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PRTG Network Monitor 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

PRTG Network Monitor
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
113
Ranking in other categories
Network Monitoring Software (5th), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (4th), Cloud Monitoring Software (9th)
Wireshark
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.7
Number of Reviews
63
Ranking in other categories
Network Troubleshooting (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

While both are Network Management solutions, they serve different purposes. PRTG Network Monitor is designed for Network Monitoring Software and holds a mindshare of 2.9%, down 4.3% compared to last year.
Wireshark, on the other hand, focuses on Network Troubleshooting, holds 17.1% mindshare, up 13.9% since last year.
Network Monitoring Software Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
PRTG Network Monitor2.9%
Zabbix4.1%
SolarWinds NPM3.7%
Other89.3%
Network Monitoring Software
Network Troubleshooting Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Wireshark17.1%
AirMagnet Survey PRO9.4%
DX Spectrum6.6%
Other66.9%
Network Troubleshooting
 

Featured Reviews

madhan kumar hs - PeerSpot reviewer
software engineer at Capgemini
Alerting precision has reduced incident response times and improved department-level network visibility
The auto-pause sensor during the maintenance window is good without any false alerts, and it prevents me from getting flooded with alerts during planned maintenance, helping department heads understand their own network usage better. It has reduced incident response time by giving clearer ownership of each alert, ensuring alerts go to the proper recipient. SNMP testers and auto-pause are among the best features of PRTG Network Monitor, which is particularly useful for different departments such as HR and finance, where alerts can be filtered accordingly. The alerting features and dashboard of PRTG Network Monitor are very helpful, especially in our industry. However, the dashboard can look cluttered on smaller screens, which is one negative aspect. PRTG Network Monitor has impacted us positively; we have stopped getting flooded with alerts during planned maintenance or unplanned outages. Compared to others, this gives specific alerts very quickly and helps department heads understand their own network usage better, thus reducing incident response time so that each alert has clear ownership.
Vijay Duggal - PeerSpot reviewer
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Technical support has been very helpful so far."
"Nice product with an easy interface to use and a large variety of sensors."
"The initial setup was surprisingly easy, the way the menus are all laid out."
"PRTG Network Monitor is user-friendly and offers flexible alerting systems."
"PRTG Network Monitor helped prevent incidents by creating an alert to the DL when servers go down, notifying me before it became a bigger problem."
"My advice to those wanting to purchase a monitoring solution with simple and easy-to-use features, go with this solution."
"We did some research, found PRTG, and I spoke to another company that used it, they really loved it so we went ahead got the free license initially, did a trial, found it absolutely amazing, and then bought it."
"The solution has definitely saved us time and money."
"I find Wireshark a very useful tool. Its best feature is that it allows me to deeply understand what's going on at the packet level, as well as any adverse signatures that I can analyze."
"Wireshark is more advanced and has many features."
"The best thing about Wireshark is the community/ecosystem."
"The best part about Wireshark, in my opinion, is its ability to analyze packet capture files."
"The solution is open-source and free to use, and there is a paid tier with more features if a company needs a bit more."
"Wireshark helps us to understand network traffic."
"Wireshark is very user-friendly; even someone with basic IT knowledge can use it."
"I use the filters very often, to determine what type of traffic I am looking for. The use of filter allows traffic to be segmented so that a value can be looked at individually apart from the other traffic."
 

Cons

"Once you start going above 5000 sensors, things do start to get a bit shaky. There are some best practice out there that you will need to adopt and be aware of."
"There are some vendor-specific sensors in PRTG Network Monitor, particularly for older hardware, that don't always provide consistent results."
"The technical support needs some improvement. The response time is slow, we normally get a response the next business day for urgent issues which is long time."
"Scalability is the only major sticking point for me. There is a recommended number of sensors, which is around 10,000 and we're double that... The only option we have to scale is to buy another core, which would be a separate, stand-alone instance..."
"PRTG Network Monitor can improve by adding prevention and detection features."
"I would like to see Office 365 monitoring. Essentially, it doesn't do it. I assumed not at all, but apparently it does it slightly. However, due to issues with APIs, they currently don't provide full monitoring for O365."
"Maybe in the future there will be room for improvement, but currently, there is nothing pressing that I can think of"
"When it comes to third-party integration, one of the things we were looking at was putting some sensors onto our firewall, for instance. If there were a little bit more documentation and some step-by-step guides around that, that would be useful for us."
"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."
"The initial setup depends upon the basics. You need to have a clear understanding of the basics."
"DNS could be improved."
"The average person would probably find Wireshark hard to use. When I first installed it, I was overwhelmed by all the data it was shooting out. It doesn't make sense until you start doing some research and figure out what everything means. It isn't the most user-friendly tool. It just provides so much information."
"With Wireshark, you cannot download and utilize the packet in automation."
"Wireshark could be improved with a delay option when getting data automatically."
"We'd like to be able to extract the output into an Excel table."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is expensive."
"It is about £4,500 for the first year, then about another 15 to 20 percent annually after that. So, we are looking at about £1000 running costs a year. When you think about how much an outage costs per minute, it's negligible."
"The pricing is reasonable for the features provided."
"On a yearly basis, I believe it's between £1,200 and £1,500."
"We've got 1,000 nodes and I believe it's a few hundred quid a month."
"The pricing is okay and it is cheaper than some competing products."
"While I am not the person who deals with pricing, I would say that we pay around 1000 pounds a year."
"When you have a lot of devices, PRTG Network Monitor can be costly."
"Wireshark is open source and gives great value and functionality to the network investigation."
"Wireshark is an open-source product, so it's free to use."
"The solution is open source so is free."
"We are using a freeware version of this solution, so there are no licence costs involved."
"This is an open-source product that can be used free of charge."
"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 free software, so you don't have to pay any licensing fee. Individual people can use it and then donate to Wireshark."
"Wireshark is open-source and free of charge."
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Comparison Review

it_user174738 - PeerSpot reviewer
IT Developer at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
May 31, 2015
Nagios vs. Zabbix vs. PRTG vs. Spiceworks vs. Solarwinds Network Performance Monitor
I have researched a quite a few network monitoring tools which can be used for various monitoring purposes of not only the servers, but the intermediate routers as well. There are majorly three types of these softwares. Ones which are completely open-source, you can do almost anything you want…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
10%
Computer Software Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Manufacturing Company
7%
University
11%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Healthcare Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business59
Midsize Enterprise19
Large Enterprise50
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business31
Midsize Enterprise11
Large Enterprise28
 

Questions from the Community

What is the best network monitoring software for large enterprises?
PRTG network monitor is one of the best tool i have ever used for the monitoring. It have auto discovery option. it avoid the configuring the device in PRTG. It automatically discover the device an...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for PRTG Network Monitor?
The pricing was higher at the beginning, but the recurring licensing cost is affordable and reasonable. Overall, the pricing, setup cost, and licensing is fair for our industry. They have quoted us...
What needs improvement with PRTG Network Monitor?
The reporting features look very technical and that can be improved. If they can change the report so everyone can understand it, that would be helpful.
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.
What is your primary use case for Wireshark?
We are using Wireshark for inspecting the vertical line to know the data flow in and out of the cables. This is to determine if there is real traffic flow through the physical connections or not. A...
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Jameson Bank, Sidnix, RungeICT, MedicalAnimal, Truck-lite, GamingGrids, The Covell Group, Forsythn County Schools, NetMass, Musgrove Park Hospital, Lanes Health, Columbia Southern University, Vodafone, Intrust Bank
Comversion, ADP, Talbots
Find out what your peers are saying about Zabbix, Auvik, SolarWinds and others in Network Monitoring Software. Updated: April 2026.
894,807 professionals have used our research since 2012.