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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
8th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
118
Ranking in other categories
Network Management Applications (11th), Network Monitoring Software (30th), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (29th), DX NetOps (1st)
Wireshark
Ranking in Network Troubleshooting
4th
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 March 2026, in the Network Troubleshooting category, the mindshare of DX Spectrum is 4.9%, up from 3.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Wireshark is 14.3%, up from 12.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Network Troubleshooting Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Wireshark14.3%
DX Spectrum4.9%
Other80.8%
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

"It gives an depth report of availability and outages, and by using it you can further analyze and find exactly where the bottlenecks lie."
"It is an excellent product, and is probably one of the best we have seen in terms of being able to do mass configurations in the network."
"Spectrum is the best."
"Spectrum has given us the agility to solve problems faster."
"This is a very good, refined product that, in the fault-tolerant configuration, approaches being bulletproof."
"The fault management is perfect."
"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."
"Everything being centrally located in one infrastructure management tool allows anyone anywhere, between the IT help desk, to Windows teams, Unix teams, or the network team to see exactly what devices are causing the issue, as well as the severity of those issues."
"You can use Wireshark to see the traffic packet format, the IP layers, the fields, and the enabled flags."
"The most valuable feature is the traffic gate, which shows which IPs are getting more bandwidth or 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 the world's most powerful network protocol analyzer tool."
"Wireshark is a good tool to start with network analyzing and packet capturing."
"I have found the most valuable feature you can design your sniffer the way you want to."
"The ability to decrypt traffic and the abundance of filters available are both valuable features."
"This is a tool that gives you a clear-cut idea about where the issue is, and where the packs are dropping."
 

Cons

"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."
"Customer Service: It's poor. Technical Support: It's poor."
"For small/medium companies, it is still too expensive, making the ideal candidates large enterprises, which would certainly benefit from the ROI within a year."
"I think it still has room for improvement as far as the application, but support could also be improved."
"This solution is too complicated to use for us, especially if you have many components."
"CABI was a major issue for us, but the newly added Jaspersoft is a better-suited reporting toolset, so this has already been addressed."
"CA Spectrum is expensive."
"If nobody else has said the documentation needs improvement, let's go there. I understand, you can either write about it or you can do it. And most of us would rather they do it, but now that they've done it, those of us that didn't do it, we need to go and find: "Where did they write about this to tell us how to do it?" That's always lacking."
"The initial setup depends upon the basics. You need to have a clear understanding of the basics."
"Great scalability, but they are beginning to sacrifice ease of use for complexity."
"It’s helpful only if you have the basic knowledge of networking."
"The product has been using the same GUI for many years."
"The product is great but I wish there were more of an emphasis on the command line tools."
"I have not used Wireshark to an advanced point where I could provide a detailed opinion on improvements needed."
"I was unable to use Wireshark on Windows, and I couldn't capture it, as I'm unsure how to configure the wireless card into monitoring mode on Windows."
"Wireshark could be improved by adding more monitoring features."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price is good enough to expect an ideal solution. It's expensive."
"The product, support, and maintenance are all expensive, which is another reason that we are switching to another solution."
"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."
"It is expensive compared to other tools in the market."
"DX Spectrum's pricing is neither expensive nor cheap."
"DX Spectrum's pricing depends on the license number. It is affordable."
"Currently, a perpetual license but some services are moving to a subscription"
"The solution's pricing could be better."
"Wireshark is an open-source product, so it's free to use."
"We're using the free version of Wireshark."
"The solution is open source so is free."
"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 don't have to pay any licensing fee. Individual people can use it and then donate to Wireshark."
"Wireshark is free of charge, and there's no license involved."
"It's a stand-alone tool. If there is a commercial license for it I am unaware of it."
"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
15%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Marketing Services Firm
6%
University
11%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Computer Software Company
7%
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.
 

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: March 2026.
884,976 professionals have used our research since 2012.