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Keysight Oscilloscopes vs Rohde & Schwarz Oscilloscopes 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

Keysight Oscilloscopes
Ranking in Oscilloscopes
4th
Average Rating
8.4
Number of Reviews
23
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Rohde & Schwarz Oscilloscopes
Ranking in Oscilloscopes
6th
Average Rating
8.2
Number of Reviews
12
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Oscilloscopes category, the mindshare of Keysight Oscilloscopes is 11.0%, down from 15.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Rohde & Schwarz Oscilloscopes is 7.3%, up from 7.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Oscilloscopes
 

Featured Reviews

AC
The technical support ecosystem is what really makes it good.
Because they're such a big industry standard name, their products are standardized across many customers, which is why people own these products. The customer support is very good. If you need an application to do any measurement, you can easily get a hold of people to help you with it. This is a whole ecosystem. The user interface is top-notch in the industry.
AM
The ability to have both the time domain and frequency domain, where the frequency domain is a very broad spectral plot, is extremely valuable
There is certainly a learning curve. Finally, watching YouTube videos on using the instrument got me over the hump, as well as a sit down session with one of the oscilloscope experts. The Rohde & Schwarz user interface is very oriented towards drop and drag functions on the screen. Some of those are just not obvious how to use. You have to have somebody get you over the hump. My understanding is they have a newer user interface, but I haven't gotten around to upgrading the firmware on my scope in some time, so I'm not familiar with it yet. In comparison, I love the LeCroy interface. Recently, I've learned that there are ways to adapt these instruments to become a Vector Network Analyzer (VNA), which is of interest to me. If I can use probes that are not in the 50 ohm domain, which is what you would have with a normal Vector Network Analyzer, then doing power applications for me, this would be a lot safer. Using a traditional communications type Vector Network Analyzer in the 50 ohm domain and having these high DC potentials (adding the DC blocks is adding air to the test method), then having an oscilloscope type front-end which is lot more tolerant of overload, it is a lot safer. The vector network analysis that I need to do is well under a gigahertz, and the other instruments that I have sort of stop at 40 megahertz. Trying to get past 40 megahertz into the mid-hundreds of megahertz and have high impedance probes that will tolerate DC, that is really of interest to me.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Its 4 port has true differential with quite a few de-embedding features. It goes up to 40 GHz with high performance."
"The customer support is very good. If you need an application to do any measurement, you can easily get a hold of people to help you with it. This is a whole ecosystem."
"It does everything that I need it to with the PLTS software and the network analyzer software."
"The user interface is very good, very graphical. It provides a lot of help in using and operating it."
"It can go up to a very high frequency, up to 120 gigahertz. And the user interface is really good. It's really easy to navigate."
"It's easier to automate and connect with multiple devices, and at the same time with laptops."
"It has the highest bandwidth and resolution on the market."
"It's accurate, fast, has high bandwidth, and the PLTS is pretty convenient."
"It has a very low noise floor."
"The instrument has a wide bandwidth. You can sweep across a wide range of frequencies."
"The noise sensitivity: It has a low noise floor."
"It is a more efficient, easier way to do measurements."
"It is easy to connect with, accurate, reliable, and hardly fails."
"Most of the features offered are free, like serial data analyzers or jitter measurements."
"The user interface is pretty good. Right now, it is more than what we expected. It's easy and fast to use."
"The most valuable features are its wide bandwidth and 8 ports."
 

Cons

"The user interface is not that good. It's not very intuitive. It's functional, but it's not designed for ease of operation. It's designed for functionality."
"Their GUI is not the best. They need to improve on that. I think their software team needs to put in a little bit more work on how they are presenting the application on the scope."
"I would also like to see a more detailed change-notice from version to version, what changed. If they had a more detailed description of what is changing and the reason for it, rather than just releasing, that would be good for us so we know whether or not to upgrade."
"I would like more accuracy, particularly for multiport measurements."
"If the simulation runs for a long time, it will suddenly crash. If they can debug that, the product would be better."
"The technical support is okay, but sometimes they are on a different page than us. If it is something wrong with the scope, they are okay. However, if something technical goes wrong, like the calibration, it is hard to get the information that we need because it is hard to share everything and explain all the measurements in real-time."
"I would like to see better post-processing data utility tools like a de-embedding."
"We are using this product to support connected devices for IoT development, but we need more automation."
"The user interface could be improved, e.g., the documentation on the menus. I have to open a separate document to figure out the functionality sometimes."
"The Rohde & Schwarz user interface is very oriented towards drop and drag functions on the screen. Some of those are just not obvious how to use. You have to have somebody get you over the hump."
"The depth the the user GUI could be improved. It is a bit deep for new users. During the first two weeks we spent a lot of time finding the tabs."
"The size of the unit is too big, too heavy. It has to be made more portable and smaller."
"In the next release, I would like to see report generation. It would make it a lot easier to refer back to and, when doing final testing, seeing what went on during the pre-test would help."
"There was a learning curve. Their use interface and the way that their products work are not intuitive to somebody who switches from other vendors."
"We would like to have autotracking and auto error tracking for regression testing. We would like to know what error happened, when it happened, and during what scenario (such as setup), because right now we have to manually look at when it happened."
"Sometimes, it's difficult to find menus on the user interface."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing is very expensive, but with leading technology, nothing is cheap."
"The pricing is very expensive."
"The pricing is on the high side."
"We are looking at $600,000 and it's obviously expensive, but compared to others, everybody is in the same ballpark."
"Pricing can be improved a bit. They try to make the pricing competitive but I think there are times that the competitors have good pricing."
"Keysight is on the high side. If they could make the price lower without sacrificing the quality that would be great."
"Our solution is upgradable. However, upgrading depends on how much money the company is willing to spend, because each upgrade will take a million dollars."
"If we rented the product, it would be more affordable than buying new."
"The pricing is way too expensive."
"The pricing is very expensive."
"When we chose this, the price was really reasonable, and it is a high-end product. It had a high price, but we understood that because it has 8 port, the same noise floor (as the competition) with double the measurement capabilities and a cheaper price."
"If we are looking to purchase a product, we ask for a loaner for a month or so to test it out. Then, we will make a decision."
"One of the things I liked less, not only me but also my company, was that Rohde & Schwarz are very expensive... There are solutions that are almost the same that sell at better prices."
"The pricing is expensive, but very fair when you look at the technology that you are getting. These are higher-end pieces which have a ton of engineering in them that is not evident on the package. However, you could imagine the amount of time that the vendor has spent on the firmware, optimizing the internal layout, developing custom ICs, etc. They're releasing a mass produced product, but these things are built to last."
"The pricing is very competitive."
"Buying Rohde & Schwarz gear is like buying a Mercedes. It raises eyebrows when you're asking for that level of performance."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
18%
University
9%
Legal Firm
8%
Government
7%
Manufacturing Company
20%
Government
10%
University
8%
Computer Software Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Also Known As

InfiniiVision Series, Infiniium Series
RT Series
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Nokia Bell Labs
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about Keysight Oscilloscopes vs. Rohde & Schwarz Oscilloscopes and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.
860,592 professionals have used our research since 2012.