PRTG Network Monitor vs Wireshark comparison

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98% willing to recommend

PRTG Network Monitor

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between PRTG Network Monitor and Wireshark based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out what your peers are saying about Zabbix, Auvik, Datadog and others in Network Monitoring Software.

To learn more, read our detailed Network Monitoring Software Report (Updated: March 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:

Categories and Ranking

PRTG Network Monitor

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

7.1

Number of Reviews

101

Ranking in other categories

Network Monitoring Software (5th), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (8th), Cloud Monitoring Software (8th)

Wireshark

Average Rating

9.0

Reviews Sentiment

7.7

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Network Troubleshooting (3rd)

Mindshare comparison

While both are Network Management solutions, they serve different purposes. PRTG Network Monitor is designed for Network Monitoring Software and holds a mindshare of 4.2%, down 5.0% compared to last year.
Wireshark, on the other hand, focuses on Network Troubleshooting, holds 13.2% mindshare, up 12.2% since last year.

Network Monitoring Software

Network Troubleshooting

Featured Reviews

Tochukwu Uzomba

Solutions Architect at Boch Systems Company Limited

Efficiently monitor networks across regions with seamless setup and robust feature set

PRTG Network Monitor is easy to set up. Within a few minutes, it is operational. It is an all-in-one monitoring solution without extra costs. For example, we set it up for an insurance company with branches across Africa. We are able to monitor from Lagos without installing anything in the branches, using the agentless feature. We just put in the IP address and the parameter, and we monitor from those ends. Additionally, all the sensors are very useful. Most people are interested in the bandwidth monitoring sensor to see what bandwidth the users are consuming. The pricing is affordable compared to SolarWinds.

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Vijay Duggal

Network Specialist at Squarepoint Capital

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.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The most valuable aspect is the diverse range of features it offers."

"The real-time monitoring and alerting are its most valuable features."

"The Slack integration is fantastic, and I've actually found it to be very useful recently."

"Technical support has been very helpful so far."

"The most valuable feature of PRTG Network Monitor is the dashboards. We can check to see the resources and the uptime."

"The up-to-date graphs and the history are very good."

"The most valuable feature of PRTG Network Monitor is real-time monitoring."

"The most valuable feature of PRTG Network Monitor is its ease of use."

More PRTG Network Monitor pros

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

"The product is simple to implement."

"Wireshark is very user-friendly; even someone with basic IT knowledge can use it."

"I like the filtering feature as we can filter data easily. This feature is also available in tcpdump, but it's a simple piece of software. Wireshark is more advanced and has many features. It allows you to filter a lot of things. The output can be filtered easily. The most important feature is colorization. If I say, "Okay, this particular SMB protocol in red, it will show me red." It's easy to identify that protocol or capture data."

"It helps in analyzing if something looks suspicious, such as a brute force attack or scanning from somewhere."

"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."

"The drill-down available for packet analysis is great. It gives a network security engineer insight into what is going on at the packet level and enables better troubleshooting."

"The solution is easy to install and use."

More Wireshark pros

Cons

"Performance-wise, PRTG Network Monitor still needs improvement because a large number of SNMPv3 queries reduces tool performance."

"PRTG Network Monitor can improve by adding prevention and detection features."

"The licensing policy needs more flexibility."

"I have an issue with DFS, distributed file services... there isn't one by default. Taking into account the difference between DFS and DFSR as well would be great."

"PRTG Network Monitor could improve interaction with customers by offering direct support involvement instead of just mail responses."

"Sometimes, it is difficult to drill down further to get information, e.g., if we saw spike in traffic, then we would want to drill down and find out what is causing that spike in traffic."

"It would be good if there were better graphical interfaces when you have it on multiple monitors... Because we have so many servers, things can get lost in the fog a little bit. Maybe having a better way of showing different geographies, Flash, etc., would help."

"Technical support is an area with concerns in PRTG Network Monitor, where improvements are required."

More PRTG Network Monitor cons

"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."

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

"Wireshark gets stuck when it is a larger file."

"I have not used Wireshark to an advanced point where I could provide a detailed opinion on improvements needed."

"The product has been using the same GUI for many years."

"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."

"Sometimes I need to use tcpdump when I need to check the packets on CLI."

"The average person would probably find Wireshark hard to use. When I first installed it, I was overwhelmed by all the data it was shooting out. It doesn't make sense until you start doing some research and figure out what everything means. It isn't the most user-friendly tool. It just provides so much information."

More Wireshark cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing is reasonable for the features provided."

"The pricing is okay and it is cheaper than some competing products."

"We have an unlimited license for this solution."

"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."

"PRTG Network Monitor is cheap."

"The ability to use the base version with 100 free sensors is great. The cost on other packages can be very reasonable."

"I rate the licensing for PRTG Network Monitor an eight out of ten."

"It's an annual license that is based on the number of endpoints that we're tracking and using."

More PRTG Network Monitor pricing and cost advice

"It's a stand-alone tool. If there is a commercial license for it I am unaware of it."

"It is free."

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

"I am using the free version of this solution."

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

"Wireshark is free software, so you can download it and use it for free with no licensing fees."

"The solution is open source so is free."

"The tool is free."

More Wireshark pricing and cost advice

See which vendors are best for you

Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Network Monitoring Software solutions are best for your needs.

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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…

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Educational Organization

51%

Computer Software Company

Government

Financial Services Firm

University

11%

Computer Software Company

11%

Government

10%

Financial Services Firm

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

What is the best network monitoring software for large enterprises?

PRTG network monitor is one of the best tool i have ever used for the monitoring. It have auto discovery option. it avoid the configuring the device in PRTG. It automatically discover the device an...

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 prices are very high for PRTG Network Monitor. That's why I'm using the free100 sensor license.

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 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.

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Compared 12% of the time

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Compared 10% of the time

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Compared 3% of the time

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Product Reports

PRTG Network Monitor

Download PRTG Network Monitor product report

Download Wireshark product report

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.

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

Network Monitoring Software