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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

"The support we have been receiving has been really good."
"The automation we have in place saves us some head count and data is now more accurate."
"This is a very stable product and helps us to be proactive and prevents the company from losing money and business by monitoring the entire network (data and voice) of the company (head office and branches) in real time, showing exactly where errors occur."
"Spectrum is very useful for us, because the product lets us monitor and control all the various components of our infrastructure that support our business from an IT perspective."
"It does correlation so instead of producing 20 alarms if a site goes down, it only creates one."
"The presentation layer is pretty simple and straightforward."
"The granular access control that it provided so that you could only see devices that were related to what you were working on was great. I couldn't see the entire inventory of devices. I could only see the ones that were related to my work. It has got a very granular access control component."
"Scalable and stable network monitoring tool with a simple setup."
"Wireshark's best feature is that it's adaptive, which means it's the go-to tool for network-related developers, as when the new protocol comes up, it's rapidly applied to the system, so I can just look into the packet."
"Wireshark is very good for network engineers; it's free software, you can install it very easily, and there are a lot of features."
"Wireshark does exactly what I want and leaves me with no need to look elsewhere."
"This is the de-facto standard network protocol analysis tool."
"The transmission and reception issues are valuable."
"I use this free, open-source solution daily for packet analysis, and the packet details pane is particularly valuable."
"Wireshark's best features are that it lets us see what traffic is in the network and what data should be encrypted."
"The most valuable feature of Wireshark is the ability to choose a destination of flow that has not been working as expected."
 

Cons

"The product should provide performance management features."
"Support from Broadcom could be better. Sometimes we wait a very long time for a solution to level three problems."
"We want to make our own choice for the AIOps solution and do not want to be forced to use the Broadcom OI solution by default."
"I would recommend AI capability built-in so it becomes more predictable and we jump ahead of the curve. This is the one really important feature I would really like to see in any product that provides alarms."
"The EventDisp logic (code) is too complex."
"What I additionally would like to see is utilization information."
"The platform is complicated to use."
"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."
"The initial setup depends upon the basics. You need to have a clear understanding of the basics."
"Wireshark gets stuck when it is a larger file."
"The product is great but I wish there were more of an emphasis on the command line tools."
"Maximum buffer size of captured data should be unlimited and should allow ability to archive all old captures (not save option) in real time, it should support a destination location where old captures can be directed for long term storage."
"With Wireshark, you cannot download and utilize the packet in automation."
"We'd like to be able to extract the output into an Excel table."
"Great scalability, but they are beginning to sacrifice ease of use for complexity."
"It is easy to get overwhelmed with the amount of data you are looking at."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The product, support, and maintenance are all expensive, which is another reason that we are switching to another solution."
"Spectrum is expensive."
"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 very pricey. With the current trend of enterprises moving towards cheaper and more modern looking solutions like ManageEngine, SevOne, ServicePilot, and Paesller."
"The solution's pricing could be better."
"The price is very high."
"The price is good enough to expect an ideal solution. It's expensive."
"It is expensive compared to other tools in the market."
"We're using the free version of Wireshark."
"Wireshark is free of charge, and there's no license involved."
"The tool is free."
"It is free to download and install. It runs on multiple platforms, so how can you go wrong?"
"The solution is open source so is free."
"It's free."
"Wireshark is open-source and free of charge."
"Wireshark is free software, so you can download it and use it for free with no licensing fees."
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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.
892,646 professionals have used our research since 2012.