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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

"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."
"The solution's most valuable features are its integration with Broadcom tools and scalability."
"DX Spectrum uses an SNMP Trap to accept all the details, especially for device monitoring of faulty devices, allowing me to use Spectrum effectively."
"With the timely alerts that our MTTR reduced, we could determine the impact of the outage as well as the root cause of the issue."
"Out of all of the CA products that we use, I would say this is the most stable."
"The performance manager is very good."
"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."
"The most valuable feature is the auto-discovery, which is nice because you don't have to do anything to add a new component."
"Being able to dissect email data and figure out what is inside email messages was the most valuable feature."
"It helps in analyzing if something looks suspicious, such as a brute force attack or scanning from somewhere."
"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."
"Wireshark helps us to understand network traffic."
"It is a stable product. I would rate the stability a ten out of ten."
"It has a good syntax to put the commands in and get information out of."
"This is the de-facto standard network protocol analysis tool."
"The best thing about Wireshark is the community/ecosystem."
 

Cons

"There are a very few occasions when the system "barfs" and it looks like your infrastructure has gone dark, but it bounces back quickly (the system)."
"There were some issues with deployment."
"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."
"It's not easily scalable."
"I only encountered stability issues in very rare situations; mainly when we used our own extensions for private management modules."
"The CA Technologies sales team destroyed their relationship with our business units."
"The Spectrum OneClick is a Java-based client, and that's aging. Really, before any new feature integration, I'd love to see a comprehensive rebuild of the UI."
"It was somewhat complex to implement."
"We'd like to be able to extract the output into an Excel table."
"The average person would probably find Wireshark hard to use. When I first installed it, I was overwhelmed by all the data it was shooting out. It doesn't make sense until you start doing some research and figure out what everything means. It isn't the most user-friendly tool. It just provides so much information."
"Wireshark is similar to an OS defense tool, meaning that it runs on an OS such as Ubuntu and Fedora, but I'm unsure if it's compatible with Windows or if it's a straightforward process to run it on Windows. Right now, my team needs to run Wireshark from a dongle to use it, so it's an OS-dependable tool, and that's an area for improvement. 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. The process was straightforward on Linux, but it wasn't the case on Windows OS. It seems Wireshark isn't compatible with all OS. For example, you can analyze the log, and you can analyze it on the Windows server, but you can't do a capture in Windows. Configuring Wireshark for Windows isn't as easy as configuring it for Linux."
"We would like the product to be developed so that it doesn't rely on internet access for installation."
"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."
"Wireshark could be improved by adding more monitoring features."
"I would like better control of bandwidth from the service provider."
"It needs the ability to follow multiple interfaces for specific traffic from different network zones/virtual networks."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is expensive compared to other tools in the market."
"Spectrum is expensive."
"The price of the solution is reasonable."
"The price is very high."
"DX Spectrum's pricing depends on the license number. It is affordable."
"The product, support, and maintenance are all expensive, which is another reason that we are switching to another solution."
"Currently, a perpetual license but some services are moving to a subscription"
"DX Spectrum's pricing is neither expensive nor cheap."
"It's free."
"It is free."
"Wireshark is an open-source product, so it's free to use."
"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."
"It is an open-source solution."
"Wireshark is free of charge, and there's no license involved."
"Wireshark is open source and gives great value and functionality to the network investigation."
"The solution is open source so is free."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
14%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Construction Company
7%
University
11%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Healthcare Company
7%
Computer Software 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 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.