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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
160
Ranking in other categories
Network Monitoring Software (4th), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (5th), Cloud Monitoring Software (9th)
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 3.6%, down 4.6% compared to last year.
Wireshark, on the other hand, focuses on Network Troubleshooting, holds 14.3% mindshare, up 12.9% since last year.
Network Monitoring Software Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
SolarWinds NPM3.6%
Zabbix5.0%
PRTG Network Monitor3.3%
Other88.1%
Network Monitoring Software
Network Troubleshooting Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Wireshark14.3%
AirMagnet Survey PRO10.3%
LinkRunner8.1%
Other67.3%
Network Troubleshooting
 

Featured Reviews

Vivek Jaiswal - PeerSpot reviewer
Manager IT at a manufacturing company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Central monitoring has improved outage alerts and now needs smarter detection and modern dashboards
Regarding the automated network topology and mapping feature in SolarWinds NPM, I am not satisfied with it. For static monitoring, it is acceptable. However, if it is possible, I would need a feature in SolarWinds in the future for some kind of malfunctioning detection, such as malware attacks or that type of environment. We did not have any facility to detect that in SolarWinds. I think it would be better to incorporate those types of features. Regarding customization options in SolarWinds, the ability to customize the dashboard has room for improvement. The dashboard is quite old, and we need some improvement in it. Nowadays, we have multiple tools with AI-based monitoring and web-based dashboards. SolarWinds also has a web-based dashboard, but I think there is scope for improvement in the UI. There may be other areas I would like to improve in SolarWinds NPM.
Vijay Duggal - PeerSpot reviewer
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"SolarWinds Orion NPM tracks bottlenecks in your network infrastructure and lets you troubleshoot them before a disaster happens."
"All the features are very good. The monitoring of the equipment, the configuration manager, and the IP address monitoring are great."
"It's a very good tool and a very stable tool."
"SolarWinds is a great product that can do a lot."
"ROI for Solarwinds products is excellent."
"The initial setup is easy."
"Technicians are aware of issues and 90% of the time exactly what caused the issue."
"The alerting and reporting capabilities of the tool are impressive"
"Wireshark is very user-friendly; even someone with basic IT knowledge can use it."
"Packet-capture files can be hard to use due to their size. Wireshark has a tool called tshark that can parse the files with out opening them so that you can take large captures, say 2-10GB, and return only relevant information."
"The filter option provided by Wireshark is its most valuable feature...Scalability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten."
"The GUI is easy to use."
"The most valuable feature of Wireshark is the ability to choose a destination of flow that has not been working as expected."
"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."
"One of the best products that can provide the details of what is happening with an application and the full life cycle of the response time."
"The product is simple to implement."
 

Cons

"SolarWinds NPM should be more flexible to accommodate specific customer requirements quickly."
"The constant flow of new features and re-designing of the product sometimes presents bugs that were not identified."
"It is difficult for stakeholders to translate technical requirements, which results in difficulties selecting a platform or implementing a solution."
"Fortigate firewalls are one example of a product that we are unable to monitor properly via SolarWinds NPM."
"There should be a little bit more integration in some of the other tooling and utilizing the APIs of devices or tools could be a little bit better."
"SolarWinds NPM could improve by adding the deepest inspection, performance networking, and IP address discovery."
"The only thing that can be improved is to continually add to the existing capabilities of the product."
"I would like to see some enhancement on the reporting side, such as making it a little bit easier to create reports or having a larger assortment of canned reports."
"With Wireshark, you cannot download and utilize the packet in automation."
"I wish the filters were a little bit more prepopulated."
"Can be difficult for non packet heads to understand"
"It is not an easy program. You will need to study to use it to its full capabilities (follow a course)."
"Wireshark could make the filtering rules easier to apply and offer a drag-and-drop option as opposed to type and text."
"The initial setup depends upon the basics. You need to have a clear understanding of the basics."
"DNS could be improved."
"You need good network connectivity to download during the setup, otherwise, it might take a while."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"USD $15,000 annually for maintenance."
"There's standard licensing, and then it depends on the size of the customer."
"I find that the pricing is acceptable."
"It is relatively inexpensive compared to other products in the same category."
"There are a lot of sub-products and it just continued to increase the price."
"SolarWinds NPM is very expensive, and we pay ten thousand yearly."
"Price could be improved on"
"The price points are more than competitive when compared to other vendors."
"The solution is open source so is free."
"Wireshark is an open-source product, so it's free to use."
"It is free."
"Wireshark is free of charge, and there's no license involved."
"It's free."
"Wireshark is open source and gives great value and functionality to the network investigation."
"I am using the free version of this solution."
"The tool is free."
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Comparison Review

it_user174738 - PeerSpot reviewer
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…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Computer Software Company
7%
Government
7%
University
11%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Computer Software Company
7%
Manufacturing Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business59
Midsize Enterprise33
Large Enterprise85
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
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