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Rohde & Schwarz Oscilloscopes vs Tektronix 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

Rohde & Schwarz Oscilloscopes
Ranking in Oscilloscopes
5th
Average Rating
8.2
Number of Reviews
12
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Tektronix Oscilloscopes
Ranking in Oscilloscopes
3rd
Average Rating
8.4
Number of Reviews
23
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2026, in the Oscilloscopes category, the mindshare of Rohde & Schwarz Oscilloscopes is 11.1%, up from 6.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Tektronix Oscilloscopes is 17.8%, up from 14.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Oscilloscopes Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Tektronix Oscilloscopes17.8%
Rohde & Schwarz Oscilloscopes11.1%
Other71.1%
Oscilloscopes
 

Featured Reviews

BJ
Staff Transceiver Engineer at Xilinx, Inc.
With this machine, it's easier for us to debug or clarify where the noise source could be because of its accuracy
For the RF application, we care much about the crosstalk on our device and PCBs. Generally, what we can do with the other vendor's product is four-port measurement. It's a bit complicated for us and time consuming to combine all the crosstalk measurement together in a unified model. However, with this VNA, it is much easier because of its eight ports configuration. It's very stable because everything is done at the same time. This means within the test condition environment, everything is the same. This has increased accuracy and dramatically saved a lot of our time. We can do more experiments with this product than using other VNAs which have less ports.
HC
Sr Engineer at a tech company with 5,001-10,000 employees
B-scan is its most valuable feature. However, we are looking for an Intel platform with the newest chipset.
Try it if it is within your budget. It is a good product. The learning curve is very quick. It takes about one or two days. While we have plans to use this product to support connect devices, we are not currently doing so. We are currently measuring signals from 3.0 and 4.0, and looking for 5.0.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The instrument has a wide bandwidth. You can sweep across a wide range of frequencies."
"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."
"It has a very low noise floor."
"I have been able to do quality measurements that I have been unable to achieve with the equipment from some other vendors."
"The most valuable features are the accuracy and repeatability."
"The product is quite reliable and straightforward to use. Typically, there are no households that we have to set up."
"The noise floor for reference clocks is pretty low, so this instrument is able to measure it where others cannot."
"The user interface is excellent. The GUI is so self-explanatory and there are the same knobs everywhere; the design is a standard design line."
"B-scan is its most valuable feature."
"Time domain measurement is very accurate compared to other devices."
"The user interface is good."
"The Tektronix user interface is like an Apple iPhone, but for oscilloscopes. It is simple to use."
"The most valuable features are its ease of use, user interface, and PAM-4. The user interface is good and easy to use."
"This solution provides high confidence in the data being presented in the measurement to inform a design decision going forward."
"I haven't seen anything similar where it has a spectrum analyzer and regular scope together."
 

Cons

"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."
"They could use an RDA interface."
"The size of the unit is too big, too heavy. It has to be made more portable and smaller."
"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."
"In the next release, I would like to see report generation. It would make it a lot easier to refer back to and, when doing final testing, seeing what went on during the pre-test would help."
"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."
"We would like to have autotracking and auto error tracking for regression testing. We would like to know what error happened, when it happened, and during what scenario (such as setup), because right now we have to manually look at when it happened."
"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."
"There was a learning curve, which was a little tricky at times. Getting used to the GUI took time because we had to learn the different features."
"I would like to see some WiFi capabilities. I would like to upgrade equipment, and if I was in the U.S., I could do that with WiFi capabilities."
"I wish we could turn off the automatic measurement feature of the oscilloscope, for teaching purposes."
"On the source side, their AWGs don't have enough bandwidth. They need to increase the bandwidth of their AWGs, meaning they have to have a faster sample rate."
"The power of the computer inside is weak. Sometimes I send a lot of data and I'll feel the lag... I would like to see them improve the processing power."
"I know you can get the Bit Masks but it's generally really expensive to get the eye diagrams and Bit Masks with it. I wish they were included or cheaper."
"I am not utilizing the full bandwidth of this product."
"We would like more features for the CAN bus decoding, such as importing DDC files, which allows us to take the raw data and convert it into engineering units."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing is very competitive."
"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."
"The pricing is way too expensive."
"Buying Rohde & Schwarz gear is like buying a Mercedes. It raises eyebrows when you're asking for that level of performance."
"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."
"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 very expensive."
"The pricing is expensive, but very fair when you look at the technology that you are getting. These are higher-end pieces which have a ton of engineering in them that is not evident on the package. However, you could imagine the amount of time that the vendor has spent on the firmware, optimizing the internal layout, developing custom ICs, etc. They're releasing a mass produced product, but these things are built to last."
"Isolated probes are good to have, as most of the scopes don't have it. It drives up the cost when you have to buy isolated probes."
"It's available on the low-end scopes for free, but on the higher-end scopes, it is expensive. Therefore, it's a bit more difficult to make stuff work."
"Tektronix Oscilloscopes are really expensive for small businesses. The low-end scopes don't really compare performance-wise to what the other companies provide, like RIGOL . Mostly that just has to do with the software options."
"Pricing could be lower. I would want to buy it for an extremely, low price, but Tektronix is a high-end product."
"Tecktronix pricing tends to be pretty fair and reasonable with current market trends. They don't usually bump up the price too much."
"The pricing is very expensive."
"It is a great price for a great product."
"We demoed the product before purchasing it."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
17%
Government
10%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Computer Software Company
7%
Manufacturing Company
15%
University
11%
Educational Organization
9%
Comms Service Provider
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business4
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise6
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business2
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise19
 

Also Known As

RT Series
TBS Series, TDS Series, MDO Series, MSO Series
 

Overview

Find out what your peers are saying about Rohde & Schwarz Oscilloscopes vs. Tektronix Oscilloscopes and other solutions. Updated: February 2026.
884,076 professionals have used our research since 2012.