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Keysight Oscilloscopes vs Rohde & Schwarz Oscilloscopes 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

Keysight Oscilloscopes
Ranking in Oscilloscopes
4th
Average Rating
8.4
Number of Reviews
23
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Rohde & Schwarz Oscilloscopes
Ranking in Oscilloscopes
6th
Average Rating
8.2
Number of Reviews
12
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Oscilloscopes category, the mindshare of Keysight Oscilloscopes is 10.7%, down from 18.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Rohde & Schwarz Oscilloscopes is 6.6%, down from 7.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Oscilloscopes
 

Featured Reviews

KR
Helps us ensure our materials' performance and DKDF measurements
I would definitely recommend trying this product. It's a really reliable and high-performance machine. In terms of a learning curve on the equipment, I had some training on the VNA before we purchased it, so for me training was done within a week or so. It was not really hard. But for colleagues, it took them some time to learn it. Upgrades are always welcome. Apart from VNA, we need to purchase all the fixtures, other equipment to connect to VNA. They are very expensive tools, and that's part of upgrading what we are doing in the lab. The solution, performance-wise is a ten out of ten. Price-wise, it's a six out of ten.
AM
The ability to have both the time domain and frequency domain, where the frequency domain is a very broad spectral plot, is extremely valuable
There is certainly a learning curve. Finally, watching YouTube videos on using the instrument got me over the hump, as well as a sit down session with one of the oscilloscope experts. The Rohde & Schwarz user interface is very oriented towards drop and drag functions on the screen. Some of those are just not obvious how to use. You have to have somebody get you over the hump. My understanding is they have a newer user interface, but I haven't gotten around to upgrading the firmware on my scope in some time, so I'm not familiar with it yet. In comparison, I love the LeCroy interface. Recently, I've learned that there are ways to adapt these instruments to become a Vector Network Analyzer (VNA), which is of interest to me. If I can use probes that are not in the 50 ohm domain, which is what you would have with a normal Vector Network Analyzer, then doing power applications for me, this would be a lot safer. Using a traditional communications type Vector Network Analyzer in the 50 ohm domain and having these high DC potentials (adding the DC blocks is adding air to the test method), then having an oscilloscope type front-end which is lot more tolerant of overload, it is a lot safer. The vector network analysis that I need to do is well under a gigahertz, and the other instruments that I have sort of stop at 40 megahertz. Trying to get past 40 megahertz into the mid-hundreds of megahertz and have high impedance probes that will tolerate DC, that is really of interest to me.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The user interface is very user-friendly. You can use a lot of functions in their scope and will provide them for you. You can update the scope's software by asking Keysight to update the software when you want."
"The technical support is good, and it has very strong customer support. They sent an engineer to us who gave us some training and tutorials."
"It's easier to automate and connect with multiple devices, and at the same time with laptops."
"Before silicon came back, our customers' performance was affected. Using these tools, we are able to deliver performance to our customers."
"The user interface is nice. It describes the output well, so it's easy to use."
"The product's functionality makes things easier for my partner, who is doing the PCIe design. He is able measure the product's usage and bit error rate."
"I use the serial decoder for the serial interfaces, which helps me debug my product quickly."
"Its 4 port has true differential with quite a few de-embedding features. It goes up to 40 GHz with high performance."
"The noise sensitivity: It has a low noise floor."
"The ability to have both the time domain and frequency domain, where the frequency domain is a very broad spectral plot, is extremely valuable."
"The most valuable features are its wide bandwidth and 8 ports."
"The characterization of RF channels was helpful... The user interface was very simple to operate and there were a lot of tutorials."
"The instrument has a wide bandwidth. You can sweep across a wide range of frequencies."
"The product is quite reliable and straightforward to use. Typically, there are no households that we have to set up."
"It is a more efficient, easier way to do measurements."
"I have been able to do quality measurements that I have been unable to achieve with the equipment from some other vendors."
 

Cons

"The user interface is not that good. It's not very intuitive. It's functional, but it's not designed for ease of operation. It's designed for functionality."
"I would like to see the possibility of interacting with the software, new features for software post-processing. For example, once you're done measuring, it would be nice to be able to generate some data starting from the measurement data."
"Every component has a manufacturing tolerance. I hope Keysight software can help with the tolerance loss in manufacturing variance, which can be ten percent or five percent. In the real world, we cannot fire a really perfect test with very smooth impedance. I would like to see Keysight provide a solution to solve the issue of loss of manufacturing variance."
"We tried to connect multiple computers with a KVM switch but we could not do that using Keysight VNA. Keysight VNA comes with the PC inside it. We have other equipment as well, and we tried to combine it so that we had one monitor to control everything. With Keysight we could not do it. That's something of an inconvenience."
"The technical support is okay, but sometimes they are on a different page than us. If it is something wrong with the scope, they are okay. However, if something technical goes wrong, like the calibration, it is hard to get the information that we need because it is hard to share everything and explain all the measurements in real-time."
"In terms of additional capabilities, I would like to see more touchscreen and a larger screen. That would help."
"I would also like to see a more detailed change-notice from version to version, what changed. If they had a more detailed description of what is changing and the reason for it, rather than just releasing, that would be good for us so we know whether or not to upgrade."
"While the user interface is good with respect to instrumentation, but with respect to documentation, I do not like it. Its documentation is slightly bad. It was not organized properly. The way it's organized is very difficult to understand, so it takes lot of time to search for one thing in particular."
"There was a learning curve. Their use interface and the way that their products work are not intuitive to somebody who switches from other vendors."
"I'm against the Windows-based tools. Now everybody is running scopes, VNAs, and all their tools based on Windows. I don't want to see that in the future."
"Sometimes, it's difficult to find menus on the user interface."
"The Rohde & Schwarz user interface is very oriented towards drop and drag functions on the screen. Some of those are just not obvious how to use. You have to have somebody get you over the hump."
"They could use an RDA interface."
"The user interface could be improved, e.g., the documentation on the menus. I have to open a separate document to figure out the functionality sometimes."
"The size of the unit is too big, too heavy. It has to be made more portable and smaller."
"The depth the the user GUI could be improved. It is a bit deep for new users. During the first two weeks we spent a lot of time finding the tabs."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It's expensive, but the quality matters."
"While I don't have transparency on the pricing, it works within my budget."
"It would be good if it were a little bit cheaper, of course."
"If we rented the product, it would be more affordable than buying new."
"The major factor influencing the decision-makers is the price."
"Pricing always is very expensive. There's no free lunch."
"It's very expensive because this type of equipment is not so common. For a company buying it, this is a big investment."
"The pricing is on the high side."
"When we chose this, the price was really reasonable, and it is a high-end product. It had a high price, but we understood that because it has 8 port, the same noise floor (as the competition) with double the measurement capabilities and a cheaper price."
"Buying Rohde & Schwarz gear is like buying a Mercedes. It raises eyebrows when you're asking for that level of performance."
"The pricing is too high."
"One of the things I liked less, not only me but also my company, was that Rohde & Schwarz are very expensive... There are solutions that are almost the same that sell at better prices."
"The pricing is very competitive."
"The pricing is very expensive."
"If we are looking to purchase a product, we ask for a loaner for a month or so to test it out. Then, we will make a decision."
"The pricing is way too expensive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
17%
University
11%
Legal Firm
7%
Educational Organization
6%
Manufacturing Company
19%
Government
11%
University
8%
Computer Software Company
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Also Known As

InfiniiVision Series, Infiniium Series
RT Series
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Nokia Bell Labs
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about Keysight Oscilloscopes vs. Rohde & Schwarz Oscilloscopes and other solutions. Updated: March 2025.
848,207 professionals have used our research since 2012.