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Cisco Prime [EOL] vs DX Spectrum comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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

Cisco Prime [EOL]
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
35
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
DX Spectrum
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
118
Ranking in other categories
Network Management Applications (7th), Network Monitoring Software (17th), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (18th), Network Troubleshooting (6th), DX NetOps (1st)
 

Featured Reviews

AR
Network Engineer at Edmonton Catholic School Board
Has an easy implementation process, but the performance monitoring feature could be more intuitive
The project implementation was easy overall. Adapting Cisco's solutions to our specific environment required effort, as their documentation only covers some network scenarios. The deployment didn't happen all at once; it was staged and controlled to ensure a smooth transition. We started with a small test environment before gradually rolling it out to all campuses. This gradual approach helped mitigate the risk of any issues arising across multiple locations simultaneously, especially on a critical day like Monday morning. We have a team of three executives working on the process. Their job roles included network specialists and a manager. It requires maintenance, which is included in the annual cost. We receive updates and support as part of the renewal process.
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Cisco Prime is user-friendly, so we are comfortable using it."
"We use Cisco Prime for network mapping and surveys."
"The product has a lot of features and capabilities."
"Has a good wireless heatmap and search management features."
"It helps us manage and monitor analytics and fix issues."
"Cisco Prime, from a management perspective, has good reporting."
"Cisco Prime can help customers fix their Wi-Fi issues with scientific and digital data."
"If an AP or any wireless device goes into critical mode, Cisco Prime sends an alert. That is the most helpful feature."
"The most valuable feature for us is that we can model a large variety of devices and receive SNMP traps from them."
"It is an excellent product, and is probably one of the best we have seen in terms of being able to do mass configurations in the network."
"Scalable and stable network monitoring tool with a simple setup."
"Monitoring window, graphical representation of devices, automatic updating of databases, high scalability, high robustness, and user-friendly options are some of the most valuable features for us."
"​The stability of the product is key. It never breaks, really. The stability and reliability of the Spectrum product have been top-notch.​"
"The ability to monitor your WAN and LAN infrastructure in a simple GUI."
"The network mapping functionality."
"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."
 

Cons

"Cisco can only be used for Cisco environments and is not compatible with other vendors."
"We would like to see the inclusion of detailed alerts."
"The product needs to improve its stability."
"I rate Cisco Prime seven out of 10 for affordability. All Cisco solutions are expensive."
"The solution has issues with real time monitoring of devices and NetFlow such as inadequate visualization for reports, sources, and destinations."
"Cisco needs to improve Prime's monitoring tab. If any device goes down, there is a 15-second lapse before we know. It would be much better if we were alerted two or three minutes before a device is about to fail, so we can dispatch a field engineer and avoid network downtime. I would like to see a feature that allows you to access the devices directly from Prime's monitoring tab. That would make work easier for us."
"This is not a scalable solution."
"I would rate the scalability of Cisco Prime a six out of ten. To scale up from a hundred to a thousand devices, the platform needs to be rebuilt logically. This process might require a downtime window and may involve changing the hardware or upgrading to a larger appliance."
"Code is very complex."
"Right now, with Java OneClick, it's a problem, because people would like to be able to launch it."
"We want to make our own choice for the AIOps solution and do not want to be forced to use the Broadcom OI solution by default."
"The report area is very poor and we cannot work properly with additional information and the custom reports."
"The biggest problem we had with it at the beginning was just the Java console."
"It's not the best product for availability and outages reporting."
"The OneClick MIB tools are a little complex, and I've seen other MIB tools that are a little simpler."
"Reporting and network bandwidth monitoring features needs to be improved."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The product is expensive compared to other vendors in the market."
"The cost is quite high."
"The price of Cisco Prime was reasonable because we purchased it as part of a Cisco One package. The package was a bundle of Cisco solutions together, such as Cisco ISE and CMX. The price is reasonable com compared to other solutions."
"We update the license every five years."
"The solution is not inexpensive but is worth it for large-scale environments."
"I rate the solution's pricing an eight out of ten."
"I would rate the pricing of Cisco Prime a seven out of ten."
"If we have a license for Cisco DNA, we can use the same license for Cisco Prime."
"DX Spectrum's pricing is neither expensive nor cheap."
"It is expensive compared to other tools in the market."
"Currently, a perpetual license but some services are moving to a subscription"
"DX Spectrum's pricing depends on the license number. It is affordable."
"It’s a great tool, but an expensive one. Learn how to use it properly."
"The solution's pricing could be better."
"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."
"The price of the solution is reasonable."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Construction Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Outsourcing Company
8%
Healthcare Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Outsourcing Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Construction Company
10%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business9
Midsize Enterprise5
Large Enterprise24
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business25
Midsize Enterprise19
Large Enterprise90
 

Questions from the Community

Ask a question
Earn 20 points
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...
 

Also Known As

Cisco Prime Infrastructure
CA Spectrum
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Mohawk Industries, Universidad EAFIT, Halton Healthcare
National Informatics Centre India, Banese, Olympus, AlphaServe Technologies, Sicredi
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco, Fortinet, Skyline Communications and others in Network Management Applications. Updated: October 2026.
920,929 professionals have used our research since 2012.