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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
7th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
118
Ranking in other categories
Network Management Applications (9th), Network Monitoring Software (26th), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (23rd), DX NetOps (1st)
Wireshark
Ranking in Network Troubleshooting
3rd
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 April 2026, in the Network Troubleshooting category, the mindshare of DX Spectrum is 5.9%, up from 3.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Wireshark is 15.0%, up from 13.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Network Troubleshooting Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Wireshark15.0%
DX Spectrum5.9%
Other79.1%
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 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 valuable features of this tool are its scalability and ability to automate inputs and outputs of a closed system."
"The product’s stability and robustness are valuable."
"What I like best is the configuration management functionality."
"From the business perspective, they have improved MTTR significantly, creating an elevated ROI ratio."
"With CA Spectrum, we are now able to monitor more proactively network assets, reduce the total downtime of these and prevent money from being lost for device stoppages."
"The most valuable feature for us is that we can model a large variety of devices and receive SNMP traps from them."
"The initial setup is very easy; after 10 minutes, you have a complete Spectrum up and running and you can start discovery immediately."
"Wireshark helps us to understand network traffic."
"Wireshark has a lot of features. It's a powerful tool if you're familiar with it. You can see everything on the network with it."
"Packet-capture files can be hard to use due to their size. Wireshark has a tool called tshark that can parse the files with out opening them so that you can take large captures, say 2-10GB, and return only relevant information."
"The drill-down available for packet analysis is great, as it gives a network security engineer insight into what is going on at the packet level and enables better troubleshooting."
"Wireshark is a very useful tool."
"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."
"Wireshark is the world's most powerful network protocol analyzer tool."
"The best part about Wireshark, in my opinion, is its ability to analyze packet capture files."
 

Cons

"HTML5. Right now, it is a very Java driven application. We have lots of issues."
"CA Broadcom support is very bad—one of the worst."
"Only if the server that hosts the application is restarted without bringing down Spectrum. If this occurs it corrupts the database and has to be restored from the backup."
"This solution is too complicated to use for us, especially if you have many components."
"New areas (NFV, SDN, APM) are covered by new technologies. As such, products should have tight integration with modern data science platforms."
"There is still room for improvement for mobile clients like tablets and smartphones."
"No good technical support from CA."
"I would like to see better scalability, and maybe, a more intuitive user interface. ​"
"The product has been using the same GUI for many years."
"Wireshark could be improved by adding more monitoring features."
"It needs the ability to follow multiple interfaces for specific traffic from different network zones/virtual networks. It would help to understand how any packet is going through the network."
"This product needs to improve the UI."
"It would be better if they offered a hybrid version like My Cloud Control."
"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."
"I would like better control of bandwidth from the service provider."
"The product is great but I wish there were more of an emphasis on the command line tools."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"DX Spectrum's pricing is neither expensive nor cheap."
"The product, support, and maintenance are all expensive, which is another reason that we are switching to another solution."
"It is expensive compared to other tools in the market."
"The solution's pricing could be better."
"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 price of the solution is reasonable."
"Spectrum is expensive."
"DX Spectrum's pricing depends on the license number. It is affordable."
"Wireshark is free software, so you can download it and use it for free with no licensing fees."
"We are using a freeware version of this solution, so there are no licence costs involved."
"It's free."
"Wireshark is an open-source product, so it's free to use."
"The solution is open source so 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."
"I am using the free version of this solution."
"This is an open-source product that can be used free of charge."
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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
7%
Government
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.
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.
892,287 professionals have used our research since 2012.