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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 September 2025, in the Oscilloscopes category, the mindshare of Keysight Oscilloscopes is 11.9%, down from 14.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Rohde & Schwarz Oscilloscopes is 7.9%, up from 6.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Oscilloscopes Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Keysight Oscilloscopes11.9%
Rohde & Schwarz Oscilloscopes7.9%
Other80.2%
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

"It's easier to automate and connect with multiple devices, and at the same time with laptops."
"It breaks down all the parameters that we need to look at."
"The Keysight Ecal feature has made it very easy for me to do calibrations."
"The most valuable features are its quality and reliability... The good thing about the GUI interface which is, of course, software-based, is that you can record and save your test setup."
"We rely on the data and we make our design calls, risk-assessment, all based on the measurements that we take with the Keysight equipment."
"The user interface is very simple. Everyone can use it."
"Because they're such a big industry standard name, their products are standardized across many customers, which is why people own these products."
"Before silicon came back, our customers' performance was affected. Using these tools, we are able to deliver performance to our customers."
"The most valuable features are its wide bandwidth and 8 ports."
"It has a very low noise floor."
"It is easy to connect with, accurate, reliable, and hardly fails."
"The instrument has a wide bandwidth. You can sweep across a wide range of frequencies."
"The noise sensitivity: It has a low noise floor."
"I have been able to do quality measurements that I have been unable to achieve with the equipment from some other vendors."
"The user interface is pretty good. Right now, it is more than what we expected. It's easy and fast to use."
"The characterization of RF channels was helpful... The user interface was very simple to operate and there were a lot of tutorials."
 

Cons

"I would like more accuracy, particularly for multiport measurements."
"They can improve, but I don't know how."
"The user interface has a load of features that come with it, which is why it is an eight out of ten."
"The technical support is okay, but sometimes they are on a different page than us. If it is something wrong with the scope, they are okay. However, if something technical goes wrong, like the calibration, it is hard to get the information that we need because it is hard to share everything and explain all the measurements in real-time."
"The user interface is not that good. It's not very intuitive. It's functional, but it's not designed for ease of operation. It's designed for functionality."
"Every component has a manufacturing tolerance. I hope Keysight software can help with the tolerance loss in manufacturing variance, which can be ten percent or five percent. In the real world, we cannot fire a really perfect test with very smooth impedance. I would like to see Keysight provide a solution to solve the issue of loss of manufacturing variance."
"Their GUI is not the best. They need to improve on that. I think their software team needs to put in a little bit more work on how they are presenting the application on the scope."
"The integration between different software and hardware panels could be improved. In the software, it's not as strong as the other solutions."
"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."
"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."
"In the next release, I would like to see report generation. It would make it a lot easier to refer back to and, when doing final testing, seeing what went on during the pre-test would help."
"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."
"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."
"There was a learning curve. Their use interface and the way that their products work are not intuitive to somebody who switches from other vendors."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"If we rented the product, it would be more affordable than buying new."
"The cost is always a struggle. We always wish that we could do more for less."
"The pricing is on the high side."
"Keysight is on the high side. If they could make the price lower without sacrificing the quality that would be great."
"Our solution is upgradable. However, upgrading depends on how much money the company is willing to spend, because each upgrade will take a million dollars."
"They're not cheap."
"The major factor influencing the decision-makers is the price."
"While I don't have transparency on the pricing, it works within my budget."
"The pricing is very competitive."
"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."
"The pricing is very expensive."
"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."
"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."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
17%
University
9%
Legal Firm
9%
Educational Organization
6%
Manufacturing Company
20%
Government
10%
Computer Software Company
7%
University
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business5
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise18
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business4
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise6
 

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.
866,685 professionals have used our research since 2012.