IBM SevOne Network Performance Management (NPM) vs Wireshark comparison

IBM SevOne Network Performa...

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between IBM SevOne Network Performance Management (NPM) and Wireshark based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out what your peers are saying about Zabbix, Auvik, SolarWinds and others in Network Monitoring Software.

To learn more, read our detailed Network Monitoring Software Report (Updated: May 2025).

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May 2025

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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

IBM SevOne Network Performa...

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

7.2

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Network Monitoring Software (44th), Server Monitoring (19th), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (44th), Log Management (48th), Cloud Monitoring Software (30th)

Wireshark

Average Rating

9.0

Reviews Sentiment

7.7

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Network Troubleshooting (4th)

Mindshare comparison

While both are Network Management solutions, they serve different purposes. IBM SevOne Network Performance Management (NPM) is designed for Network Monitoring Software and holds a mindshare of 1.0%, down 1.0% compared to last year.
Wireshark, on the other hand, focuses on Network Troubleshooting, holds 14.3% mindshare, up 12.1% since last year.

Network Monitoring Software

Network Troubleshooting

Featured Reviews

Grzegorz Nowak

Solution Architect at Wingu

Improves infrastructure planning by helping us analyze network traffic

We use SevOne to collect and report on network flows SevOne improves infrastructure planning by helping us analyze network traffic. We can look at bandwidth for specific endpoints on the customer's network and analyze traffic to identify issues. For example, maybe some connectors are unavailable.…

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Vijay Duggal

Network Specialist at Squarepoint Capital

Provides detailed traffic analysis and helps troubleshoot issues

There is a disadvantage when it comes to sampling intervals. While the solution supports sampling as fine as one millisecond, it requires a copy at that interval. My Python script allows me to achieve a granularity of up to ten microseconds, but I can't go beyond that. When dealing with provisioning on both issues, it would be beneficial if I could go down to the microsecond level, if not the nanosecond. Additionally, I've heard from a colleague that Wireshark might be less effective in the voice domain.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The modules and the performance management reports that come with data insights are two of the most valuable features. I also find the reports for Wi-Fi, Netflow, LAN, and WAN for monitoring to be very good."

"The most valuable feature as of late has been the API integration with ServiceNow."

"We find that the reporting is particularly valuable in terms of not only communicating with our peer teams but also with the executives."

"Flexible architecture: You can extend the system and its capacity by attaching another cluster pair."

"Its ability to monitor practically any type of network device via SNMP is most valuable. This is the main functionality that we're using. If a network device exposes a metric, such as interface utilization, SevOne will monitor it for us."

"In 90% of the cases, new devices are plug-and-play, so when a new version comes out then SevOne has support for it out of the box."

"The SMP and the xStats, which is for flat file integration, are both useful for integrating the various metrics that the device provides to monitor the performance of those systems."

"The out of the box reports and workflows are pretty good and they meet our requirements well."

More IBM SevOne Network Performance Management (NPM) pros

"Wireshark's best features are that it lets us see what traffic is in the network and what data should be encrypted."

"Wireshark saves a lot of time, especially with network troubleshooting."

"Wireshark is very user-friendly; even someone with basic IT knowledge can use it."

"It has a good syntax to put the commands in and get information out of."

"The initial setup is simple."

"Packet-capture files can be hard to use due to their size. Wireshark has a tool called tshark that can parse the files with out opening them so that you can take large captures, say 2-10GB, and return only relevant information."

"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."

"The strongest feature of this solution, is the ability it gives us to carry out deep-packet inspections on our network, particularly when a function isn't performing as it should."

More Wireshark pros

Cons

"The one area with room for improvement is probably administration. They added data insights to make a better user experience, but I'd like to see some improvements in the way the system's administered."

"The user management features need to be improved. It would be nice if we had more granular control, or layers of control, out of the box."

"Their virtualization solution is not compatible with our Kubernetes environment, which is one of the reasons we are ending our relationship with them."

"I'm not really sure if this was the software's fault or a server issue, but a couple of years back the disks were failing on our SevOne physical server every month and the server would go down. The secondary server took over from the primary until the disk issue was resolved. That was annoying."

"The reports are easy to configure but they are a bit outdated in terms of appearance and visualization."

"High-frequency polling is data-intensive because you're pulling more. If SevOne could figure out a way to manage the impact of high-frequency polling on the system, that would be very popular."

"We previously have had discussions on some reporting enhancements. So, we raised a feature request, which was delivered from SevOne."

"With the administrative management of the appliance, if some object appears from SevOne because something changed in the network or whatever, then as an administrator you will not be aware. If you are using this object in a report, this object will disappear from the report and you will not be aware of it. So, if you have 1,000 reports, you cannot always check these reports everyday to see if objects are missing or information has disappeared. We don't have any information on alerts, saying that something is happening there and maybe we need to take action. If an object was replaced by another one, or if a link was replaced by another one, then the graph needs to be changed because it doesn't exist in the graph anymore. However, we don't have this information."

More IBM SevOne Network Performance Management (NPM) cons

"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 would be better if they offered a hybrid version like My Cloud Control."

"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."

"The solution has a steep learning curve. There are so many filters and features that are frequently being updated, it takes research, experience and familiarity to be able to use them. It could be a lot more user-friendly."

"Wireshark is restricted when any sort of encryption is involved, such as XSL encryption or DLX."

"The product is great but I wish there were more of an emphasis on the command line tools."

"We would like the product to be developed so that it doesn't rely on internet access for installation. We would like to see all of the components required to be integrated into the installer."

"This product needs to improve the UI."

More Wireshark cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"There are different options available for licensing, with the per-device option being more expensive but more flexible."

"Many tools price things based on the number of KPIs that you're collecting around a device. In many cases, there could be hundreds of metrics that you need to collect. SevOne provides device-level pricing. That gives us the flexibility to turn on, and expand on, the metrics that we're collecting around those devices, without taking a financial hit."

"It is inexpensive compared to other monitoring tools."

"There are cheaper solutions available."

"Have a bank of licenses, because it is about the number of objects (RAM, ports, CPU, etc.)."

"The pricing has been fair."

"A blocking point is the high upfront cost because it is challenging to get it accepted and the purchase approved."

"The tool is not expensive. We were able to negotiate with SevOne on pricing."

More IBM SevOne Network Performance Management (NPM) pricing and cost advice

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

"It's a stand-alone tool. If there is a commercial license for it I am unaware of it."

"It's free."

"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."

"Wireshark is open source and gives great value and functionality to the network investigation."

"Wireshark is free software, so you can download it and use it for free with no licensing fees."

"It is free to download and install. It runs on multiple platforms, so how can you go wrong?"

"It is free."

More Wireshark pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

16%

Manufacturing Company

15%

Computer Software Company

14%

Legal Firm

University

11%

Computer Software Company

10%

Financial Services Firm

Government

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with SevOne Network Data Platform?

There is room for improvement in the integration with different vendors and the reporting capabilities. It would be beneficial to have out-of-the-box integration with third-party vendors and improv...

What is your primary use case for SevOne Network Data Platform?

The primary use case of IBM SevOne Network Performance Management (NPM) ( /products/ibm-sevone-network-performance-management-npm-reviews ) is network monitoring. It helps to maintain the infrastru...

What advice do you have for others considering SevOne Network Data Platform?

To compete with custom-built tools, IBM SevOne Network Performance Management (NPM) should accommodate the desired features and be timely in the delivery of feature updates. I would rate the overal...

What do you like most about Wireshark?

The GUI is easy to use.

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.

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Product Reports

IBM SevOne Network Performance Management (NPM)

June 2025

IBM SevOne Network Performance Management (NPM) report

Download IBM SevOne Network Performance Management (NPM) product report

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May 2025

Also Known As

SevOne

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Overview

The IBM® SevOne Network Performance Management (IBM SevOne NPM) solution helps you spot, address, and prevent network performance issues early with machine learning-powered analytics from a single source. Boost network performance and improve your user application experience by proactively monitoring your multivendor end-to-end network across enterprise, communication, and managed service provider networks.

Transform raw network performance data into intelligent and actionable insights. The IBM SevOne NPM solution goes beyond detection, combining industry-leading expertise and advanced technology to help your IT team plan and optimize your network and act on what matters: improving network performance to provide an exceptional customer experience.

For further information, please visit www.ibm.com/cloud/sevo...

IBM

Wireshark is the world's foremost network protocol analyzer.

Sample Customers

ATOS, Devereux, Spark New Zealand, Access4, Rogers Communication, Lumen (formerly known as CenturyLink)

Comversion, ADP, Talbots