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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

"Allows us to have a single console/notification point, with the alarms of all the tools that we use for monitoring."
"It helps our NetOps group actually handle alarms in a way that lets them see the bigger picture of those alarms, and how they might affect our services. It helps us communicate information about the network state better to services that might be impacted by a specific network condition."
"The automation we have in place saves us some head count and data is now more accurate."
"​The stability of the product is key. It never breaks, really. The stability and reliability of the Spectrum product have been top-notch.​"
"We can plan changes and replacement of end-of-life products in our environment very well because it's very accurate."
"DX Spectrum has been great for us; it's the strongest available, the main problem is the pricing, but it's in accordance with the features."
"The flexibility is impressive, as it is so customizable that you can almost make it do anything you want it to do, with many ways to tailor it to your environment and business needs that I have not seen in other products in this space."
"Overall it is a good tool."
"It is a stable product. I would rate the stability a ten out of ten."
"You can use Wireshark to see the traffic packet format, the IP layers, the fields, and the enabled flags."
"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 solution is easy to install and use."
"Being able to dissect email data and figure out what is inside email messages was the most valuable feature."
"The strongest feature of this solution, is the ability it gives us to carry out deep-packet inspections on our network, particularly when a function isn't performing as it should."
"I like the filtering feature as we can filter data easily. This feature is also available in tcpdump, but it's a simple piece of software. Wireshark is more advanced and has many features. It allows you to filter a lot of things. The output can be filtered easily. The most important feature is colorization. If I say, "Okay, this particular SMB protocol in red, it will show me red." It's easy to identify that protocol or capture data."
"This is a tool that gives you a clear-cut idea about where the issue is, and where the packs are dropping."
 

Cons

"This solution is too complicated to use for us, especially if you have many components."
"I'd like to have more dynamic weather map capabilities and network mapping tools."
"The price is very high. It makes it very difficult with respect to the business because, with any other product, we have to look at a lower-cost licensing model."
"I only encountered stability issues in very rare situations; mainly when we used our own extensions for private management modules."
"CA Spectrum provides value, but it can be very expensive."
"CABI was a major issue for us, but the newly added Jaspersoft is a better-suited reporting toolset, so this has already been addressed."
"Every versions running on Windows Server 2008 (R2) that I've worked after that (versions 9.2, 9.3 and 9.4) have had some issues either with OneClick/Spectro Server communication (hanged alarms for instance) or with global loss of SNMP communication with network devices, or DDMdb increasing indefinitely or with some unexplainable SSDB crashes."
"I think it still has room for improvement as far as the application, but support could also be improved."
"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."
"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."
"It would be better if they offered a hybrid version like My Cloud Control."
"We'd like to be able to extract the output into an Excel table."
"It is easy to get overwhelmed with the amount of data you are looking at."
"The solution’s user interface could be improved."
"The Wireshark search function shows green for a correct search and red for an incorrect search."
"Wireshark gets stuck when it is a larger file."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"DX Spectrum's pricing depends on the license number. It is affordable."
"In general, the license cost will be about 30% of the total TCO for this tool (hardware/support team, OS costs, and OS management)."
"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."
"The product, support, and maintenance are all expensive, which is another reason that we are switching to another solution."
"The price is very high."
"It’s a great tool, but an expensive one. Learn how to use it properly."
"I am using the free version of this solution."
"This is an open-source product that can be used free of charge."
"Wireshark is open source and gives great value and functionality to the network investigation."
"The tool is free."
"It's free."
"We are using a freeware version of this solution, so there are no licence costs involved."
"I've never personally had to pay for it, making it a highly valuable internet resource that's accessible for use. While they offer some paid versions, our firm has utilized the free version for the past three years."
"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
16%
Construction Company
10%
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.
896,803 professionals have used our research since 2012.