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reviewer2045031 - PeerSpot reviewer
Student at a university with 1,001-5,000 employees
Real User
Dec 26, 2022
Good for diagnostics and working with packet data and easy to set up
Pros and Cons
  • "The initial setup is simple."
  • "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."

What is our primary use case?

I have been using Wireshark for the packet tracing, and it has helped me to find out whatever site, et cetera. It is useful, basically capturing packets of data on the network.

It helps us to identify the source the packet is originating from and it also helps us to know about the return time of the packet from when the packet is going from our computer to when it reaches the destination IP address. It helps diagnose internet connectivity problems and also helps us to know what the website data consists of and how much data is in the website.

And it also helps us to know about the various protocols which are being utilized when we are connecting to the internet. We also get to know what bites, et cetera, are present in our data or if there is any malicious packet that is not supposed to come in. Based on it, we can configure our firewall. 

What is most valuable?

It's helping me to get to know about the packet data. I'm getting to know about the source destination IP, for example. That's quite useful to me. 

Overall, it's a great product. 

The initial setup is simple. 

It is stable. 

What needs improvement?

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. 

Also, sometimes when I'm trying to select the number of bytes, the selection does not go properly. If we were to go on selecting it, the number of bytes also showed up as to how many bytes have been selected in the detailed plane.

For how long have I used the solution?

I've been using the solution for four months.

Buyer's Guide
Wireshark
December 2025
Learn what your peers think about Wireshark. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: December 2025.
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What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It's quite stable. I don't have any issues with Wireshark while running it. There are no bugs or glitches. It doesn't crash or freeze. 

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Scalability is good. I can capture as few or as many packets as I want. There's no issue at all. 

That said, I haven't worked on it professionally, so I cannot comment much on that right now from an organizational perspective.

How are customer service and support?

I've never called technical support. I can't speak to how helpful or responsive they are. 

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

I did not use another similar product before. 

How was the initial setup?

The implementation process is not complex at all. You just have to click on the interface, and your Wireshark starts capturing the packets. 

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

I'm not aware of the exact pricing. 

What other advice do I have?

I'm an end-user. I'm using it at my college.

I would recommend Wireshark for various network diagnostic purposes.

I'd rate the solution nine out of ten.

Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
PeerSpot user
Joel Ogbechie - PeerSpot reviewer
Cybersecurity Operations Lead at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
Real User
Top 5
Oct 30, 2024
Traffic analysis and threat hunting with very good essential features
Pros and Cons
  • "It helps in analyzing if something looks suspicious, such as a brute force attack or scanning from somewhere."
  • "I have not used Wireshark to an advanced point where I could provide a detailed opinion on improvements needed."

What is our primary use case?

My work includes a feature that allows me to download traffic between different points, whether internal, external, or general. I use Wireshark to analyze this traffic. I also use it mostly for threat hunting.

What is most valuable?

I look at aspects like who is downloading the most data and who are the most active. I also check which country is generating the most traffic. It helps in analyzing if something looks suspicious, such as a brute force attack or scanning from somewhere. It assists in identifying source and destination and possible data extraction, which is helpful for incident response.

What needs improvement?

I have not used Wireshark to an advanced point where I could provide a detailed opinion on improvements needed. I find it to be a very useful tool beyond other traffic analysis tools.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using Wireshark for more than five years now.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

I have not faced any issues with stability.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Wireshark does everything I need.

How are customer service and support?

I have never contacted their support team.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

I was using Splunk about three months ago and tried to ingest some Wireshark captures.

What other advice do I have?

I recommend Wireshark to other people.

I'd rate the solution eight out of ten.

Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
PeerSpot user
Buyer's Guide
Wireshark
December 2025
Learn what your peers think about Wireshark. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: December 2025.
879,477 professionals have used our research since 2012.
reviewer2171574 - PeerSpot reviewer
Chief Technologist at a consumer goods company with 10,001+ employees
Real User
Nov 10, 2023
A tool that offers a free version along with high scalability
Pros and Cons
  • "The filter option provided by Wireshark is its most valuable feature...Scalability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten."
  • "Wireshark could make the filtering rules easier to apply and offer a drag-and-drop option as opposed to type and text."

What is our primary use case?

I use Wireshark in my company for in-depth troubleshooting, especially when you need to look at individual packets.

What is most valuable?

The filter option provided by Wireshark is its most valuable feature. In Wireshark, you view packets based upon a set of rules that helps narrow down to find the packets you want to look at, making it probably the main feature of the product. Wireshark provides you with the ability to use an option called recompile.

Wireshark provides you with the ability to use an option called recompile. The tool also provides an RTP stream to its users. With Wireshark, the ability to play audio through the application is useful.

What needs improvement?

Wireshark could make the filtering rules easier to apply and offer a drag-and-drop option as opposed to type and text. The tool should also provide data prompts for some of the filters.

In the future, I want Wireshark to provide some visual representation of packet sizes, along with some graphical analysis tools.

I think you may have to download a separate interface driver when working with Wireshark, so I believe that the setup phase could be made simpler.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using Wireshark for ten years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Stability-wise, I rate the solution an eight out of ten.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Scalability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten.

Around five people in my company use Wireshark.

How was the initial setup?

Wireshark's initial setup phase is not bad.

The solution is deployed on a virtual machine.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

I use Wireshark's free version.

What other advice do I have?

I rate the overall tool an eight out of ten.

Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
PeerSpot user
SanjeevKumar19 - PeerSpot reviewer
Technical Support Engineer at a tech vendor with 501-1,000 employees
Real User
Oct 7, 2023
Offers both GUI and command-line interfaces, and good for troubleshooting network issues
Pros and Cons
  • "It is a stable product. I would rate the stability a ten out of ten."
  • "The initial setup depends upon the basics. You need to have a clear understanding of the basics."

What is our primary use case?

When we can see in the customer environment that traffic is getting blocked; suppose we have a VPN channel, and when the VPN channel is up but the traffic is not running through it, we use Wireshark to recapture the channel. We check whether the PPP handshake is ongoing or not. The acknowledgment team posts this packet, and after that, the PPP handshake is ongoing or not. 

So these are the things that we check by filtering out the things and based upon that, we get support. Because in five to six seconds, there are more than a thousand packets. So we have to filter out and check on which speed it is getting dropped. For that reason, we are using Wireshark. I am using it just for troubleshooting purposes.

What is most valuable?

Wireshark is pretty handy. It's especially useful for troubleshooting issues. However, the GUI interface is not that accurate. It can only show a limited amount of information, such as the source code, destination code, and services that are being blocked. If we want to know why a packet is being blocked by a particular policy, we need to check the packet capture.

We also use Wireshark to troubleshoot packet-level inspection issues, such as whether the payload is present, whether the packet size is too large for the receiver, and whether the DMTU (Dynamic Maximum Transmission Unit) is correct. We also use it to troubleshoot issues with fragmented packets.

In addition to the GUI, we also use the developer's tool and the command line to troubleshoot issues with Wireshark. For example, we use the cat and grep commands to filter out the information we need and to turn on debug mode. We also use the tail command to view the current history of logs.

I am currently working in a Linux environment, so I use the SysLog for configuration purposes on the Algo server. I use the TCP system command because Cisco uses port 514. So, I have to use the TCP system command to check whether we are receiving logs from the particular firewall or not.

Customers often tell us that they have open WDP 5144 traffic. They usually show us this in Splunk. For example, they might say, "We are forwarding the packet to the system, but we are not receiving the packet." This is usually because they need to test their end because they require some identity virus for the traffic to flow through our application.

Sometimes, the Algo server goes down, and we have to build it from scratch. Other times, the load distribution unit does not get synced with the primary. These are just some of the things we do on a daily basis with Wireshark.

What needs improvement?

While Wireshark is useful, the GUI interface is less accurate, showing only limited information.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using Wireshark for three years. 

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It is a stable product. I would rate the stability a ten out of ten. Every engineer in our organization uses this solution in our company. So, more than 22 users are using this solution. 

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

I would rate the scalability a nine out of ten. There is always room for improvement. 

It is easy to scale Wireshark. The GUI is very user-friendly. They have multiple videos online and on YouTube. Going through these resources provides a better understanding of Wireshark, its functionality, and how things operate within it. Essentially, it aligns with what we can learn from fundamental books or authoritative works.  

What we have analyzed on a theoretical basis, like the TCP handshake, SSL handshake, wireless controller handshake, SMTP handshake, and whatever we read in the books, we can technically see it in Wireshark each and every packet. For SSL, we can see multiple streams getting transmitted: server, client hello, client-server hello, then the client where Client Pre-shared. The client ciphers also send the TLS, TLS certificate SSL certificate. Then in the server, we can see the SSL certificate and the Cypress suite, which they want to negotiate on, and then their pre-master secret key, which is generated, and then the session keys are getting generated. So these are all the things that we read in our books; we can see it packet-wise, each and everything. The acknowledgment comes from their end, from the client or the server side. So we can see it is very much easy to use in Wireshark.

Gain practical knowledge of what we comprehend. Analogous to the basic mathematical concept of two plus two, this is a protocol-oriented understanding, similar to the alphabet in language. However, in the realm of networking, Wireshark proves highly beneficial. You can put into practice what you read in books by actively examining and validating it yourself.

How are customer service and support?

Every engineer will always try to make things easy for the customer. S 

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup depends upon the basics. You need to have a clear understanding of the basics. When you have a clear understanding, there's nothing more difficult for us.

We have deployed it both on the cloud and on-premises. We usually install agents from Google. Everyone cannot use it. At least we need to have a basic understanding of theoretical concepts. Once the theoretical concept is clear, then you can use the packet capture. So it is easy to do packet captures. You need to just check videos on YouTube.

What other advice do I have?

Overall, I would rate the solution a nine out of ten. Just focus on the basics. Once they are clear, you can handle and master any of the products in the secure network market, whether it's switches, routers, firewalls, VPNs, load balancers, or whatever it is. Just focus on the basics of what you want to pursue in your career.

Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
PeerSpot user
Ahmet Kilic - PeerSpot reviewer
Network and Security Unit Manager at a financial services firm with 51-200 employees
Real User
Leaderboard
Jan 12, 2023
It's an effective way to troubleshoot unknown issues, but it could use a dashboard

What is our primary use case?

Wireshark is a packet analysis tool. We check Wireshark when we don't know what's causing an issue.  The network packets never lie. Three people on my company's network team use Wireshark. 

How has it helped my organization?

It's an efficient solution for determining unexplained issues. It helps us rule out the network as the cause of an issue. When people don't know the reason for a problem, they always believe it's the network. Wireshark enables us to prove ourselves to the other teams. 

What is most valuable?

Wireshark is a simple solution. 

What needs improvement?

Wireshark doesn't have a dashboard. 

For how long have I used the solution?

We have been using Wireshark for around 10 years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Wireshark is stable. 

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Wireshark is scalable.

How was the initial setup?

Setting up Wireshark is easy and usually takes about 10 to 15 minutes. 

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

Wireshark is open source, but you can pay for support. 

What other advice do I have?

I rate Wireshark seven out of 10. If you use the free version, you can't get technical support, but it's cost-effective. When you first use Wireshark, it can seem complex, but it's an effective solution once you get used to it. Packet analysis is complicated, but it's the best way to do the job once you understand the solution.

Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
PeerSpot user
Chad Nel - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior System Administrator at a tech services company with 11-50 employees
Real User
Jan 7, 2023
It's a powerful tool that lets you see everything in your network
Pros and Cons
  • "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."
  • "The average person would probably find Wireshark hard to use. When I first installed it, I was overwhelmed by all the data it was shooting out. It doesn't make sense until you start doing some research and figure out what everything means. It isn't the most user-friendly tool. It just provides so much information."

What is our primary use case?

Wireshark is a tool for ARP scanning. I started using Wireshark back when I had a YouTube channel. It was mostly a security channel to show people how easily you can get hacked and how to hack. I was doing some research for my videos. I didn't know much about security, but I was interested in it, and Wireshark was one of the software solutions that kept popping up.

I watched some videos on how to use it and incorporated that into some of my videos. When I discovered something funny on my network a couple of years later, I decided to reinstall Wireshark to run some scans and found the culprit.

 It's all on-premises. Here in South Africa, a couple of companies have migrated to the cloud, but that's quite expensive for many of them. It's much easier and cheaper to buy a server and host everything locally. The only thing they keep in the cloud is email because on-premise email is just horrible. Most of my clients are on-premises. One or two has Azure or something like that.

What is most valuable?

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 needs improvement?

The average person would probably find Wireshark hard to use. When I first installed it, I was overwhelmed by all the data it was shooting out. It doesn't make sense until you start doing some research and figure out what everything means. It isn't the most user-friendly tool. It just provides so much information. 

I'm probably not familiar with it enough to say what features it's missing, but it could be a bit more accessible to the average system administrator having issues on their network so they can pull it out and run some scans.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

I rate Wireshark eight out of 10 for stability.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

I probably won't be able to give good input on this, but I will give Wireshark eight out of 10 for scalability based on the limited time that I've used it.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

I also use MikroTik. It's easy because I've been working with it for years, so it's hard for me to compare it with Wireshark, which I only learned to make my YouTube videos and used a couple of times in the past. 

I'd say Wireshark and Nmap are more advanced and in-depth than using MikroTik by itself, but I haven't encountered a problem I couldn't resolve without using Wireshark. The exception is when a client doesn't have MikroTik, and they use a plain router or something like that. Obviously, I would need to pull out the other tools. MikroTik does what I need it to do. 

How was the initial setup?

Wireshark uses a simple "next, next, finish" installer. Any person who can read can install it.

What other advice do I have?

I rate Wireshark eight out of 10. It has much more network functionality than MikroTik, but the downside is a person has to learn it to use it correctly. Maybe make it my New Year's resolution to watch a tutorial on how to use it and start using it more in the new year.

Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
PeerSpot user
Lead Engineer at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees
Real User
Nov 10, 2022
Scalable, stable, doesn't require installation, and allows you to capture packets at any time
Pros and Cons
  • "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."
  • "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."

What is our primary use case?

We're using an internal Wi-Fi card in the laptop, so we configure that particular wireless interface into monitoring mode, configure the channel, and use Wireshark for that specific interface. We can capture the packets and activities on that channel, analyze the packets for poor connections, etc.

What is most valuable?

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.

What needs improvement?

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.

What I'd like to see in the next release of Wireshark is the capability to capture packets from the ethernet.

For how long have I used the solution?

I started using Wireshark six or seven years ago.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Wireshark is a stable product.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Wireshark is a scalable product.

How are customer service and support?

I never needed to contact technical support for Wireshark.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

My company uses Wireshark and has not tried a different solution. The biggest factor on why it decided to use Wireshark is because it's open-source software that doesn't require installation and a license, so anyone can use it.

How was the initial setup?

Wireshark is pretty easy to set up. Its deployment doesn't take much time. It only takes ten to twenty minutes max to complete Wireshark deployment.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

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

What other advice do I have?

All people within my company use Wireshark, so that's two hundred users.

My advice to anyone looking into using Wireshark is that you should know how to configure the interface and the internal Wi-Fi card into monitoring mode, so you can capture via Wireshark. As Wireshark is a good tool, I'd recommend it to others, but you should have some knowledge of how to use it and how to configure it. Before implementing Wireshark, you need to know your objectives, working scenarios, what type of features you'd want to implement, and what changes you need to make.

I'd rate Wireshark eight out of ten because for you to configure and use it requires proper knowledge. It's straightforward to use if you have some knowledge of configuring it for monitoring.

I'm a customer of Wireshark.

Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
PeerSpot user
Siwon Kang - PeerSpot reviewer
Software Engeener at a tech services company with 201-500 employees
Real User
Aug 18, 2022
Adaptive, open-source tool for network-related developers
Pros and Cons
  • "Wireshark's best feature is that it's adaptive, which means it's the go-to tool for network-related developers."
  • "Wireshark's UI isn't easy to handle and doesn't have as nice a view as Omnipeek."

What is our primary use case?

I use Wireshark to analyze packets, especially network packets.

What is most valuable?

Wireshark's best feature is that it's adaptive, which means it's the go-to tool for network-related developers, as when the new protocol comes up, it's rapidly applied to the system, so I can just look into the packet. For example, I'm working in the automotive industry, and Wireshark supports some IP protocols, which not many tools do.

What needs improvement?

Wireshark's UI isn't easy to handle and doesn't have as nice a view as Omnipeek.

For how long have I used the solution?

I've been using Wireshark for over twelve years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Wireshark is stable. When it changed its UI from a legacy one to the acute, there were some crashes, but that was a while ago, and now it's pretty much stable.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Wireshark provides some macro functions and a custom parse protocol for the new protocols, so it's quite scalable.

How are customer service and support?

As it's open-source, Wireshark's customer service isn't as sophisticated as private products. Developers are welcome to contribute their help, but if no one is interested in your particular issue, there's likely no mode to come up with a solution. 

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup was straightforward and only took a couple of minutes to complete.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

We use the free, open-source version of Wireshark.

What other advice do I have?

The most important thing for new users of Wireshark is to get used to the filtering functions because all the filters are based on command input, so the ability to organize the right filter is essential. I would rate Wireshark eight out of ten.

Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
PeerSpot user