PRTG Network Monitor vs Wireshark vs Zabbix comparison

Read 63 Wireshark reviews

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98% willing to recommend

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95% willing to recommend

PRTG Network Monitor

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between PRTG Network Monitor, Wireshark, and Zabbix 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: August 2025).

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August 2025

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Review summaries and opinions

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

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Network Monitoring Software

Network Troubleshooting

Network Monitoring Software

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…

Provides detailed traffic analysis and helps troubleshoot issues

Vijay Duggal

Network Specialist at Squarepoint Capital

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.

Enables seamless global client monitoring with reliable remote connectivity

B Ahmed

Manager, Information Technology Zara & Inditex at Cenomi

I use the solution to provide a perfect environment for remote connectivity with my clients. Many tools that I require for system maintenance are included. I can easily monitor all of my clients throughout the world I did not give much thought to it, however, improvements could be made to Zabbix.…

More PRTG Network Monitor pros

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"I found PRTG Network Monitor very useful for troubleshooting and monitoring the utilization of either the network or server."

"The real-time monitoring feature in PRTG is invaluable to me"

"The most valuable features of PRTG Network Monitor are bandwidth utilization, user-friendliness, all past report simple retrievals, and timeout features. Additionally, if the solution does go down it is simple to bring it back."

"We like the alerting system, the SNMP monitoring and the customization of the bandwidth."

"Its proactiveness is its most valuable feature. We already know when we come in, in the morning, if a server or site is down, as opposed to someone telling us."

"The remote probe feature in PRTG Network Monitor helps you monitor remote systems or your network at a lower cost than other solutions."

"The reporting module is easy to configure."

"The sensors and probes are great, nice and lightweight, they don't take up too many resources on the system. We just deploy them out and they start reporting instantly."

"The product is simple to implement."

"The GUI is easy to use."

"It is a stable product. I would rate the stability a ten out of ten."

"The solution is easy to install and use."

"Wireshark saves a lot of time, especially with network troubleshooting."

"Wireshark is a good tool to start with network analyzing and packet capturing."

"Setup is very easy. It's also possible to change source code and compile if you want to change something in the code, because it's free."

"Wireshark helps us to understand network traffic."

More Wireshark pros

"Zabbix helps to save time."

"Like other common Linux distributions, some of the most valuable features of this solution are the ease of use and deployment. It's simple and has a lot of packages and a lot of software."

"Dashboard and the customization of the items and triggers are the most valuable features."

"Templates are good. We download them from the official Zabbix site or the community. If the information we need isn't available, we create custom templates based on client requirements."

"It has good graphs of what is going on within the operating system."

"Zabbix has high scalability. I would rate it a nine out of ten."

"We have found that Zabbix is more easy to use than other applications."

"There are lots of great features and functionality within the solution."

More Zabbix pros

Cons

"It would be nice if it gave us alerts via Gmail or SMS message."

"PRTG Network Monitor should provide syslog monitoring since it is not available at this time. There are very limited features as compared to other solutions."

"The user interface could be more modern as it is quite dated. PRTG Network Monitor can sometimes be too detailed and cluttered at the beginning, making it heavy to use."

"I wouldn't mind better categories for the sensors. When I go to add a new sensor for a new device, there are some categories in there already, and they can be filtered out, but there's quite a large pool of sensors... When I want to go in and find something quite specific, I have got to scroll down and scroll down to find what I'm actually looking for,"

"PRTG access works best from the web GUI. There are dedicated apps on Windows/Android/iOS, but they are slow and don’t work as well as the web GUI."

"More training videos for installing and configuring this software would have been nice, especially when working with a lot of devices."

"There is room for improvement in this solution for the performance and third-party monitoring protocols. They need to be updated to the latest ones."

"The thing that we do struggle with a bit is in the historic data. If I want look over 30 days, because it averages out onto one graph, you can't zoom in and drill down information."

More PRTG Network Monitor cons

"Wireshark could be improved with a delay option when getting data automatically."

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

"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."

"There is a disadvantage when it comes to sampling intervals. Additionally, I've heard from a colleague that Wireshark might be less effective in the voice domain."

"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."

"Wireshark's UI isn't easy to handle and doesn't have as nice a view as Omnipeek."

"I wish the filters were a little bit more prepopulated."

"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."

More Wireshark cons

"We would like to see the addition of automatic push functionality to this product. This would save time when monitoring our servers and networks as, at present, we have to manually install the Zabbix agent on any hardware to be monitored."

"Zabbix isn't a great tool for cloud-specific monitoring - its connection to public clouds needs to be improved. Other areas for improvement would be the lack of dashboards and integrations."

"The reporting is lacking because this is an open-source tool, and nowadays, management's expectation is that the reports should be of high quality and every information should be presented in a concise manner."

"Zabbix technical support is sold separately."

"When using this solution in enterprise monitoring, you are able to see that there are some issues with equipment that could be causing a problem. Sometimes you want to make a root command that you do not want to be executed automatically. What we have tried to do is open an SSH session directly from the solution's interface but it is not possible."

"They should open an SSH session from the web interface."

"The documentation could be improved."

"Zabbix is powerful, but it is difficult to understand initially. There are many things that can be improved, but we might not be using Zabbix to its fullest extent. The software has more features than we need."

More Zabbix cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Because we are only on the free version, we have a limited number of sensors. Therefore, we are not monitoring as much as we want to be to obtain historical information."

"We have an unlimited license for this solution."

"Pricing for PRTG Network Monitor is a nine out of ten. It meets my company's budget and monitoring requirements. My company is on a perpetual license."

"PRTG Network Monitor is not that expensive, so I like it cost-wise. There's no additional cost apart from the standard licensing fees. On a scale of one to five, with one being the cheapest and five being the most expensive, I would rate the cost of PRTG Network Monitor a two."

"When you have a lot of devices, PRTG Network Monitor can be costly."

"We are using the basic PRTG that we can download for free. For now, we only need to monitor less than 100 devices. For more than 100 devices, we would need to buy a license. PRTG is much cheaper than SolarWinds."

"I would like better pricing models for smaller businesses. The free version is fantastic, but it's too restrictive. If they could just get up to 200 sensors for a reasonable fee for on-premise, I would give PRTG my credit card right now."

"In my company now, we are using the free version."

More PRTG Network Monitor pricing and cost advice

"It is free."

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

"Wireshark is free of charge, and there's no license involved."

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

"The solution is open source so is free."

"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 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."

More Wireshark pricing and cost advice

"This solution is completely open-source, so it is quite affordable."

"We purchased Zabbix for a good price, including support"

"We were searching for an open source solution and Zabbix fit the bill because it is free and open source under the GPL license."

"Zabbix is a free solution but the support contact costs money."

"Zabbix and Grafana are both open source products, we only needed to go to their website and download the application and we began to use them. The solutions are free."

"It is a true open-source solution, so there are no licensing costs."

"Zabbix is open-source so if one wishes to implement it in-house, they must have qualified professionals to set up and optimize databases, Linux/Unix OS, PHP, Apache, and depending on what is monitored, a full-stack network and systems administrator may be needed."

"We’re using the free version, which covers all our current needs."

More Zabbix pricing and cost advice

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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…

What is the best network monitoring software for large enterprises?

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

Computer Software Company

16%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Manufacturing Company

Comms Service Provider

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

PRTG network monitor is one of the best tool i have ever used for the monitoring. It have auto discovery option. it a...

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 ...

What needs improvement with Wireshark?

The speed of the Internet could be improved, especially its performance. Performance can sometimes be a challenge due...

What do you like most about Zabbix?

The template system in Zabbix is very beneficial as it saves time in configuration.

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Zabbix?

We didn't use the commercial version. We used the free version.

What needs improvement with Zabbix?

I think it's the best solution for monitoring. I don't know any better.

PRTG Enterprise Monitor vs PRTG Network Monitor

Comparisons

Compared 6% of the time

SolarWinds NPM vs PRTG Network Monitor

Compared 5% of the time

Centreon vs PRTG Network Monitor

Compared 5% of the time

LibreNMS vs PRTG Network Monitor

Compared 5% of the time

Nagios XI vs PRTG Network Monitor

Compared 4% of the time

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Microsoft Network Monitor vs Wireshark

Compared 20% of the time

SolarWinds NPM vs Wireshark

Compared 14% of the time

Colasoft Capsa vs Wireshark

Compared 11% of the time

Nagios XI vs Wireshark

Compared 7% of the time

ManageEngine NetFlow Analyzer vs Wireshark

Compared 4% of the time

More Wireshark Competitors

LibreNMS vs Zabbix

Compared 9% of the time

Checkmk vs Zabbix

Compared 9% of the time

Icinga vs Zabbix

Compared 6% of the time

NetXMS vs Zabbix

Compared 4% of the time

Elastic Observability vs Zabbix

Compared 2% of the time

More Zabbix Competitors

Product Reports

Download PRTG Network Monitor product report

PRTG Network Monitor

August 2025

Download Wireshark product report

July 2025

Download Zabbix product report

July 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.

Zabbix is an open-source monitoring software that provides real-time monitoring and alerting for servers, networks, applications, and services.

It offers a wide range of features including data collection, visualization, and reporting.

With its user-friendly interface and customizable dashboards, Zabbix helps organizations ensure the availability and performance of their IT infrastructure.

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

1. IBM 2. Dell 3. Cisco 4. HP 5. Oracle 6. Microsoft 7. Amazon 8. Google 9. Facebook 10. Twitter 11. LinkedIn 12. Netflix 13. Adobe 14. VMware 15. Salesforce 16. SAP 17. Intel 18. AT&T 19. Verizon 20. T-Mobile 21. Vodafone 22. Ericsson 23. Nokia 24. Siemens 25. General Electric 26. Honeywell 27. Philips 28. Sony 29. Samsung 30. LG 31. Panasonic 32. Toshiba