different options available for licensing, with the per-device option being more expensive but more flexible."

"There are cheaper solutions available."

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

"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."

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

"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 pricing has been fair."

"It's free."

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

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

"It is free."

"The solution is open source so is free."

"The tool is free."

"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."