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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

"Scalable and stable network monitoring tool with a simple setup."
"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."
"Easy navigation from initial alerts to a full topology and detail on the Network infrastructure and it relationships is the most valuable feature"
"Generally, I would recommend DX Spectrum because, despite its pricing issue, it is a valuable solution."
"It has a highly scalable architecture that is designed to ensure accommodation of the growing network setup for our client."
"We have removed all the duplicate tickets from our ticketing system; for example, if we have a store that is down, we get 20 tickets, but through CA Spectrum we are down to 1, so in the long term what we've done is less tickets, less people, more savings, etc."
"It is the perfect monitoring solution for customers' devices."
"Spectrum is great for root cause analysis. It has excellent correlation event management. Spectrum's stability and scalability are also amazing."
"Wireshark is very user-friendly; even someone with basic IT knowledge can use it."
"It gives us the ability to pinpoint problems and to communicate network problems with software and hardware vendors."
"This is the de-facto standard network protocol analysis tool."
"The product is simple to implement."
"Wireshark is a great tool to help network engineers identify network problems like broadcasting, injection, poisoning, etc."
"Wireshark's best features are that it lets us see what traffic is in the network and what data should be encrypted."
"It has a good syntax to put the commands in and get information out of."
"The most valuable feature of Wireshark is the ability to choose a destination of flow that has not been working as expected."
 

Cons

"I would like to see better scalability, and maybe, a more intuitive user interface. ​"
"CA Spectrum provides value, but it can be very expensive."
"The CA Technologies sales team destroyed their relationship with our business units."
"A better integration with the UIM, as far as being able to do root cause analysis and that type of analytics."
"I’d like to see better access to data elements via the API as well as better elements for the UIs."
"Reporting and network bandwidth monitoring features need to be improved."
"Make it easier to certify devices."
"We have had one support issue that's been open for a couple of months, and it is currently open."
"I would like to see Wireshark improve the ease of application of the command. The command is very powerful, but not easy to apply."
"In the future, it would be nice to see color coding. It is just black and white."
"Its user interface was a little less friendly. They can make its user interface a little bit more friendly."
"One con is that this software is only an observer, not an interactive component of the network, meaning you cant change anything with it."
"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."
"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."
"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."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"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."
"The product, support, and maintenance are all expensive, which is another reason that we are switching to another solution."
"Spectrum is expensive."
"It is very pricey. With the current trend of enterprises moving towards cheaper and more modern looking solutions like ManageEngine, SevOne, ServicePilot, and Paesller."
"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."
"Wireshark is open source and gives great value and functionality to the network investigation."
"Wireshark is free of charge, and there's no license involved."
"It is an open-source solution."
"This is an open-source product that can be used free of charge."
"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 free to download and install. It runs on multiple platforms, so how can you go wrong?"
"Wireshark is open-source and free of charge."
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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: April 2026.
886,468 professionals have used our research since 2012.