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Cisco Catalyst Center vs DX Spectrum comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 2, 2025

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

ROI

Sentiment score
5.5
The Cisco Catalyst Center offers cost-effective, high-performance network management, valued for easy deployment and stable, tailored solutions.
Sentiment score
7.1
Organizations experienced significant ROI with DX Spectrum, noting enhanced automation, cost savings, efficiency, and effective integration despite high costs.
They have a long life.
Network Administrator at a healthcare company with 501-1,000 employees
The best feature is its availability, easy deployment, and good support for the solution.
Consultant at TECVA
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
7.3
Cisco Catalyst Center provides highly-rated customer service with dedicated support, though some report delays in hardware replacement.
Sentiment score
7.1
Customer service excels with high ratings, but technical support varies; Broadcom acquisition raised concerns over response times.
I had a situation where they were present with us overnight to fix an issue for a customer, demonstrating their dedication.
Cyber Security Architect at Spie Ics
I would rate technical support nine to nine and a half out of ten.
Lead Network Engineer at a energy/utilities company with 5,001-10,000 employees
The software platform is very easy to use.
Consultant at TECVA
Broadcom technical support is very good.
Senior Program Manager at Tata Consultancy Services
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.6
Cisco Catalyst Center offers scalable, flexible solutions for businesses, excelling in control, automation, and infrastructure robustness despite some limitations.
Sentiment score
8.1
DX Spectrum is highly adaptable and scalable, effectively supporting growth in diverse environments from small businesses to large corporations.
They have a feature that allows stacking switches together.
Network Administrator at a healthcare company with 501-1,000 employees
Cisco Catalyst Center is scalable and quite flexible, allowing for specific model choices like the 9,000 or 2,000 series based on the clients' performance requirements and bottlenecks.
Solution Architect at HCLSoftware
It effectively manages all the devices I have, demonstrating its capability to scale.
Lead Network Engineer at a energy/utilities company with 5,001-10,000 employees
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.9
Cisco Catalyst Center is highly regarded for stability and reliability, despite occasional bugs and security concerns.
Sentiment score
7.3
DX Spectrum is praised for its stability and reliability, with minor issues usually due to incorrect configurations or updates.
They are very stable, not power cycling, and basically maintaining their stability.
Network Administrator at a healthcare company with 501-1,000 employees
They provide a robust and secure solution for critical workloads.
Product Manager at Uop Ipl
Cisco Catalyst Center is stable, and I would rate it a nine out of ten for stability.
Data Center Admin at Sysnet Global Technologies
 

Room For Improvement

Cisco Catalyst Center needs enhancements in management, interface ease, security, support, flexibility, speed, bugs, and documentation clarity.
DX Spectrum users seek a modern interface, enhanced integration, simplified processes, better analytics, and improved support for device certification.
Current pricing is too expensive for features that users may not be sure they will use, pricing the company out of the market.
Network Engineer at Edmonton Catholic School Board
My customers often complain about numerous software bugs requiring frequent software patches and updates to resolve these issues.
Cyber Security Architect at Spie Ics
In the current setup, incidents are always reactionary, and it would be beneficial if Cisco Catalyst Center could proactively handle issues such as bandwidth crunches and packet drops.
Product Manager at Uop Ipl
Currently, they appear as pop-up messages, but I would prefer having alarm messages shown as a scrolling bar at the taskbar for easier visibility.
Solution Architect at SA Consulting
The event management should have more deduplication and alert correlation and check the bidirectional communication with ServiceNow.
Senior Program Manager at Tata Consultancy Services
 

Setup Cost

Cisco Catalyst Center is valued for quality but seen as expensive compared to competitors like Juniper and Fortinet.
DX Spectrum's pricing favors large enterprises, offering flexible but complex licensing, with high costs impacting smaller businesses.
They are also facing competitive pricing challenges from Huawei.
Deputy Director at NITDA
Cost is a major factor when any company is buying, and Cisco's products are pricier even compared to other US-based solutions.
Sr. Executive Design Engineering Team at Wateen Telecom (pvt.)
For a hardware refresh, the site switched to Fortinet switching because the cost difference was approximately six thousand dollars per device compared to other solutions.
Network Engineer at Edmonton Catholic School Board
The price of DX Spectrum is not competitive when compared to other solutions, such as SolarWinds.
Solution Architect at SA Consulting
 

Valuable Features

Cisco Catalyst Center provides robust network management with automation, scalability, secure integrations, and user-friendly interfaces for enterprise environments.
DX Spectrum offers comprehensive network monitoring, fault management, scalability, and seamless integration, ideal for managing extensive IT infrastructures.
There is a very wide user base providing support, so I almost never have to contact Cisco support due to the vast accessible knowledge base.
Network Administrator at a healthcare company with 501-1,000 employees
Their threat intelligence platform is excellent, including Talos Intelligence, which provides a good database and strong threat insights.
Analyst at a tech services company with 1-10 employees
This dual functionality is crucial for monitoring large enterprises, providing a robust solution for IT teams.
Product Manager at Uop Ipl
The interface has the needed configuration for visualization, and it's effective in providing a complete diagram of network links and connections across various stations globally.
Solution Architect at SA Consulting
DX Spectrum uses an SNMP Trap to accept all the details, especially for device monitoring of faulty devices, allowing me to use Spectrum effectively.
Senior Program Manager at Tata Consultancy Services
 

Categories and Ranking

Cisco Catalyst Center
Ranking in Network Management Applications
2nd
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
5.9
Number of Reviews
17
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
DX Spectrum
Ranking in Network Management Applications
7th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
117
Ranking in other categories
Network Monitoring Software (21st), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (20th), Network Troubleshooting (7th), DX NetOps (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Network Management Applications category, the mindshare of Cisco Catalyst Center is 7.9%, up from 1.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of DX Spectrum is 3.2%, up from 2.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Network Management Applications Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Cisco Catalyst Center7.9%
DX Spectrum3.2%
Other88.9%
Network Management Applications
 

Featured Reviews

AR
Network Engineer at Edmonton Catholic School Board
Has improved infrastructure management with customizable reporting and automated deployment
Cisco Catalyst Center's reporting is one of the best features, providing graphs and quick hit analysis in one place instead of having to search elsewhere. Historical data can be stored in Cisco Catalyst Center, and dashboards and widgets can be configured to personal preference. Device deployment can be automated to the point where all someone needs to do is plug it in. Zero Touch Provisioning, while requiring some initial work to set up properly, provides significant benefits. Once configured, it reduces the need for travel by specific network personnel, allowing on-site or other staff to handle device deployment by simply plugging in the cable.
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.
report
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
15%
Government
12%
Outsourcing Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
6%
Financial Services Firm
17%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Energy/Utilities Company
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business3
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise12
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business25
Midsize Enterprise19
Large Enterprise89
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Cisco Catalyst Center?
During license renewal, the pricing for Catalyst licensing increased significantly. For a hardware refresh, the site switched to Fortinet switching because the cost difference was approximately six...
What needs improvement with Cisco Catalyst Center?
Cisco Catalyst Center would benefit from different licensing tiers instead of an all-or-nothing model. Some tiers could focus on monitoring and tracking licenses with minimal configuration automati...
What is your primary use case for Cisco Catalyst Center?
The product was used with Catholic schools because that was their primary infrastructure. This is an enterprise-level product rather than an SMB-grade solution.
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...
 

Also Known As

No data available
CA Spectrum
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
National Informatics Centre India, Banese, Olympus, AlphaServe Technologies, Sicredi
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco Catalyst Center vs. DX Spectrum and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.
881,082 professionals have used our research since 2012.