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NETSCOUT Network & Application Observability vs Wireshark comparison

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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

NETSCOUT Network & Applicat...
Ranking in Network Troubleshooting
12th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
92
Ranking in other categories
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability (46th), Network Monitoring Software (7th), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (29th), Digital Experience Monitoring (DEM) (11th)
Wireshark
Ranking in Network Troubleshooting
1st
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.4
Number of Reviews
64
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2026, in the Network Troubleshooting category, the mindshare of NETSCOUT Network & Application Observability is 4.9%, down from 5.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Wireshark is 16.7%, up from 13.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Network Troubleshooting Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Wireshark16.7%
NETSCOUT Network & Application Observability4.9%
Other78.4%
Network Troubleshooting
 

Featured Reviews

HT
Newwork And Collaboration Supervisor at Nafeza
Monitoring has improved bandwidth insights and application diagnosis but setup and costs still need work
They need room for improvement about the spare parts. There are shortages in Egypt in their stock. We tried to make RMA for specific parts, and it took a long time. Comparing this to a vendor like Cisco, who provides any component next business day, NETSCOUT nGeniusONE took a long time. This needs more improvement. I believe it is expensive. They need to reduce its budget a little bit. Comparing to other solutions, it is very expensive.
reviewer2837244 - PeerSpot reviewer
It System Engineer at a manufacturing company with 5,001-10,000 employees
Packet analysis has improved real-time troubleshooting and simplifies mapping complex data flows
The best features that Wireshark offers are everything. Every time I look into Wireshark, I find something new. The ability to capture real-time packets and understand how the packet is working and moving through how many hops and to how many points it reaches makes it a wonderful tool. The specific feature I use most is capturing packets of real-time communication and seeing how the packet is working. I rely on all the filters it has to check the protocols and see the communication between one end and another end and what the hops in between are, and if there is a proxy, how it behaves. Everything helps us check out the issue and troubleshoot it. I do not have anything additional to add about the features; everything looks really fine. The graphics are also good, and you can change its graphical features, making it a pretty nice tool. You can also use it with the PCAP file, which is really nice. Wireshark has positively impacted my organization by giving us the ability to capture packets and see into the network how it is working and what we can clarify about the network, specifically how we can remove many hops in the communication channels. A specific example of a measurable outcome is that we have a few switches in our network that, when we use Wireshark analysis, we find should not be needed or can be replaced with automatic switches instead of manual switches, such as switches which do not have any active features and only passive switches. That has saved us a lot of time.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The system's ability to prevent downtime represents a significant return on investment, but I do not have specific numerical data."
"It is a scalable product."
"The fact that it's able to capture and store packets from the wires is very useful for troubleshooting with our vendors, when issues do come up. It's valuable that we have that overall data for them."
"The solution has helped to increase application and network uptime, reduced our mean time to repair significantly for application and network issues, and cut our overall troubleshooting time from an hour down to five minutes."
"The solution's technical support team consists of good engineers and technicians."
"We have seen a measurable decrease in mean time to know and mean time to repair, and because the tool allows us to get to things a lot quicker and see things a lot quicker, we have actually reduced those times and it has definitely helped with our network uptime, with an improvement in uptime of at least 50 percent."
"Other than those bugs I mentioned, we haven't encountered any issues with stability."
"It gives us the ability to determine the root of a problem or a network, whether it's on the network side, the database, application server, or server infrastructure."
"Wireshark does exactly what I want and leaves me with no need to look elsewhere."
"For example, while debugging through food issues, we can draw the graph of the data captured in the solution and see how the throughput is moving."
"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."
"The initial setup is simple."
"The most valuable feature of Wireshark is the ability to choose a destination of flow that has not been working as expected."
"The best network analyzer tool out there in the market."
"It helps in analyzing if something looks suspicious, such as a brute force attack or scanning from somewhere."
"Wireshark saves a lot of time, especially with network troubleshooting."
 

Cons

"It's not an easy system, it's a very technical system."
"It would be beneficial to see more AI capabilities included in nGeniusONE to further streamline processes and allow lower-level tech support to handle issues more effectively without escalating them."
"Between the host analysis and session analysis, there is a limitation of one hour. This can hinder us if a situation occurred ten hours ago."
"Usability is the area with the biggest room for improvement. We've found that with NETSCOUT, while it's a fantastic product, the usability is a major factor because there are just way too many clicks. It's obvious, from our experience, that the people who are developing the product aren't using it."
"I would like for it to have a smaller footprint of the virtual appliance and better performance."
"They require a lot of manual effort as traffic flows, networks, and formal times change."
"There was a point in GTP where we were creating services on nodes and after that we wanted to have services on APN. We can't have both... There are some limitations with these types of things. When we would like to use a feature, we have to remove another one."
"Our biggest area of concern right now, supporting the applications, is that while NETSCOUT does a good job of monitoring the network and the applications, we need more visibility into system health and performance monitoring."
"The Wireshark search function shows green for a correct search and red for an incorrect search."
"It is easy to get overwhelmed with the amount of data you are looking at."
"You need some basic knowledge to work with Wireshark. Maybe it could be more user-friendly just for new users. Just for the new generation."
"Bigger memory footprint."
"Its user interface was a little less friendly. They can make its user interface a little bit more friendly."
"The only thing that I don't like is sometimes there is an update, and something that I was using is either no longer there or it has changed."
"Sometimes I need to use tcpdump when I need to check the packets on CLI."
"It is difficult to scale this solution."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It can be scalable. It just costs too much. With a company as big as ours, it gets too expensive to accommodate every single site."
"Licensing is quite expensive."
"This solution has saved us more than $50,000 a month and freed up 30 percent of our bandwidth."
"The price is only for acquisition; it's not a licence."
"The platform is expensive."
"I would like it to be more scalable with less spend."
"We have a premium customized contract for the solution."
"It can be expensive, but if you have a good configuration, based on what you are looking for, it's okay, it's manageable."
"The solution is open source so is free."
"Wireshark is an open-source product, so it's free to use."
"Wireshark is free of charge, and there's no license involved."
"It is free to download and install. It runs on multiple platforms, so how can you go wrong?"
"It is free."
"Wireshark is free software, so you can download it and use it for free with no licensing fees."
"I've never personally had to pay for it, making it a highly valuable internet resource that's accessible for use. While they offer some paid versions, our firm has utilized the free version for the past three years."
"It's a stand-alone tool. If there is a commercial license for it I am unaware of it."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Outsourcing Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Construction Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
University
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Construction Company
7%
Comms Service Provider
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business26
Midsize Enterprise13
Large Enterprise59
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business31
Midsize Enterprise11
Large Enterprise29
 

Questions from the Community

Which is the best DDoS protection solution for a big ISP for monitoring and mitigating?
I would say if it’s an ISP that will build a scrubbing center, Netscout/Arbor is a good solution. In all other solutions, Imperva is a great choice.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for NETSCOUT nGeniusONE?
Regarding its high price, I give NETSCOUT nGeniusONE a seven.
What needs improvement with NETSCOUT nGeniusONE?
They need room for improvement about the spare parts. There are shortages in Egypt in their stock. We tried to make RMA for specific parts, and it took a long time. Comparing this to a vendor like ...
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?
Wireshark can be improved if it provides the accessibility of capturing packets from one device that is installed in the network without needing the port-mirrored facility. They could provide somet...
What is your primary use case for Wireshark?
Wireshark's main use case is capturing packets and reviewing the data flow over the network. Regarding my main use case for Wireshark, it is a great tool and would be one of the best tools availabl...
 

Also Known As

NETSCOUT nGenius, NETSCOUT nGeniusONE, NETSCOUT nGeniusPULSE, NETSCOUT vSTREAM, NETSCOUT InfiniStreamNG, TruView
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Cerner Corporation
Comversion, ADP, Talbots
Find out what your peers are saying about NETSCOUT Network & Application Observability vs. Wireshark and other solutions. Updated: November 2026.
921,028 professionals have used our research since 2012.