--- title: Wireshark Reviews meta_title: 'Wireshark Reviews 2026: Details, Pricing, & Features | G2' meta_description: Filter 151 reviews by the users' company size, role or industry to find out how Wireshark works for a business like yours. aggregate_rating: rating_value: 4.7 review_count: 151 scale: '5' date_modified: '2026-08-10' parent_category: name: Network Security url: https://www.g2.com/categories/network-security --- # Wireshark Reviews **Vendor:** Wireshark **Category:** [Network Traffic Analysis (NTA) Software](https://www.g2.com/categories/network-traffic-analysis-nta) **Average Rating:** 4.7/5.0 **Total Reviews:** 151 ## About Wireshark Wireshark is a open-source network protocol analyzer that enables users to capture and interactively examine the traffic traversing a computer network. It provides deep insights into network communications, making it an essential tool for network troubleshooting, analysis, software and protocol development, and educational purposes. Wireshark is cross-platform, running on Windows, macOS, Linux, and various UNIX systems. Key Features and Functionality: - Comprehensive Protocol Support: Wireshark offers deep inspection of hundreds of protocols, with new ones continually being added. - Live Capture and Offline Analysis: Users can capture live network data or analyze previously saved capture files. - Multi-Platform Compatibility: The software operates on multiple platforms, including Windows, Linux, macOS, FreeBSD, and NetBSD. - Advanced Display Filters: Wireshark provides powerful display filters, allowing users to focus on specific traffic patterns. - Rich VoIP Analysis: It includes tools for analyzing Voice over IP (VoIP) communications. - Support for Various Capture File Formats: Wireshark can read and write numerous capture file formats, such as tcpdump (libpcap), Pcap NG, and others. - Decryption Capabilities: The tool supports decryption for many protocols, including IPsec, ISAKMP, Kerberos, SNMPv3, SSL/TLS, WEP, and WPA/WPA2. - Customizable Coloring Rules: Users can apply coloring rules to the packet list for quick, intuitive analysis. Primary Value and Problem Solving: Wireshark addresses the critical need for in-depth network analysis by providing a detailed view of network traffic at a microscopic level. This capability is invaluable for network professionals, security experts, developers, and educators who require precise insights into network behavior. By facilitating the identification and resolution of network issues, Wireshark enhances network performance, security, and reliability. Its open-source nature ensures continuous improvement and adaptability to emerging networking technologies and protocols. ## Wireshark Pros & Cons **What users like:** - Users appreciate the **ease of use** of Wireshark, making data capture and network monitoring effortless. (7 reviews) - Users value the **insightful analysis** capabilities of Wireshark, enhancing their ability to understand data packets efficiently. (5 reviews) - Users praise Wireshark for its **easy monitoring** , facilitating efficient packet capturing and network analysis. (3 reviews) - Users value the **effective monitoring** capabilities of Wireshark, facilitating troubleshooting and network analysis with precision. (3 reviews) - Users value the **reliability** of Wireshark for accurate network analysis and effective troubleshooting. (3 reviews) - Users value the **deep packet inspection and real-time capture** features of Wireshark for effective network analysis. (2 reviews) - Users value Wireshark's **detailed analysis capabilities** , enabling effective troubleshooting and customization for network issues. (2 reviews) - Time-Saving (2 reviews) - User Interface (2 reviews) - Comprehensive Monitoring (1 reviews) **What users dislike:** - Users find the **display issues** with Wireshark's UI challenging, hindering the debugging process and data visualization. (3 reviews) - Users find Wireshark's **difficult learning process** challenging due to its complex interface and need for technical knowledge. (2 reviews) - Users find the **learning curve steep** , as Wireshark is complex and requires advanced knowledge for effective navigation. (2 reviews) - Users find the **missing features** of Wireshark, like outdated UI, hinder effective debugging and data analysis. (2 reviews) - Users experience **slow performance** while working with large datasets, impacting efficiency and usability of Wireshark. (2 reviews) - Users find Wireshark's **complexity overwhelming** , especially for beginners, due to its steep learning curve and cluttered interface. (1 reviews) - Users find it challenging to view captured data packets due to **complex filters and options** in Wireshark. (1 reviews) - Device Limitations (1 reviews) - High Resource Usage (1 reviews) - Integration Issues (1 reviews) ## Wireshark Reviews ### 1. The only tool to will be required to view your capture packets **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Pratik N. | Software Developer, Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** July 04, 2024 **What do you like best about Wireshark?** The ease at which this tool allow to capture and analyze data packets **What do you dislike about Wireshark?** Somethimes it get difficult to view the capured the data packets due to lots of filters and options **What problems is Wireshark solving and how is that benefiting you?** The most important problem it was solving for me was i was able to check the data packet that are going and coming to my network ### 2. Review for wireshark **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Saurabh S. | DevOps Engineer, Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** April 27, 2024 **What do you like best about Wireshark?** The ease to monitor networks is handy. Informations captured are saviour **What do you dislike about Wireshark?** The part of integrating it becomes hectic with growing protocols rather than TCP UDP **What problems is Wireshark solving and how is that benefiting you?** Packet transfer analysis made easy ### 3. "Free,open source and freaking shark for rooting our vulnerabilities in our network". **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** hemsworth c. | System Administrator, Security and Investigations, Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** February 22, 2024 **What do you like best about Wireshark?** Love that's is open source no money spent and does spectacularly well with real-time network traffic monitoring. Reliable for automated network investigation and give clear reports. Very appealing with network data visibility. **What do you dislike about Wireshark?** It's absolutely great for network data visualization. Lightweight and robust tool. **What problems is Wireshark solving and how is that benefiting you?** It's a freaking and robust tool with quick identification of abnormal behavior in our network. Free and open source. Great for it's automated network investigation. The Graphical user interface is awesome. ### 4. Wireshark: The essential network analysis tool for any IT professional **Rating:** 3.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Alejandro G. | Diseñador TIC, Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** May 13, 2023 **What do you like best about Wireshark?** Thanks to its graphical interface, I have found Wireshark very easy to use as it allows for easy and efficient capturing and analyzing of data packets. It also provides an excellent network traffic analysis, making it helpful in troubleshooting issues. **What do you dislike about Wireshark?** It can be slow or even crash when analyzing and capturing large amounts of data. It can also improve security. A very advanced knowledge of network protocols is required, making its use difficult. **What problems is Wireshark solving and how is that benefiting you?** We primarily use Wireshark to help identify network bottlenecks and the causes of slow or unstable performance. It also helps us identify connectivity issues with network devices on campus, such as IP configuration problems or issues with firewalls or routing protocols. ### 5. Wireshark Review **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Lavesh K. | L1 NOC Engineer , Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** May 14, 2023 **What do you like best about Wireshark?** Wireshark has graphical user interface and it is easy to use for packet capturing and analysis. It provides documentation and support resources. This makes users to learn from it and upgrade the skill level & knowledge. It is very powerful tool for troubleshooting network issues, security threats and analyzing performance. It supports wide range of protocols for analysis networks. It is very useful for network engineers and system administrator. **What do you dislike about Wireshark?** Wireshark generates high amount of data and it difficult to find a perticular packet to new user and it difficult for beginners to navigate a software. It may require knowledge or training how to navigate the software. Also require hardware resources of computer systems. **What problems is Wireshark solving and how is that benefiting you?** This can beneficial for network engineers and system administrator to monitoring network system. It comes with wide range of network protocols. Also wireshark provides documentation and resources for beginners how to operate software. It captures the packet and analysis the performance. ### 6. Great example of a powerful open source collaboration tools **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Automotive | Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** November 18, 2022 **What do you like best about Wireshark?** Been a user of Wireshark for years now and never came across any issue so far: 1. Collect any ethernet packages, over different interfaces like USB, RJ45, and different VLANs at the same time. 2. Open and analyzing BUGs or tickets using Wireshark, time stamp, and search are great features 3. Of course, being open source allow customizing some plugins on top of Wireshark like SomeIP/SD which are very helpful 4. Filters and exporting the comments tracing the bug timestamp and finding the root cause are great options. **What do you dislike about Wireshark?** I can not really think of something that I dislike, but when the logs are in GBs it becomes very very slow to open and apply the filter. If the tool can open the file and parse it in chunks would make it better. **What problems is Wireshark solving and how is that benefiting you?** 1. Trace traffic of Ethernet between different machines 2. Analyse BUGs and find the root cause of the issue (UDS, SomeIP, SD, ..etc) 3. Adding comments to generate a kind of report of your analysis. ### 7. Great For Packet Sniffing **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Dana B. | Managing Member, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** October 31, 2022 **What do you like best about Wireshark?** The interface makes a potentially complicated mission relatively simple. Easy to chose a network data stream to listen in on and start recording. **What do you dislike about Wireshark?** I wish I didn't have to import the data file into another program to get it presented and analyzed to my liking, but it is only a minor inconvenience. **What problems is Wireshark solving and how is that benefiting you?** I had a rogue DHCP server on my network and Wireshark helped sniff it out. ## Wireshark Discussions - [Is it unethical or illegal to use wireshark?](https://www.g2.com/discussions/12063-is-it-unethical-or-illegal-to-use-wireshark) - 2 comments, 1 upvote - [View Wireshark pricing details and edition comparison](https://www.g2.com/products/wireshark/reviews?filters%5Bsentiment_snippet%5D=1114146&qs=pros-and-cons§ion=pricing&secure%5Bexpires_at%5D=2026-08-14+20%3A47%3A48+-0500&secure%5Bsession_id%5D=9cae6b24-8c1c-46a4-8274-4cb74e5ba26d&secure%5Btoken%5D=fbe2a0675cdc3c3aea31dc4f0585c14bd45b2864f128caece6490d3cabda4fb9&format=llm_user) ## Wireshark Features **Additional Functionality** - Penetration Testing - Alerts/Notifications - Audit Trail - Anti Virus - Vulnerability Scanning - Remote Monitoring & Management - VPN - Behavior Analytics - Reporting/Analytics - Real-Time Notifications - Access Controls/Permissions - SSL Security - Patch Management - Event Logs - Anomaly/Malware Detection - DNS Leak Protection - Third-Party Integrations - Server Monitoring - Real-Time Monitoring - Compliance Management - Network Provisioning - API - Email Alerts - Security Auditing - Intrusion Detection System - Data Visualization - Two-Factor Authentication - Generative AI - Firewalls - AI Copilot - Anti Spam - Threat Response - Activity Monitoring - Risk Alerts - Data Loss Prevention - Single Sign On - Intrusion Prevention System - Secure Login - Policy Management - Activity Dashboard **Automation** - Metadata Management - Artificial Intelligence & Machine Learning - Response Automation - Continuous Analysis **Functionality** - Multi-Network Capability - Anomaly Detection - Network Visibility - Scalability **Incident Management** - Incident Logs - Incident Alerts - Incident Reporting ## Top Wireshark Alternatives - [Datadog](https://www.g2.com/products/datadog/reviews) - 4.4/5.0 (715 reviews) - [Progress WhatsUp Gold](https://www.g2.com/products/progress-whatsup-gold/reviews) - 4.4/5.0 (381 reviews) - [Coralogix](https://www.g2.com/products/coralogix/reviews) - 4.6/5.0 (339 reviews)