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DX Spectrum vs Wireshark comparison

 

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

DX Spectrum
Ranking in Network Troubleshooting
6th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
118
Ranking in other categories
Network Management Applications (8th), Network Monitoring Software (21st), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (20th), DX NetOps (1st)
Wireshark
Ranking in Network Troubleshooting
2nd
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.7
Number of Reviews
63
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2026, in the Network Troubleshooting category, the mindshare of DX Spectrum is 6.6%, up from 3.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Wireshark is 17.1%, up from 13.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Network Troubleshooting Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Wireshark17.1%
DX Spectrum6.6%
Other76.3%
Network Troubleshooting
 

Featured Reviews

PinchasAlbalya - PeerSpot reviewer
Network Engineer at a educational organization with 1,001-5,000 employees
Monitoring has become centralized and management now sees real‑time health of key network assets
The time investment required is significant, not because of difficulty but because of the need for free time to invest in it. We need to get the knowledge. We know there are many options, but we took an external vendor to install and make the customization. If we want to make others changes without paying for customization, we need to learn it deeply by ourselves. The tutorials are very complicated. They could work on that area. The tutorial part could be more simplified. I know there are many explanations, and you can get help or documents in one click on the current page in the product, but it is not very clear. If you want to do something new that you did not see from the vendor in the installation, it is not very simple. The documents are good for people that know how to operate the product well, but for new users, it is not simple.
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

"By using event rules and procedures, we got an improved event management process, and CA Spectrum is very useful for event handling and brings us a robust manager of managers console."
"The great aspect about the CA Spectrum tool is not what it does, but the integration that it provides with the other CA monitoring tools, such as CA APM."
"The topology correlation for layers one, two, three, and four significantly reduces the number of false positives (>98% ratio)."
"CA Spectrum helps our organization improve network service levels, and with Spectrum’s integrated automated fault management and fault isolation features, it helped us reduce MTTR by 50% and costs as well."
"It is an excellent tool for monitoring, managing event correlation, and providing integration with other tools."
"Scalable and stable network monitoring tool with a simple setup."
"​It covers a lot of different types of hardware. It can do a lot and saves us time.​"
"DX Spectrum uses an SNMP Trap to accept all the details, especially for device monitoring of faulty devices, allowing me to use Spectrum effectively."
"Wireshark helps us to understand network traffic."
"The best part about Wireshark, in my opinion, is its ability to analyze packet capture files."
"I use this free, open-source solution daily for packet analysis, and the packet details pane is particularly valuable."
"It is free, easy to use, getting better with every release."
"Wireshark saves a lot of time, especially with network troubleshooting."
"Wireshark is a good tool to start with network analyzing and packet capturing."
"I can save the traffic and analysis when I want to. Also, it's especially helpful to follow the stream (TCP, UDP, etc.)."
"It is a stable product. I would rate the stability a ten out of ten."
 

Cons

"The price of DX Spectrum is not competitive when compared to other solutions, such as SolarWinds. The high price has caused us to lose many deals."
"CABI was a major issue for us, but the newly added Jaspersoft is a better-suited reporting toolset, so this has already been addressed."
"Right now, with Java OneClick, it's a problem, because people would like to be able to launch it."
"DX Spectrum is stable. However, now and then there are some issues, but overall it is good."
"I did not see the best level of usability."
"OS monitoring needs to be better developed, as well as their services, e.g., cluster monitoring, URLs, etc."
"A better integration with the UIM, as far as being able to do root cause analysis and that type of analytics."
"Customer Service: It's poor. Technical Support: It's poor."
"We'd like to be able to extract the output into an Excel table."
"Wireshark gets stuck when it is a larger file."
"The only thing that I don't like is sometimes there is an update, and something that I was using is either no longer there or it has changed."
"You need good network connectivity to download during the setup, otherwise, it might take a while."
"We would like the product to be developed so that it doesn't rely on internet access for installation. We would like to see all of the components required to be integrated into the installer."
"Can be difficult for non packet heads to understand"
"It is difficult to scale this solution."
"Running Wireshark through an admin account for multiple exploits is unsecured."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price is very high."
"The cost of some of these products are a little cost prohibitive, which is unfortunate. We have to find lower cost solutions for some of the things that we have to pull in. For the most part, CA has capabilities in pretty much everything that you would need. You just have to figure out where are you going to spend the most money for what you have to actually get done. You can do all these things but, which ones do you have to do? And that's hard to choose sometimes because you want to do them all."
"It is expensive compared to other tools in the market."
"Currently, a perpetual license but some services are moving to a subscription"
"The price is good enough to expect an ideal solution. It's expensive."
"DX Spectrum's pricing is neither expensive nor cheap."
"In general, the license cost will be about 30% of the total TCO for this tool (hardware/support team, OS costs, and OS management)."
"It’s a great tool, but an expensive one. Learn how to use it properly."
"The tool is free."
"I am using the free version of this solution."
"It is an open-source solution."
"We're using the free version of Wireshark."
"It is free to download and install. It runs on multiple platforms, so how can you go wrong?"
"This is an open-source product that can be used free of charge."
"The solution is open source so is free."
"We are using a freeware version of this solution, so there are no licence costs involved."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
17%
Construction Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Comms Service Provider
7%
University
11%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Healthcare Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business25
Midsize Enterprise19
Large Enterprise90
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business31
Midsize Enterprise11
Large Enterprise27
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with DX Spectrum?
The time investment required is significant, not because of difficulty but because of the need for free time to invest in it. We need to get the knowledge. We know there are many options, but we to...
What is your primary use case for DX Spectrum?
The university purchased DX Spectrum, called ICE. DX Spectrum NAC is working for us only on Cisco 9200 switches. It is not working on any other switch like C1000 or HG or any 2960X. Even other Cisc...
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.
What is your primary use case for Wireshark?
We are using Wireshark for inspecting the vertical line to know the data flow in and out of the cables. This is to determine if there is real traffic flow through the physical connections or not. A...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

CA Spectrum
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

National Informatics Centre India, Banese, Olympus, AlphaServe Technologies, Sicredi
Comversion, ADP, Talbots
Find out what your peers are saying about DX Spectrum vs. Wireshark and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.
892,611 professionals have used our research since 2012.