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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 (21st), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (20th), DX NetOps (1st)
Wireshark
Ranking in Network Troubleshooting
2nd
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 May 2026, in the Network Troubleshooting category, the mindshare of DX Spectrum is 6.6%, up from 3.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Wireshark is 17.1%, up from 13.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Network Troubleshooting Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Wireshark17.1%
DX Spectrum6.6%
Other76.3%
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

"Spectrum is great for root cause analysis. It has excellent correlation event management. Spectrum's stability and scalability are also amazing."
"The integration point."
"This is a very powerful tool with a lot of functionality."
"It creates transparency and makes everything work by being more transparent."
"The presentation layer is pretty simple and straightforward."
"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."
"It has improved the way our organization has functioned over the last 10 years."
"It is easy to understand and determine when and/or where the network is failing."
"I can save the traffic and analysis when I want to. Also, it's especially helpful to follow the stream (TCP, UDP, etc.)."
"The filter option provided by Wireshark is its most valuable feature...Scalability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten."
"If you're dealing with troubleshooting network, voice issues, or network operations, having a tool like Wireshark to dive into packet details is important. The initial setup is straightforward. Anyone starting out or looking to deploy it on your personal PC or machine can do it easily."
"It gives us the ability to pinpoint problems and to communicate network problems with software and hardware vendors."
"You can use Wireshark to see the traffic packet format, the IP layers, the fields, and the enabled flags."
"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."
"I believe everyone should use this tool if they need to analyze packets."
"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."
 

Cons

"The GIS map feature needs to be enhanced and synced with topology views of containers and global collections."
"The solution's stability needs improvement."
"A better integration with the UIM, as far as being able to do root cause analysis and that type of analytics."
"Make it easier to certify devices."
"I'd like to have more dynamic weather map capabilities and network mapping tools."
"A lot of the filtering and orchestration of the background takes a lot of manual work."
"Event correlation only works on one server, rather than on all of the servers in the same cluster environment."
"CABI was a major issue for us, but the newly added Jaspersoft is a better-suited reporting toolset, so this has already been addressed."
"It needs the ability to follow multiple interfaces for specific traffic from different network zones/virtual networks."
"A room for improvement in Wireshark is its ease of use for beginners. It could be better. Another room for improvement in the tool is for it to provide more details about the traffic load. At the moment, Wireshark is adequate for me, so there isn't anything I'd like added to it in its next version."
"You need some basic knowledge to work with Wireshark. Maybe it could be more user-friendly just for new users. Just for the new generation."
"Running Wireshark through an admin account for multiple exploits is unsecured."
"Built-in help system is not robust."
"We would like the product to be developed so that it doesn't rely on internet access for installation."
"DNS could be improved."
"Whenever we select one of the packets, in terms of the number of bytes, for example, there are three planes, and in the detailed plane, I have to count the number of bytes manually."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"The solution's pricing could be better."
"Currently, a perpetual license but some services are moving to a subscription"
"The price is very high."
"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."
"DX Spectrum's pricing is neither expensive nor cheap."
"Wireshark is open source and gives great value and functionality to the network investigation."
"Wireshark is free software, so you can download it and use it for free with no licensing fees."
"I am using the free version of this solution."
"It is free to download and install. It runs on multiple platforms, so how can you go wrong?"
"The solution is open source so is free."
"Wireshark is free of charge, and there's no license involved."
"We're using the free version of Wireshark."
"We are using a freeware version of this solution, so there are no licence costs involved."
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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
8%
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.
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.
892,678 professionals have used our research since 2012.