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IBM Tivoli NetCool vs NetMaster Network Intelligence comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 2, 2025

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

IBM Tivoli NetCool
Ranking in Network Management Applications
15th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
13
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
NetMaster Network Intelligence
Ranking in Network Management Applications
19th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
8.8
Number of Reviews
5
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2026, in the Network Management Applications category, the mindshare of IBM Tivoli NetCool is 3.7%, up from 2.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of NetMaster Network Intelligence is 3.0%, up from 1.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Network Management Applications Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
IBM Tivoli NetCool3.7%
NetMaster Network Intelligence3.0%
Other93.3%
Network Management Applications
 

Featured Reviews

Petar Ganev - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Enterprise Monitoring Engineer at Commerzbank
Reliable for enterprise monitoring but no longer actively developed
There are problems with the latest security requirements because many things have changed in recent years, and now the security audits are very strict. And we need to switch to something else. We need to patch it constantly. Moreover, it is a very old tool and a little bit difficult to support. Otherwise, they work okay.
it_user558525 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Systems Analyst at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
Streamlines quick and effective drill-down into the network stack for better troubleshooting
I would like to see a web-based interface that mimics the ease of doing data traces, similar to something like a Wireshark which is a Windows-based network monitoring tool. Wireshark is fast. I'm an old Windows guy, it's what I know. I think the liability of NetMaster is having to do things through the panels. It's slow to generate traces, and when you're doing a real-time troubleshooting call - when you have to wait 30 seconds for a process to spawn and fire up in order to give data back - 30 seconds is a long time when there's an issue. The user interface is probably the biggest impediment to my success with it.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The solution is very fast, there's no lag or delay between the IBM solution and the other solutions like Huawei and Nokia."
"Support is one of the best aspects of this solution. NetCool is a good product that has good flexibility. There are a lot of documents available online which is one of the best features of IBM Tivoli Suite. Whenever an issue happens, rather than going to technical support, if you find the exact issue in Google, you can get tech notes for that particular issue."
"The Netcool solution is great, and it's very easy to use."
"The solution has very good integration capabilities."
"The tool had many built-in automation capabilities."
"Full featured - event/fault management, performance management, topology map, discovery, RCA, event enrichment, Proviso will chart data from almost any source with a variety of aggregation options."
"NetCool has a huge database that can collect and process about one million alarms a day."
"Anything is possible with Tivoli. It's quite a robust system."
"Stability-wise, the whole product runs great, especially with the automation; that's where it really shines."
"The support has been excellent. It is far and away the best among the products that our team supports."
"The most valuable features are SNA and IP monitoring, and it has been very easy to define many thresholds, including self-defining baselines."
"Otherwise, I think it is one of the better network products out there."
"I consider NetMaster to be the best-of-breed for network."
 

Cons

"UI is outdated, very old legacy."
"Tivoli NetCool is based on a Linux platform, it would be beneficial if they moved it to Windows because not everyone is acquainted with Linux."
"IBM's technical support takes a long time to do root cause analysis, and we have to go through several levels of help before getting a solution."
"I think the UI should be updated and made more presentable and eye-catching. Compared to NCE in Huawei, NSN in Nokia, the UiPath and Ubiquiti, it feels very old legacy."
"The installation could be simplified, and technical support could be faster."
"The solution is not user-friendly."
"The solution is too expensive."
"From a customer perspective, it is quite an expensive solution to initially implement and then support."
"I would like to see new release migrations made easier."
"I didn't think the SNMP function was easy to set up. That caused some problems with the address space."
"I think the liability of NetMaster is having to do things through the panels."
"The automation part could use improvement, but I do not do that much with it."
"I would like to see a web-based UI (major effort now in progress)."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Licensing fees are paid on a yearly basis."
"It costs around 100k for every ten servers, which is lower than similar products from other vendors."
"The price of the product is too expensive."
"Customers are required to pay a licensing fee."
Information not available
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Outsourcing Company
16%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Construction Company
8%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business6
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise5
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

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Also Known As

Tivoli NetCool
CA NetMaster Network Management. CA NetMaster, CA NetMaster Network Management for TCP/IP, CA NetMaster Network Management for SNA, CA NetMaster Network Management for TCP/IP
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Claranet, Consolidated Communications, Telus, €sterreichische Bundesbahnen (€BB), Telekom Srbija, Bendigo Community Telco, Capgemini, Schweizerische Bundesbahnen (SBB)
Tieto
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM Tivoli NetCool vs. NetMaster Network Intelligence and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
913,924 professionals have used our research since 2012.