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NetBrain vs Wireshark comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jul 11, 2024

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

NetBrain
Ranking in Network Troubleshooting
19th
Average Rating
7.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
6
Ranking in other categories
Network Automation (6th)
Wireshark
Ranking in Network Troubleshooting
1st
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.4
Number of Reviews
64
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2026, in the Network Troubleshooting category, the mindshare of NetBrain is 3.5%, down from 4.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Wireshark is 16.7%, up from 13.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Network Troubleshooting Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Wireshark16.7%
NetBrain3.5%
Other79.8%
Network Troubleshooting
 

Featured Reviews

Deborah Gamelin - PeerSpot reviewer
Vice President at Asset Track for Cloud, LLC
Good monitoring and troubleshoot capabilities, improves overall network traffic visibility
In my organization, we had 130,000 network devices that needed to be brought into the solution and mapped. NetBrain can handle the scale but the engineers that manage those devices have to go in and update all of them to allow NetBrain permission to poll them. It can get a little stressful for everybody when you're trying to roll out new stuff when you've got other issues that have to be addressed with other devices. In some cases, our devices had no automation at all. One example is the Cisco 3650. Right now, if you went through the inventory list, you see that we have different versions running. Some are on one version, whereas others are on another version. The problem with upgrading them is that they need to be done overnight because we don't want to disrupt any network traffic during business hours. Consequently, it could take us years to upgrade the versions before we can even get them onto these new tools. This may be an internal issue but it's a big one when you have a lot of devices. Even if you had 10,000 devices, it's still an issue. You have to consider the compatibility of the device against the tool, and being able to use certain commands to upgrade it.
reviewer2837244 - PeerSpot reviewer
It System Engineer at a manufacturing company with 5,001-10,000 employees
Packet analysis has improved real-time troubleshooting and simplifies mapping complex data flows
The best features that Wireshark offers are everything. Every time I look into Wireshark, I find something new. The ability to capture real-time packets and understand how the packet is working and moving through how many hops and to how many points it reaches makes it a wonderful tool. The specific feature I use most is capturing packets of real-time communication and seeing how the packet is working. I rely on all the filters it has to check the protocols and see the communication between one end and another end and what the hops in between are, and if there is a proxy, how it behaves. Everything helps us check out the issue and troubleshoot it. I do not have anything additional to add about the features; everything looks really fine. The graphics are also good, and you can change its graphical features, making it a pretty nice tool. You can also use it with the PCAP file, which is really nice. Wireshark has positively impacted my organization by giving us the ability to capture packets and see into the network how it is working and what we can clarify about the network, specifically how we can remove many hops in the communication channels. A specific example of a measurable outcome is that we have a few switches in our network that, when we use Wireshark analysis, we find should not be needed or can be replaced with automatic switches instead of manual switches, such as switches which do not have any active features and only passive switches. That has saved us a lot of time.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"A reliable, time-saving tool for providing accurate layer 2 and layer 3 network mappings."
"Enables maps to be drawn out."
"This tool is exactly what we wanted and needed."
"Once it's up and running and you don't have the strange requirements I had, and you just want some basic maps, it'll work."
"NetBrain is faster, better and level sets the engineering technical sets."
"NetBrain is very good when it comes to network mapping, as it looks for different assets within the network available, so router, firewall, applications, et cetera, and it gives you the full mapping, asset mapping along with the full range including the firmware software update and all those things."
"Other advice to users considering the solution would be: go with NetBrain."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is that you can click once and have a link test, see your network, and get an overall view of your network and its state."
"The most valuable feature of Wireshark is the ability to choose a destination of flow that has not been working as expected."
"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."
"I find Wireshark a very useful tool. Its best feature is that it allows me to deeply understand what's going on at the packet level, as well as any adverse signatures that I can analyze. When I need to create an IPS rule, I need to check the traffic deeply to get more insights about the actual traffic, what's the name of certain flags, etc., and I'm able to do all that through Wireshark. The tool is also user-friendly."
"It's easy to troubleshoot issues because there's a large online community."
"This is the de-facto standard network protocol analysis tool."
"Being able to dissect email data and figure out what is inside email messages was the most valuable feature."
"Wireshark has been getting better and better in the time I've been using it and it is a very helpful tool."
"What's best about Wireshark is that it doesn't require installation. It supports cards and monitoring permissions and is sufficient for appending and capturing activities. You won't need to install other tools to use Wireshark, so this saves you time. You can capture packets at any time from your laptop through Wireshark."
 

Cons

"Netbrain must get AWS functionality done."
"It would be nice if the setup was a little simpler. Also, if the solution could provide more training materials for new people coming into our company so they can quickly learn how to use the functionalities."
"The solution could integrate more automation."
"When I used the installed product before, I wasn't very satisfied with the support."
"The pricing needs to be improved."
"It's okay on the value, a bit expensive for just maps, but makes it a lot easier to see things visually and take it from there."
"Support needs to improve for the installed product and some of the reporting could be more flexible to provide more complete cataloging."
"Each device needs to be configured to allow NetBrain to poll for the information it needs, which can be very time-consuming for a large network."
"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."
"Can be difficult for non packet heads to understand"
"It is easy to get overwhelmed with the amount of data you are looking at."
"Wireshark could be improved with a delay option when getting data automatically. It could also work faster."
"A room for improvement in Wireshark is its ease of use for beginners. It could be better. Another room for improvement in the tool is for it to provide more details about the traffic load. At the moment, Wireshark is adequate for me, so there isn't anything I'd like added to it in its next version."
"It is not an easy program. You will need to study to use it to its full capabilities (follow a course)."
"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."
"Wireshark's UI isn't easy to handle and doesn't have as nice a view as Omnipeek."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Licensing is based on a per-device basis, which means that it can get very expensive if you have a large number of devices."
"The product is expensive, but less expensive than some of the competition and worth the price."
"I am using the free version of this solution."
"This is an open-source product that can be used free of charge."
"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."
"It is free to download and install. It runs on multiple platforms, so how can you go wrong?"
"Wireshark is free of charge, and there's no license involved."
"It is an open-source solution."
"The solution is open source so is free."
"Wireshark is open source and gives great value and functionality to the network investigation."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
11%
Government
9%
Financial Services Firm
9%
University
7%
University
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Construction Company
7%
Comms Service Provider
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business31
Midsize Enterprise11
Large Enterprise29
 

Questions from the Community

Ask a question
Earn 20 points
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?
Wireshark can be improved if it provides the accessibility of capturing packets from one device that is installed in the network without needing the port-mirrored facility. They could provide somet...
What is your primary use case for Wireshark?
Wireshark's main use case is capturing packets and reviewing the data flow over the network. Regarding my main use case for Wireshark, it is a great tool and would be one of the best tools availabl...
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

CompuCon, TD Ameritrade, Move Inc.
Comversion, ADP, Talbots
Find out what your peers are saying about NetBrain vs. Wireshark and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
920,769 professionals have used our research since 2012.