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Keysight Oscilloscopes vs Rohde & Schwarz Oscilloscopes 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

Keysight Oscilloscopes
Ranking in Oscilloscopes
4th
Average Rating
8.4
Number of Reviews
23
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Rohde & Schwarz Oscilloscopes
Ranking in Oscilloscopes
6th
Average Rating
8.2
Number of Reviews
12
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Oscilloscopes category, the mindshare of Keysight Oscilloscopes is 11.0%, down from 15.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Rohde & Schwarz Oscilloscopes is 7.3%, up from 7.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Oscilloscopes
 

Featured Reviews

AC
The technical support ecosystem is what really makes it good.
Because they're such a big industry standard name, their products are standardized across many customers, which is why people own these products. The customer support is very good. If you need an application to do any measurement, you can easily get a hold of people to help you with it. This is a whole ecosystem. The user interface is top-notch in the industry.
AM
The ability to have both the time domain and frequency domain, where the frequency domain is a very broad spectral plot, is extremely valuable
There is certainly a learning curve. Finally, watching YouTube videos on using the instrument got me over the hump, as well as a sit down session with one of the oscilloscope experts. The Rohde & Schwarz user interface is very oriented towards drop and drag functions on the screen. Some of those are just not obvious how to use. You have to have somebody get you over the hump. My understanding is they have a newer user interface, but I haven't gotten around to upgrading the firmware on my scope in some time, so I'm not familiar with it yet. In comparison, I love the LeCroy interface. Recently, I've learned that there are ways to adapt these instruments to become a Vector Network Analyzer (VNA), which is of interest to me. If I can use probes that are not in the 50 ohm domain, which is what you would have with a normal Vector Network Analyzer, then doing power applications for me, this would be a lot safer. Using a traditional communications type Vector Network Analyzer in the 50 ohm domain and having these high DC potentials (adding the DC blocks is adding air to the test method), then having an oscilloscope type front-end which is lot more tolerant of overload, it is a lot safer. The vector network analysis that I need to do is well under a gigahertz, and the other instruments that I have sort of stop at 40 megahertz. Trying to get past 40 megahertz into the mid-hundreds of megahertz and have high impedance probes that will tolerate DC, that is really of interest to me.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The customer support is very good. If you need an application to do any measurement, you can easily get a hold of people to help you with it. This is a whole ecosystem."
"The user interface is very simple. Everyone can use it."
"It does everything that I need it to with the PLTS software and the network analyzer software."
"Its versatility and accuracy are the most valuable features."
"It's easier to automate and connect with multiple devices, and at the same time with laptops."
"The user interface is simple and straightforward, so I can easily measure frequency, time, and other complex measurements."
"Its 4 port has true differential with quite a few de-embedding features. It goes up to 40 GHz with high performance."
"The user interface has never been better. They improved it a few years ago with a more modern oscilloscope interface and it's easier to use, even for more junior people in our lab."
"It is easy to connect with, accurate, reliable, and hardly fails."
"It is a more efficient, easier way to do measurements."
"The noise sensitivity: It has a low noise floor."
"The characterization of RF channels was helpful... The user interface was very simple to operate and there were a lot of tutorials."
"The user interface is pretty good. Right now, it is more than what we expected. It's easy and fast to use."
"The product is quite reliable and straightforward to use. Typically, there are no households that we have to set up."
"The most valuable features are the accuracy and repeatability."
"It has a very low noise floor."
 

Cons

"I would like more customized functions, so we can do the programming and definitions ourselves. There is an automation flow to capture this signal, and we would like to do this ourselves."
"I would like more accuracy, particularly for multiport measurements."
"I would like them to build in more high-speed functions, such as FEC or PCIe, built into the array. PERT to be built-in for more specific product call. These would make our lives much easier."
"While the user interface is good with respect to instrumentation, but with respect to documentation, I do not like it. Its documentation is slightly bad. It was not organized properly. The way it's organized is very difficult to understand, so it takes lot of time to search for one thing in particular."
"Something I'd like to see is much better documentation and some good examples. That would be very helpful for a new user to get better at using the new test equipment."
"There is room for improvement in the upgradeability of the products. When we buy a platform, we would like that platform to survive two or three generations, because it is very expensive. If they could provide a more modular type of design, so if we want to upgrade one functionality then we could upgrade that module, rather than all the equipment, that would be helpful. That modularity is something we would like to see."
"If the simulation runs for a long time, it will suddenly crash. If they can debug that, the product would be better."
"The user interface has a load of features that come with it, which is why it is an eight out of ten."
"The depth the the user GUI could be improved. It is a bit deep for new users. During the first two weeks we spent a lot of time finding the tabs."
"The size of the unit is too big, too heavy. It has to be made more portable and smaller."
"The Rohde & Schwarz user interface is very oriented towards drop and drag functions on the screen. Some of those are just not obvious how to use. You have to have somebody get you over the hump."
"We would like to have autotracking and auto error tracking for regression testing. We would like to know what error happened, when it happened, and during what scenario (such as setup), because right now we have to manually look at when it happened."
"The user interface could be improved, e.g., the documentation on the menus. I have to open a separate document to figure out the functionality sometimes."
"Sometimes, it's difficult to find menus on the user interface."
"It would be good if they would try to automate most things because it has more pressing buttons and repetitive work. If there were automation scripts that they could provide, that would improve things."
"They could use an RDA interface."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The cost is always a struggle. We always wish that we could do more for less."
"Pricing always is very expensive. There's no free lunch."
"It's very expensive."
"Keysight is on the high side. If they could make the price lower without sacrificing the quality that would be great."
"If we rented the product, it would be more affordable than buying new."
"While I don't have transparency on the pricing, it works within my budget."
"The pricing is always high."
"The major factor influencing the decision-makers is the price."
"If we are looking to purchase a product, we ask for a loaner for a month or so to test it out. Then, we will make a decision."
"The pricing is way too expensive."
"When we chose this, the price was really reasonable, and it is a high-end product. It had a high price, but we understood that because it has 8 port, the same noise floor (as the competition) with double the measurement capabilities and a cheaper price."
"Buying Rohde & Schwarz gear is like buying a Mercedes. It raises eyebrows when you're asking for that level of performance."
"The pricing is too high."
"One of the things I liked less, not only me but also my company, was that Rohde & Schwarz are very expensive... There are solutions that are almost the same that sell at better prices."
"The pricing is expensive, but very fair when you look at the technology that you are getting. These are higher-end pieces which have a ton of engineering in them that is not evident on the package. However, you could imagine the amount of time that the vendor has spent on the firmware, optimizing the internal layout, developing custom ICs, etc. They're releasing a mass produced product, but these things are built to last."
"The pricing is very competitive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
18%
Legal Firm
8%
University
8%
Computer Software Company
6%
Manufacturing Company
21%
Government
10%
Computer Software Company
8%
University
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Also Known As

InfiniiVision Series, Infiniium Series
RT Series
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Nokia Bell Labs
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about Keysight Oscilloscopes vs. Rohde & Schwarz Oscilloscopes and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
862,514 professionals have used our research since 2012.