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IBM SevOne Network Performance Management (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

IBM SevOne Network Performa...
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
54
Ranking in other categories
Network Monitoring Software (37th), Server Monitoring (18th), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (43rd), Log Management (44th), Cloud Monitoring Software (29th)
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. 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 13.9% mindshare, up 11.9% since last year.
Network Monitoring Software
Network Troubleshooting
 

Featured Reviews

Grzegorz Nowak - PeerSpot reviewer
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.…
Vijay Duggal - PeerSpot reviewer
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"I like the tool’s scalability and real-time reports. Earlier, we struggled to give real-time reports to clients. I also like the tool’s deployment model where we can deploy it either on-premises or in-house. We don’t have to carry the data all over the globe. Also, I am impressed with the tool's flow reporting and Wi-Fi."
"The feature that I have found most valuable is the scale-up and scale-down. The scale-up is an operation where the CPU boosts-up and then the memory will boost-up. That works awesomely."
"Scalability. I have never had to worry about how to handle really big environments."
"Flexible architecture: You can extend the system and its capacity by attaching another cluster pair."
"The most valuable feature is the NMS because that's the core of the system. Without the NMS, the other tools aren't that usable."
"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 automation feature is good because if your CMDB is OK and it is already in sync, then the automation part is good to go."
"SevOne has rich API capabilities, giving us the flexibility to control what we collect and customize the collection, creation, and manipulation of now metrics as necessary."
"It has good basic features."
"Wireshark saves a lot of time, especially with network troubleshooting."
"It helps in analyzing if something looks suspicious, such as a brute force attack or scanning from somewhere."
"Wireshark is a good tool to start with network analyzing and packet capturing."
"Wireshark is very user-friendly; even someone with basic IT knowledge can use it."
"The GUI is easy to use."
"Being able to dissect email data and figure out what is inside email messages was the most valuable feature. Such a feature is pretty helpful for an ongoing forensic investigation or when there is a potential insider threat that you are trying to investigate. It allows you to see the network activity of the users you are investigating. It also gives you more visibility into your network. It was very easy to set up. There is a lot of information out there on Google and YouTube about how to use it. There is also community support. If you have any trouble, it is pretty easy to find an answer online. You will have to do some digging only if you have a very specific use case."
"The solution is easy to install and use."
 

Cons

"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."
"SevOne should work with the graphs legend functionality."
"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 GUI: both the dashboard/user view and the admin tool."
"One area that requires a little bit of improvement is the topology of visualization and being able to map out connections, end-to-end. It's able to do that, but it's not as impressive as we would like it to be. We would like to understand the different interface types and the connection points better, through the visualization. Heatmaps also need further development."
"The tool needs improvement in non-Cisco SD-WAN."
"Some similar solutions offer end-to-end visibility."
"The reports are easy to configure but they are a bit outdated in terms of appearance and visualization."
"The solution’s user interface could be improved."
"I have not used Wireshark to an advanced point where I could provide a detailed opinion on improvements needed."
"The system could be improved upon by adding a better and more powerful data processing engine."
"With Wireshark, you cannot download and utilize the packet in automation."
"You need good network connectivity to download during the setup, otherwise, it might take a while."
"Its user interface was a little less friendly. They can make its user interface a little bit more friendly. It is for technical people, and most of the technical people would be able to figure it out, but it would be good to improve its user interface. They can maybe build artificial intelligence into it. Currently, it takes a lot of manpower to analyze and dissect all the data."
"Big trace files (more than 1,000,000 packets) can be slow, but then you can use "TraceWrangler" (also free) to help with slicing and dicing the data."
"In the future, it would be nice to see color coding. It is just black and white."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"There are cheaper solutions available."
"A blocking point is the high upfront cost because it is challenging to get it accepted and the purchase approved."
"Although I don't have exact details in terms of cost, my experience has been that SevOne is willing to make a deal with the customer."
"Choose a SevOne partner who can provide SevOne as a service and can deliver professional services and maintenance."
"Prices per license are not huge, but they exist."
"There are different options available for licensing, with the per-device option being more expensive but more flexible."
"The pricing has not evolved with the market, which is one of the reasons we are moving to a new product."
"For the value that you get from SevOne, it's worth the price. There are a lot of cheaper alternatives on the market, and even free options. But they require more staff, more resources, and engineers with more advanced knowledge of monitoring. That's what makes SevOne worth the price."
"The solution is open source so is free."
"I am using the free version of this solution."
"Wireshark is free of charge, and there's no license involved."
"It's free."
"We're using the free version of Wireshark."
"Wireshark is an open-source product, so it's free to use."
"Wireshark is free software, so you don't have to pay any licensing fee. Individual people can use it and then donate to Wireshark."
"We are using a freeware version of this solution, so there are no licence costs involved."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
17%
Manufacturing Company
14%
Computer Software Company
14%
Legal Firm
6%
University
11%
Computer Software Company
10%
Government
10%
Financial Services Firm
8%
 

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 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.
 

Also Known As

SevOne
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

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