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SolarWinds NPM 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

SolarWinds NPM
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
159
Ranking in other categories
Network Monitoring Software (3rd), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (4th), Cloud Monitoring Software (8th)
Wireshark
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.7
Number of Reviews
63
Ranking in other categories
Network Troubleshooting (4th)
 

Mindshare comparison

While both are Network Management solutions, they serve different purposes. SolarWinds NPM is designed for Network Monitoring Software and holds a mindshare of 4.5%, down 5.3% 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
ProductMarket Share (%)
SolarWinds NPM4.5%
Zabbix11.7%
LibreNMS4.6%
Other79.2%
Network Monitoring Software
Network Troubleshooting Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Wireshark12.6%
LinkRunner13.6%
NetAlly EtherScope nXG10.1%
Other63.7%
Network Troubleshooting
 

Featured Reviews

Masud Alam - PeerSpot reviewer
Offers alerting service to trigger alerts and easy to manage
For end-user performance monitoring, we like features such as availability of our all devices and device/interface monitoring. We have also used NCM (Network Configuration Manager) for our network. We use the alerting service to trigger alerts based on specific thresholds, like CPU or memory utilization exceeding a certain percentage. There are AI network initiatives in SolarWinds NPM for some lengthy issues. For example, it shows availability reports. But for bandwidth monitoring, it's not very clear how much bandwidth is being consumed. SolarWinds provide real-time bandwidth monitoring. It is not difficult to manage the network with SolarWinds. We have one customer with a satellite location. If we have a large network with, let's say, 43,000 elements, and our current SolarWinds license supports only 30,000, we would need to create another polling engine to accommodate the additional 13,000 elements. It's limited to the polling engine, so we can only support 30,000 elements per engine. So it's only for 30,000, but we have at least 40,000 elements in our network.
Vijay Duggal - PeerSpot reviewer
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

"I love the GUI. Almost everything is accessible through the web interface. It is very user-friendly. It is easy to drag and drop resources wherever you want them."
"Technical support is very helpful with our upgrades."
"You can monitor performance counters effortlessly."
"The stability is fantastic."
"It is considerably cheaper compared to other tools."
"The set up was very easy. We didn't have any problems with the setup. The deployment took less than an hour."
"SolarWinds NPM has specific modules for monitoring different network capabilities, which provides rich features for carrying out specific tasks."
"I like SolarWinds support because it's 24/7. You describe your issues, your situation and maybe two or three hours later you can discuss a solution with a technical engineer."
"I have found the most valuable feature you can design your sniffer the way you want to."
"The most valuable feature of Wireshark is the ability to choose a destination of flow that has not been working as expected."
"The filter option provided by Wireshark is its most valuable feature...Scalability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten."
"Wireshark helps us to understand network traffic."
"It gives us the ability to pinpoint problems and to communicate network problems with software and hardware vendors."
"Wireshark's best features are that it lets us see what traffic is in the network and what data should be encrypted."
"Being able to dissect email data and figure out what is inside email messages was the most valuable feature. Such a feature is pretty helpful for an ongoing forensic investigation or when there is a potential insider threat that you are trying to investigate. It allows you to see the network activity of the users you are investigating. It also gives you more visibility into your network. It was very easy to set up. There is a lot of information out there on Google and YouTube about how to use it. There is also community support. If you have any trouble, it is pretty easy to find an answer online. You will have to do some digging only if you have a very specific use case."
"The strongest feature of this solution, is the ability it gives us to carry out deep-packet inspections on our network, particularly when a function isn't performing as it should."
 

Cons

"There needs to be more integration of widgets, especially for reporting purposes."
"This solution would benefit from expanding on the capabilities within the API."
"Better offline license management. I’ve had to get in touch with customer support several times simply to remove an expired license from our NPM servers."
"SolarWinds needs to be improved such that it is on par with the leading products in the market."
"Having more technical and support resources available in Saudi Arabia would be helpful."
"They need to work on their automation and automatically discover devices. They are not very good at automatically discovering devices."
"The integration needs to be improved."
"There isn't support available to us as they don't offer support in our country."
"The solution’s user interface could be improved."
"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."
"In the future, it would be nice to see color coding. It is just black and white."
"Wireshark is similar to an OS defense tool, meaning that it runs on an OS such as Ubuntu and Fedora, but I'm unsure if it's compatible with Windows or if it's a straightforward process to run it on Windows. Right now, my team needs to run Wireshark from a dongle to use it, so it's an OS-dependable tool, and that's an area for improvement. I was unable to use Wireshark on Windows, and I couldn't capture it, as I'm unsure how to configure the wireless card into monitoring mode on Windows. The process was straightforward on Linux, but it wasn't the case on Windows OS. It seems Wireshark isn't compatible with all OS. For example, you can analyze the log, and you can analyze it on the Windows server, but you can't do a capture in Windows. Configuring Wireshark for Windows isn't as easy as configuring it for Linux."
"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."
"Wireshark could be improved by adding more monitoring features."
"The initial setup depends upon the basics. You need to have a clear understanding of the basics."
"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."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We pay approximately $700 per year for renewal of the license."
"The solution's pricing is low compared to a lot of other tools in the market."
"There is a permanent license and also a subscription level which has annual fees. The price of the solution is fair."
"When I compare the cost of CA Spectrum to that of SolarWinds NPM, the cost of CA Spectrum is way too high, and the cost of SolarWinds NPM is pretty low."
"The cost of the personal perpetual license for SolarWinds NPM is approximately $2,000."
"Price could be improved on"
"Our customer reports that the solution is somewhat costly and licensing is a bit complicated."
"We have a multi-year license for the use of this solution. There are additional costs for recourses in the environment."
"Wireshark is open source and gives great value and functionality to the network investigation."
"It is an open-source solution."
"It's a stand-alone tool. If there is a commercial license for it I am unaware of it."
"We're using the free version of Wireshark."
"The tool is free."
"Wireshark is open-source and free of charge."
"This is an open-source product that can be used free of charge."
"I am using the free version of this solution."
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Comparison Review

it_user174738 - PeerSpot reviewer
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
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Government
8%
University
10%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Computer Software Company
8%
Educational Organization
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business59
Midsize Enterprise33
Large Enterprise84
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business31
Midsize Enterprise11
Large Enterprise27
 

Questions from the Community

What is the best network monitoring software for large enterprises?
It actually depends on the exact purpose or kind of devices (network devices, servers, something else). Some tools are better for only network devices while others are better for a cloud monitoring...
What is the best network monitoring software for large enterprises?
We are partners with SolarWinds and we sell a lot of Network management to large enterprises also because of scalability, products like Network Performance Monitor & Netflow Traffic Analyzer ar...
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.
 

Also Known As

Solarwinds Network Performance Monitor, SolarWinds Network Bandwidth Analyzer
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Microsoft, Federal Express, Hewlett-Packard, and MasterCard
Comversion, ADP, Talbots
Find out what your peers are saying about Zabbix, Auvik, SolarWinds and others in Network Monitoring Software. Updated: September 2025.
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