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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

"The fault management is perfect."
"The event management that the tool provides is extremely powerful, but with that comes a bit of complexity."
"By using event rules and procedures, we got an improved event management process, and CA Spectrum is very useful for event handling and brings us a robust manager of managers console."
"The product’s stability and robustness are valuable."
"The most valuable features have been the interface and the ability to do equipment management."
"Spectrum does such a great job of discovering our network that we have a high confidence in what our inventory is and because of that we're confident in the reporting we get."
"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."
"Some of the most valuable features are it's highly scalable, the carrier is great, and if something has SNMP, it can monitor it. It's a great network fault management solution."
"Wireshark's best feature is that it's adaptive, which means it's the go-to tool for network-related developers, as when the new protocol comes up, it's rapidly applied to the system, so I can just look into the packet."
"The drill-down available for packet analysis is great. It gives a network security engineer insight into what is going on at the packet level and enables better troubleshooting."
"Wireshark's best features are that it lets us see what traffic is in the network and what data should be encrypted."
"Setup is very easy. It's also possible to change source code and compile if you want to change something in the code, because it's free."
"It gives us the ability to pinpoint problems and to communicate network problems with software and hardware vendors."
"Being able to dissect email data and figure out what is inside email messages was the most valuable feature."
"Wireshark's best features are that it lets us see what traffic is in the network and what data should be encrypted."
"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

"This solution is too complicated to use for us, especially if you have many components."
"DX Spectrum should have an automatic ticketing mechanism with ServiceNow."
"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."
"Make it easier to certify devices."
"SpectroSERVER and reporting databases can grow quickly if you don't keep track of trap storms; this can cause SpectroSERVER to crash and performance issues with reporting."
"CA Spectrum is expensive."
"CA Broadcom support is very bad—one of the worst."
"DX Spectrum should have an automatic ticketing mechanism with ServiceNow. I need to use other tools for event management."
"It would be better if they offered a hybrid version like My Cloud Control."
"The product is great but I wish there were more of an emphasis on the command line tools."
"I would like better control of bandwidth from the service provider."
"Wireshark is also used for hacking which is a security breach."
"It is not an easy program. You will need to study to use it to its full capabilities (follow a course)."
"DNS could be improved."
"The only thing that I don't like is sometimes there is an update, and something that I was using is either no longer there or it has changed."
"Cannot be used to diagnose any kind of network intrusions and hacking exploits."
 

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."
"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."
"In general, the license cost will be about 30% of the total TCO for this tool (hardware/support team, OS costs, and OS management)."
"DX Spectrum's pricing depends on the license number. It is affordable."
"The price of the solution is reasonable."
"Spectrum is expensive."
"The price is very high."
"It is free."
"Wireshark is free of charge, and there's no license involved."
"The tool is 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."
"We're using the free version of Wireshark."
"Wireshark is an open-source product, so it's free to use."
"It is an open-source solution."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
17%
Construction Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
7%
University
10%
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: March 2026.
886,426 professionals have used our research since 2012.