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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 (17th), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (20th), DX NetOps (1st)
Wireshark
Ranking in Network Troubleshooting
2nd
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.4
Number of Reviews
64
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2026, in the Network Troubleshooting category, the mindshare of DX Spectrum is 7.0%, up from 3.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Wireshark is 18.4%, up from 14.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Network Troubleshooting Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Wireshark18.4%
DX Spectrum7.0%
Other74.6%
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.
reviewer2837244 - PeerSpot reviewer
It System Engineer at a manufacturing company with 5,001-10,000 employees
Packet analysis has improved real-time troubleshooting and simplifies mapping complex data flows
The best features that Wireshark offers are everything. Every time I look into Wireshark, I find something new. The ability to capture real-time packets and understand how the packet is working and moving through how many hops and to how many points it reaches makes it a wonderful tool. The specific feature I use most is capturing packets of real-time communication and seeing how the packet is working. I rely on all the filters it has to check the protocols and see the communication between one end and another end and what the hops in between are, and if there is a proxy, how it behaves. Everything helps us check out the issue and troubleshoot it. I do not have anything additional to add about the features; everything looks really fine. The graphics are also good, and you can change its graphical features, making it a pretty nice tool. You can also use it with the PCAP file, which is really nice. Wireshark has positively impacted my organization by giving us the ability to capture packets and see into the network how it is working and what we can clarify about the network, specifically how we can remove many hops in the communication channels. A specific example of a measurable outcome is that we have a few switches in our network that, when we use Wireshark analysis, we find should not be needed or can be replaced with automatic switches instead of manual switches, such as switches which do not have any active features and only passive switches. That has saved us a lot of time.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It's a good tool; it's simple to do the configuration and has good discovery and integration."
"The integration point."
"Our team has been able to maintain over 99% availability across the enterprise."
"If you like to sleep at night and not be disturbed on the weekends, get Spectrum."
"The Spectrum tool improved our network assurance levels for our business units."
"Its ability to alert us on network issues before they become critical is a great benefit."
"The initial setup is very easy; after 10 minutes, you have a complete Spectrum up and running and you can start discovery immediately."
"The most valuable feature is the event correlation mechanism."
"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."
"It is a stable product. I would rate the stability a ten out of ten."
"Wireshark helps us to understand network traffic."
"I use the filters very often, to determine what type of traffic I am looking for. The use of filter allows traffic to be segmented so that a value can be looked at individually apart from the other traffic."
"Wireshark is incredibly powerful, user-friendly, and a free tool, which is capable of live capture and offline analysis of traffic on any size network."
"The most valuable feature is the traffic gate, which shows which IPs are getting more bandwidth or traffic."
"What's best about Wireshark is that it doesn't require installation, supports cards and monitoring permissions, and is sufficient for appending and capturing activities, so you won't need to install other tools and can capture packets at any time from your laptop through Wireshark."
"The solution is open-source and free to use, and there is a paid tier with more features if a company needs a bit more."
 

Cons

"I only encountered stability issues in very rare situations; mainly when we used our own extensions for private management modules."
"Stability could be improved. I find on a regular basis that those of us on-call tend to usually have to go in and restart or reboot a Spectrum server because the landscape's gone down."
"It's not easily scalable."
"This solution is too complicated to use for us, especially if you have many components."
"I switched from Spectrum to Nimsoft because it's a better product for me."
"Needs better integration with all the other products in the Agile suite of tools; anything they could do to make that less complex, would be great."
"The OneClick MIB tools are a little complex, and I've seen other MIB tools that are a little simpler."
"There should be better integration with other Broadcom products, like network performance manager. Currently, for every part of a product, you need a separate server environment. You have something for Spectrum, you have something for network performance, and you have something for NetFlow. There are a lot of islands and server farms with different technologies. They should be redeveloped to get one platform for all."
"Great scalability, but they are beginning to sacrifice ease of use for complexity."
"The Wireshark search function shows green for a correct search and red for an incorrect search. If there were a way to provide a description about what a search - and the similar ones which are available - can do, while a person is typing it, it would make the product easier to use and simultaneously decrease the learning curve."
"Cannot be used to diagnose any kind of network intrusions and hacking exploits."
"Wireshark's UI isn't easy to handle and doesn't have as nice a view as Omnipeek."
"The solution has a steep learning curve. There are so many filters and features that are frequently being updated, it takes research, experience and familiarity to be able to use them."
"DNS could be improved."
"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."
"Sometimes I need to use tcpdump when I need to check the packets on CLI."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Since the acquisition by Broadcom, we have not had such a good experience with licensing and pricing. Since they were bought by Broadcom, every sales contract is getting complicated. It's very complicated, and it's much more expensive than before. It's not a good pricing strategy from Broadcom."
"The price of the solution is reasonable."
"The product, support, and maintenance are all expensive, which is another reason that we are switching to another solution."
"In general, the license cost will be about 30% of the total TCO for this tool (hardware/support team, OS costs, and OS management)."
"Spectrum is expensive."
"It is very pricey. With the current trend of enterprises moving towards cheaper and more modern looking solutions like ManageEngine, SevOne, ServicePilot, and Paesller."
"It is expensive compared to other tools in the market."
"The price is very high."
"The tool is free."
"I am using the free version of this solution."
"We are using a freeware version of this solution, so there are no licence costs involved."
"It is an open-source solution."
"It is free."
"Wireshark is free software, so you don't have to pay any licensing fee. Individual people can use it and then donate to Wireshark."
"Wireshark is open-source and free of charge."
"It's a stand-alone tool. If there is a commercial license for it I am unaware of it."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
16%
Construction Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Manufacturing Company
7%
University
11%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Healthcare Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
7%
 

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 Enterprise29
 

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...
 

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.
896,563 professionals have used our research since 2012.