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SolarWinds 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

SolarWinds NPM
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
158
Ranking in other categories
Network Monitoring Software (4th), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (5th), Cloud Monitoring Software (6th)
Wireshark
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.7
Number of Reviews
63
Ranking in other categories
Network Troubleshooting (3rd)
 

Mindshare comparison

While both are Network Management solutions, they serve different purposes. SolarWinds NPM is designed for Network Monitoring Software and holds a mindshare of 4.7%, down 5.9% compared to last year.
Wireshark, on the other hand, focuses on Network Troubleshooting, holds 13.2% mindshare, up 12.2% since last year.
Network Monitoring Software
Network Troubleshooting
 

Featured Reviews

MohitKumar - PeerSpot reviewer
High-level, comprehensive, and proactive monitoring in a user-friendly interface
The solution needs to integrate with additional SDN technologies that are part of the hyper market. The solution supports many vendors by default and just included Meraki SDN with the new release, but continued expansion is important. We created a custom method to pair with unsupported vendors but that can produce a lag in performance so future releases should expand SDN support. The solution does a good job of automating features but could expand that even more.
DonniUgalde - PeerSpot reviewer
Provides visibility into the network, and the GUI is easy to use
I wish the filters were a little bit more prepopulated. It would have been easy to hit a drop-down and select a filter. If I only wanted to look at DCP, UDP, or IP, it would be easy to filter it out. Advanced network knowledge is required to get a lot out of the tool. However, it's very easy to install and deploy. It would be nice if there were some handheld Android devices with a Wireshark-specialized application that would allow us to mirror a Cisco port. Then, we can just plug into the port and click the green start button, and it will start ingesting the packet capture. Then, we won’t be using a laptop. The only downside is that we must have a laptop and connect a network cable. Some new laptops don't have network ports, so we have to get another adapter. Having an all-in-one device, like NetAlly or Fluke, and some of their network devices would be cool.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"All the features are very good. The monitoring of the equipment, the configuration manager, and the IP address monitoring are great."
"Everything has been complete and stable for our needs over the past four years."
"The most valuable features are language support and technical support."
"A product that is well-tested and trusted in demanding situations."
"It is scalable."
"The initial setup was straightforward. We deployed the solution from new and completed the upgrades."
"The interface is user-friendly, making it easy to use."
"It is considerably cheaper compared to other tools."
"Wireshark has a lot of features. It's a powerful tool if you're familiar with it. You can see everything on the network with it."
"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."
"Setup is very easy. It's also possible to change source code and compile if you want to change something in the code, because it's free."
"I like the filtering feature as we can filter data easily. This feature is also available in tcpdump, but it's a simple piece of software. Wireshark is more advanced and has many features. It allows you to filter a lot of things. The output can be filtered easily. The most important feature is colorization. If I say, "Okay, this particular SMB protocol in red, it will show me red." It's easy to identify that protocol or capture data."
"The drill-down available for packet analysis is great. It gives a network security engineer insight into what is going on at the packet level and enables better troubleshooting."
"It gives us the ability to pinpoint problems and to communicate network problems with software and hardware vendors."
"Wireshark is very user-friendly; even someone with basic IT knowledge can use it."
"I have found the most valuable feature you can design your sniffer the way you want to."
 

Cons

"There should be a little bit more integration in some of the other tooling and utilizing the APIs of devices or tools could be a little bit better."
"They don't have a local support team."
"Technical support and releases are not particularly reliable."
"The only thing that can be improved is to continually add to the existing capabilities of the product."
"SolarWinds NPM could improve the graphics of the interface and more customized reporting."
"The solution's network discovery and node addition processes need more work."
"The console could be more user-friendly. It would be better if SolarWinds updated the user interface."
"Complex and overly detailed setup."
"The Wireshark search function shows green for a correct search and red for an incorrect search. If there were a way to provide a description about what a search - and the similar ones which are available - can do, while a person is typing it, it would make the product easier to use and simultaneously decrease the learning curve."
"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."
"It is difficult to scale this solution."
"Sometimes I need to use tcpdump when I need to check the packets on CLI."
"Whenever we select one of the packets, in terms of the number of bytes, for example, there are three planes, and in the detailed plane, I have to count the number of bytes manually."
"Wireshark is restricted when any sort of encryption is involved, such as XSL encryption or DLX."
"Wireshark could be improved with a delay option when getting data automatically."
"Wireshark's UI isn't easy to handle and doesn't have as nice a view as Omnipeek."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is too expensive."
"Licenses depend on the number of devices, but all license levels come with technical support."
"SolarWinds NPM is very expensive, and we pay ten thousand yearly."
"Our customer reports that the solution is somewhat costly and licensing is a bit complicated."
"I’d suggest that people be aware that licensing has tiers."
"There is a permanent license and also a subscription level which has annual fees. The price of the solution is fair."
"The licensing is based on the number of nodes, interfaces, and volumes."
"USD $15,000 annually for maintenance."
"Wireshark is open source and gives great value and functionality to the network investigation."
"It's a stand-alone tool. If there is a commercial license for it I am unaware of it."
"This is an open-source product that can be used free of charge."
"Wireshark is open-source and free of charge."
"The solution is open source so is free."
"Wireshark is an open-source product, so it's free to use."
"I am using the free version of this solution."
"We're using the free version of Wireshark."
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Comparison Review

it_user174738 - PeerSpot reviewer
May 31, 2015
Nagios vs. Zabbix vs. PRTG vs. Spiceworks vs. Solarwinds Network Performance Monitor
I have researched a quite a few network monitoring tools which can be used for various monitoring purposes of not only the servers, but the intermediate routers as well. There are majorly three types of these softwares. Ones which are completely open-source, you can do almost anything you want…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
58%
Computer Software Company
6%
Manufacturing Company
4%
Financial Services Firm
4%
University
11%
Computer Software Company
11%
Government
10%
Financial Services Firm
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What is the best network monitoring software for large enterprises?
It actually depends on the exact purpose or kind of devices (network devices, servers, something else). Some tools are better for only network devices while others are better for a cloud monitoring...
What is the best network monitoring software for large enterprises?
We are partners with SolarWinds and we sell a lot of Network management to large enterprises also because of scalability, products like Network Performance Monitor & Netflow Traffic Analyzer ar...
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.
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

Solarwinds Network Performance Monitor, SolarWinds Network Bandwidth Analyzer
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Microsoft, Federal Express, Hewlett-Packard, and MasterCard
Comversion, ADP, Talbots
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