Consistent time series rainfall datasets are important in performing climate trend analyses and agro-hydrological modeling. However, temporally consistent ground-based and long-term observed rainfall data are usually lacking for such analyses, especially in mountainous and developing countries. In the absence of such data, satellite-derived rainfall products, such as the Climate Hazard Infrared Precipitations with Stations (CHIRPS) and Global Precipitation Measurement Integrated Multi-SatellitE Retrieval (GPM-IMERG) can be used. However, as their performance varies from region to region, it is of interest to evaluate the accuracy of satellite-derived rainfall products at the basin scale using ground-based observations. In this study, we evaluated and demonstrated the performance of the three-run GPM-IMERG (early, late, and final) and CHIRPS rainfall datasets against the ground-based observations over the Ziway Lake Basin in Ethiopia. We performed the analysis at monthly and seasonal time scales from 2000 to 2014, using multiple statistical evaluation criteria and graphical methods. While both GPM-IMERG and CHIRPS showed good agreement with ground-observed rainfall data at monthly and seasonal time scales, the CHIRPS products slightly outperformed the GPM-IMERG products. The study thus concluded that CHIRPS or GPM-IMERG rainfall data can be used as a surrogate in the absence of ground-based observed rainfall data for monthly or seasonal agro-hydrological studies.