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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
117
Ranking in other categories
Network Management Applications (7th), Network Monitoring Software (21st), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (20th), 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 January 2026, in the Network Troubleshooting category, the mindshare of DX Spectrum is 4.9%, up from 3.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Wireshark is 12.7%, down from 13.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Network Troubleshooting Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Wireshark12.7%
DX Spectrum4.9%
Other82.4%
Network Troubleshooting
 

Featured Reviews

Balabrahmam_Chakka - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Program Manager at Tata Consultancy Services
Comprehensive device monitoring enhances operational efficiency
DX Spectrum should have an automatic ticketing mechanism with ServiceNow. I need to use other tools for event management. It has a dashboarding mechanism and monitors devices and network switches through SNMP without an agent, which is good, but it should also have event management. Its LDAP authentication is fine. However, event management is not available, which is a concern. Not much else. If they can add event management, it would help. The event management should have more deduplication and alert correlation and check the bidirectional communication with ServiceNow. If a previous ticket is open and the same alert is generated, there's no need to create another ticket; updating the work notes would suffice. It should help reduce noise in alerting.
DonniUgalde - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior I.T. Systems Engineer at Pro Techs MSP
Provides visibility into the network, and the GUI is easy to use
I wish the filters were a little bit more prepopulated. It would have been easy to hit a drop-down and select a filter. If I only wanted to look at DCP, UDP, or IP, it would be easy to filter it out. Advanced network knowledge is required to get a lot out of the tool. However, it's very easy to install and deploy. It would be nice if there were some handheld Android devices with a Wireshark-specialized application that would allow us to mirror a Cisco port. Then, we can just plug into the port and click the green start button, and it will start ingesting the packet capture. Then, we won’t be using a laptop. The only downside is that we must have a laptop and connect a network cable. Some new laptops don't have network ports, so we have to get another adapter. Having an all-in-one device, like NetAlly or Fluke, and some of their network devices would be cool.

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."
"Spectrum does such a great job of discovering our network that we have a high confidence in what our inventory is."
"Generally, I would recommend DX Spectrum because, despite its pricing issue, it is a valuable solution."
"We were able to standardize the internal processes across all internal departments, resulting in almost an elimination of non-standard process flows through our organization."
"The monitoring just comes to us: "Oh, there's something wrong with that machine." It tells us. There are some 50,000 machines or so, all doing different things. And if they go down we hear about it."
"The fault management is perfect."
"As the kind of enterprise that straddles the line between telco size and enterprise size, it scales for us, because we're not all the way at telco yet."
"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."
"I can save the traffic and analysis when I want to. Also, it's especially helpful to follow the stream (TCP, UDP, etc.)."
"It is a stable product. I would rate the stability a ten out of ten."
"The best part about Wireshark, in my opinion, is its ability to analyze packet capture files."
"The initial setup is simple."
"I find Wireshark a very useful tool. Its best feature is that it allows me to deeply understand what's going on at the packet level, as well as any adverse signatures that I can analyze. When I need to create an IPS rule, I need to check the traffic deeply to get more insights about the actual traffic, what's the name of certain flags, etc., and I'm able to do all that through Wireshark. The tool is also user-friendly."
"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."
"The most valuable feature is the traffic gate, which shows which IPs are getting more bandwidth or traffic."
"I use the filters very often, to determine what type of traffic I am looking for. The use of filter allows traffic to be segmented so that a value can be looked at individually apart from the other traffic."
 

Cons

"We have a lot of different monitoring tools in the background, so orchestration has been a little bit of a challenge."
"The solution's stability needs improvement."
"It needs better integration with other CA products."
"Needs better integration with all the other products in the Agile suite of tools; anything they could do to make that less complex, would be great."
"If the integration is simplified or improved, it will be a unique selling point in comparison to the competition on the market."
"I would like to see better scalability, and maybe, a more intuitive user interface. ​"
"I would like to see CA move Spectrum, Performance Manager, and some of their other tools moved to a SaaS based model. You see a lot of other manufacturers which are moving toward SaaS based models."
"The biggest issue is our integration right now between UIM and Spectrum is lacking."
"I have not used Wireshark to an advanced point where I could provide a detailed opinion on improvements needed."
"There is a disadvantage when it comes to sampling intervals. Additionally, I've heard from a colleague that Wireshark might be less effective in the voice domain."
"With Wireshark, you cannot download and utilize the packet in automation."
"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."
"You need good network connectivity to download during the setup, otherwise, it might take a while."
"The decryption of encrypted packets could be better."
"I would like to see Wireshark improve the ease of application of the command. The command is very powerful, but not easy to apply."
"Wireshark could make the filtering rules easier to apply and offer a drag-and-drop option as opposed to type and text."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price is very high."
"Currently, a perpetual license but some services are moving to a subscription"
"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."
"DX Spectrum's pricing is neither expensive nor cheap."
"Spectrum is expensive."
"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."
"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 free."
"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 is an open-source solution."
"It's a stand-alone tool. If there is a commercial license for it I am unaware of it."
"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."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
17%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Energy/Utilities Company
5%
University
10%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Computer Software Company
8%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business25
Midsize Enterprise19
Large Enterprise89
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business31
Midsize Enterprise11
Large Enterprise27
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about DX Spectrum?
The solution's most valuable features are its integration with Broadcom tools and scalability.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for DX Spectrum?
The price of DX Spectrum is not competitive when compared to other solutions, such as SolarWinds. The high price has caused us to lose many deals.
What needs improvement with DX Spectrum?
I would like to see improvements in making the interface more user-friendly. Many people find it not simple to use. One of the common customer complaints is about the alarm notifications. Currently...
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.
 

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: December 2025.
881,082 professionals have used our research since 2012.