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Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN 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
7.4
Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN delivers cost-effective operations and flexibility, with significant ROI from reduced MPLS and WAN expenses.
Sentiment score
7.1
Organizations experienced significant ROI with DX Spectrum, noting enhanced automation, cost savings, efficiency, and effective integration despite high costs.
They are now back to do that with the remainder of their company, so they've realized the value in 12 months and are willing to invest in the remainder of their organization.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
7.5
Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN support is renowned for expertise and responsiveness but faces delays and outsourcing concerns, overall highly rated.
Sentiment score
7.1
Customer service excels with high ratings, but technical support varies; Broadcom acquisition raised concerns over response times.
The principal third-level support is very good.
I would consider Cisco support a 10 out of 10.
Cisco's ongoing reorganizations have affected the quality of technical support, which varies depending on the engineer handling cases.
Broadcom technical support is very good.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.6
Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN excels in scalability, adaptability, and seamless Cisco integration, despite initial setup challenges, supporting diverse enterprises.
Sentiment score
8.1
DX Spectrum is highly adaptable and scalable, effectively supporting growth in diverse environments from small businesses to large corporations.
The ease of configuration and features like zero-touch provisioning enhance the scalability of Cisco SD-WAN, especially in disaster recovery situations.
Cisco SD-WAN is highly scalable and can be expanded to more than 10,000 sites.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.6
Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN is stable and reliable, with minor bugs, requiring regular updates for optimal performance in complex environments.
Sentiment score
7.3
DX Spectrum is praised for its stability and reliability, with minor issues usually due to incorrect configurations or updates.
While some software-related issues and bugs were encountered, they did not cause the whole environment to crash.
 

Room For Improvement

Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN needs simpler management, enhanced security, better scalability, improved support, and more flexible pricing and integration.
DX Spectrum users seek a modern interface, enhanced integration, simplified processes, better analytics, and improved support for device certification.
Now, they change frequently, making it difficult to obtain long-term support.
The negative, or the downside of Cisco is the knowledge base; you need to be a little bit more tech-savvy and network-savvy to work with Cisco, while Juniper is a lot more user-friendly from what I can see, especially in terms of configuration and any kind of roll back.
Including more features like integrating with Splunk for monitoring vulnerabilities would help eliminate the need for other SOC solutions.
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.
The event management should have more deduplication and alert correlation and check the bidirectional communication with ServiceNow.
 

Setup Cost

Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN is costly, with complex licensing, but offers robust features; users seek discounts or OPEX models.
DX Spectrum's pricing favors large enterprises, offering flexible but complex licensing, with high costs impacting smaller businesses.
The pricing of Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN is rated between eight and nine out of ten, where ten is the most expensive.
It is also relatively cost-effective for smaller businesses when using the Meraki version.
Its pricing is justifiable due to the comprehensive solution it offers.
The price of DX Spectrum is not competitive when compared to other solutions, such as SolarWinds.
 

Valuable Features

Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN offers centralized management, robust security, scalability, and superior connectivity with load balancing and excellent support.
DX Spectrum offers comprehensive network monitoring, fault management, scalability, and seamless integration, ideal for managing extensive IT infrastructures.
It also provides robust security features, including port security, analysis, mirroring, and multiple other security solutions.
Security is standard compliant, eliminating config drift that was prevalent before manual configurations.
The most useful feature for Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN is the single pane of glass management because we also use Meraki onsite.
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.
DX Spectrum uses an SNMP Trap to accept all the details, especially for device monitoring of faulty devices, allowing me to use Spectrum effectively.
 

Categories and Ranking

Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN
Ranking in Network Management Applications
6th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
95
Ranking in other categories
Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) Solutions (2nd), WAN Edge (2nd)
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 (17th), Network Troubleshooting (6th), DX NetOps (1st)
 

Featured Reviews

Igor Van Den Ouden - PeerSpot reviewer
Enables secure and flexible branch connectivity with application-aware routing
The valuable features of Cisco SD-WAN include its security policies and zone-based firewall that are applied to every site, as well as application-aware routing. Security is standard compliant, eliminating config drift that was prevalent before manual configurations. Application-aware routing offers flexibility in using different lines for traffic, depending on the policy implemented.
DickBaker - PeerSpot reviewer
An all-inclusive monitoring solution that adapts to emerging technologies
The product helps to correlate events.  The solution's most valuable features are its integration with Broadcom tools and scalability. DX Spectrum needs better documentation on its complex features.  I have been using the product since 2005.  I rate DX Spectrum's stability an eight point five…
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
29%
Computer Software Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Financial Services Firm
19%
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Cisco SD-WAN?
When considering the most valuable features of Cisco SD-WAN, the decoupling of self-monitoring stands out significantly.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Cisco SD-WAN?
The pricing of Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN is rated between eight and nine out of ten, where ten is the most expensive.
What needs improvement with Cisco SD-WAN?
There's nothing I could put my finger on right away for improvements in Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN. There is definitely nothing that Juniper does that Cisco doesn't do. Cisco will do everything Juniper ...
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

Cisco SD-WAN
CA Spectrum
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Doyle Research, Ashton Metzler & Associates
National Informatics Centre India, Banese, Olympus, AlphaServe Technologies, Sicredi
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN vs. DX Spectrum and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.
859,129 professionals have used our research since 2012.