PRTG Network Monitor vs Wireshark comparison

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PRTG Network Monitor

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between PRTG Network Monitor 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: September 2025).

Network Monitoring Software

September 2025

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Helped 867,445 peers since 2012

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

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

7.1

Number of Reviews

104

Ranking in other categories

Network Monitoring Software (5th), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (6th), Cloud Monitoring Software (11th)

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. PRTG Network Monitor is designed for Network Monitoring Software and holds a mindshare of 4.2%, down 4.4% compared to last year.
Wireshark, on the other hand, focuses on Network Troubleshooting, holds 12.6% mindshare, up 11.6% since last year.

Network Monitoring Software Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
PRTG Network Monitor	4.2%
Zabbix	11.7%
LibreNMS	4.6%
Other	79.5%

Network Monitoring Software

Network Troubleshooting Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Wireshark	12.6%
LinkRunner	13.6%
NetAlly EtherScope nXG	10.1%
Other	63.7%

Network Troubleshooting

Featured Reviews

Noman-Saleem

Network Support Officer at Habib Metropolitan Bank Ltd

Detects suden changes but significant pricing concerns affect the effectiveness of network traffic troubleshooting

We use PRTG Network Monitor for monitoring traffic on interfaces and the behavior of network traffic. If there are sudden changes in traffic or any configuration issues, we can sort them out using PRTG. It's very helpful for troubleshooting and monitoring traffic utilization on our interfaces…

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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

"I think net flow is PRTG's most valuable feature because it doesn't cost much for us because the net flow sensor is already included in the PRTG license. We can monitor our traffic in our proxy and router."

"It is great for service level agreements and can comply fully with internet monitoring or any interface."

"The feature whereby it shows when my hard drives are moving towards thresholds that would be considered outages, before they reach that point - that is valuable."

"The initial setup is very simple."

"The bandwidth monitoring is a very attractive feature, it can tell you the bandwidth utilization while it is attempting to connect to the host for feedback."

"The email notifications are helpful, and the dashboards are user-friendly for people with little network monitoring knowledge."

"Stable and scalable network monitoring tool. Installation is simple and straightforward."

"The solution is very easy to use and the web provides information with ease."

More PRTG Network Monitor pros

"The feature to incorporate Voice over IP (VoIP) incidents into network traffic analysis is valuable. Capturing voice or SIP communication allows for examination of interactions between SIP clients and SIP servers. This helps the team investigate or analyze issues related to call center servers and operators."

"The filter option provided by Wireshark is its most valuable feature...Scalability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten."

"Wireshark's best feature is that it's adaptive, which means it's the go-to tool for network-related developers."

"If you're dealing with troubleshooting network, voice issues, or network operations, having a tool like Wireshark to dive into packet details is important. The initial setup is straightforward. Anyone starting out or looking to deploy it on your personal PC or machine can do it easily."

"The initial setup is simple."

"The most valuable feature of Wireshark is the ability to choose a destination of flow that has not been working as expected."

"The transmission and reception issues are valuable."

"I have found the most valuable feature you can design your sniffer the way you want to."

More Wireshark pros

Cons

"I would like to see a more robust platform and a new dashboard. In addition, the code is good, but it needs improvement."

"PRTG Network Monitor could improve the price."

"Performance-wise, PRTG Network Monitor still needs improvement because a large number of SNMPv3 queries reduces tool performance."

"The most significant disadvantage of PRTG Network Monitor is that the dashboard for NetFlow is not user-friendly at all."

"I am not sure the solution is giving me all the needed feedback that we need. When something goes off on our IT infrastructure, it does tell me. However, it would be nice if it gave more intuitive information, e.g., the hard drive has gone up by 60 percent in an hour."

"When using PRTG Network Monitor it is beneficial if you have prior experience with it, the user interface could improve."

"PRTG Network Monitor could improve by having a feature to allow uploading of preset standard network switch configurations and the ability to monitor the SLA configuration, such as uptime for the switches or internet connectivity. This would be very useful."

"The technical support could respond a little bit quicker."

More PRTG Network Monitor 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 needs the ability to follow multiple interfaces for specific traffic from different network zones/virtual networks. It would help to understand how any packet is going through the network."

"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."

"We'd like to be able to extract the output into an Excel table."

"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."

"It is difficult to scale this solution."

"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."

"I would like better control of bandwidth from the service provider."

More Wireshark cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We are satisfied with the price."

"If you are not too sure about it, try the free version. Then, if you like it, you can go to the paid version and roll it out."

"PRTG Network Monitor's price is a little high."

"While I am not the person who deals with pricing, I would say that we pay around 1000 pounds a year."

"We are using the premium version of PRTG Network Monitor. The price of the solution is a bit higher than competitors but it is worth the extra money. However, it would be helpful if the price was lower."

"One thing I like is that when you buy sensors, it's a perpetual license, so once you buy 2,000 sensors, you've got 2,000 sensors; it's not a recurring cost."

"The price of PRTG Network Monitor is reasonable."

"The pricing is okay and it is cheaper than some competing products."

More PRTG Network Monitor pricing and cost advice

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

"The solution is open source so is free."

"It is free."

"We are using a freeware version of this solution, so there are no licence costs involved."

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

"We're using the free version of Wireshark."

"The tool is free."

"This is an open-source product that can be used free of charge."

More Wireshark pricing and cost advice

See which vendors are best for you

Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Network Monitoring Software solutions are best for your needs.

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Comparison Review

it_user174738

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…

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

12%

Government

Financial Services Firm

Comms Service Provider

University

10%

Financial Services Firm

Computer Software Company

Educational Organization

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	54
Midsize Enterprise	18
Large Enterprise	38

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	31
Midsize Enterprise	11
Large Enterprise	27

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 do you like most about PRTG Network Monitor?

The tool is integrated with our email for the alerts.

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for PRTG Network Monitor?

The pricing is in the middle. It's not too high, nor too low, but it's reasonable.

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.

Zabbix vs PRTG Network Monitor

Comparisons

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PRTG Enterprise Monitor vs PRTG Network Monitor

Compared 7% of the time

SolarWinds NPM vs PRTG Network Monitor

Compared 6% of the time

Centreon vs PRTG Network Monitor

Compared 5% of the time

LibreNMS vs PRTG Network Monitor

Compared 4% of the time

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Microsoft Network Monitor vs Wireshark

Compared 21% of the time

SolarWinds NPM vs Wireshark

Compared 15% of the time

Colasoft Capsa vs Wireshark

Compared 11% of the time

Zabbix vs Wireshark

Compared 10% of the time

Observer GigaStor vs Wireshark

Compared 3% of the time

More Wireshark Competitors

Product Reports

Download PRTG Network Monitor product report

PRTG Network Monitor

August 2025

Download Wireshark product report

August 2025

Overview

PRTG Network Monitor runs on a Windows machine within your network, collecting various statistics from the machines, software, and devices which you designate. PRTG comes with an easy-to-use web interface with point-and-click configuration. You can easily share data from it with non-technical colleagues and customers, including via live graphs and custom reports. This will let you plan for network expansion, see what applications are using most of your connection, and make sure that no one is hogging the entire network just to torrent videos.

To monitor a large IT environment, it's important to be able to scale PRTG up. Paessler PRTG Enterprise Monitor includes all the proven capabilities of PRTG Network Monitor, which are enhanced by exclusive ITOps Board for a service-oriented, central overview of multiple PRTG servers.

Paessler GmbH

Wireshark is the world's foremost network protocol analyzer.

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

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