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Cisco Prime [EOL] vs DX Spectrum comparison

 

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
117
Ranking in other categories
Network Management Applications (7th), Network Monitoring Software (20th), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (22nd), Network Troubleshooting (6th), DX NetOps (1st)
 

Featured Reviews

ZeeshanAli1 - PeerSpot reviewer
Robust, cost-effective, and provides good visibility, but the scalability could improve
We are extremely satisfied with the reliability and robustness of Cisco Prime Infrastructure, which we have been using for many years. Compared to newer products such as DNS centers or others, it has proven to be much more stable, which is important for large-scale operations. Stability is a primary concern for us, and we are glad that Cisco Prime Infrastructure meets our expectations in that regard. Furthermore, in regards to Legacy Plus new hardware, Cisco Prime has proven to be a reliable and adaptable solution thus far. Not only can it support older hardware, but it also has the capability to handle new features with the latest updates. If we consider new solutions such as DNS Center, we may have to sacrifice some legacy features that we still rely on. We may need to continue using these legacy features for a few more years due to various reasons such as budget constraints or the site not being a high priority. However, if we switch to a new product at this stage, we may lose a lot of the monitoring and other capabilities that we have with Cisco Prime. We have a close relationship with Cisco and understand that they are not prioritizing investments in Cisco Prime as they are encouraging customers to adopt the Cisco DNA Center. This means that we don't anticipate many new features to be added to the product in the future. While we know that we will eventually have to transition to a new solution, in the meantime, we plan to do a quick refresh of our legacy products.
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…

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 a good tool for inventory monitoring and wireless management."
"It helps us manage and monitor analytics and fix issues."
"The hardware Cisco provides is excellent. It's a well-made product."
"The most valuable feature of Cisco Prime is the heat maps."
"The dashboard is a valuable feature. It's very clear, and the metrics make it easy to see the current network situation."
"The most valuable is the assistance for network support."
"Cisco Prime can help customers fix their Wi-Fi issues with scientific and digital data."
"Cisco Prime allows us to do a lot of functions with the users and it is flexible."
"It is very stable. We have not had any major issues in over 10 years."
"The most valuable features have been the interface and the ability to do equipment management."
"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."
"The most valuable feature is the event correlation mechanism."
"The product’s stability and robustness are valuable."
"I have found the cross analysis feature to be the most valuable."
"We can monitor MPLS network VPN, network configuration, and backups. It's highly scalable for network configuration management."
"Scalability is a highly rated feature of this solution. It is better than some of the other tools that I've used in terms of scalability. We scaled it to tens of thousands of devices."
 

Cons

"The solution is not easy to configure."
"Cisco Prime could improve the notifications in the system. Having more details about what is happening would be useful, such as traffic numbers or who is connected. We can see them through the firewall controller, but it would be better if you can see them from one place."
"I want the tool to improve data visibility."
"The product's pricing can be cheaper."
"Cisco can only be used for Cisco environments and is not compatible with other vendors."
"The product's performance monitoring feature could be more intuitive."
"Cisco Prime could improve the graphical user interface."
"There is room for improvement in the Access layer."
"DX Spectrum should have an automatic ticketing mechanism with ServiceNow."
"For us, the implementation was quite complex but it's because of the large number of different environments we're dealing with."
"If they could interact with the MIBs of vendors better, and have a lot more pre-loaded ones, that would be amazing for us right now."
"I think the management or configuration of devices needs some improvement."
"Our consultant was four months on-site doing Spectrum setup and working through issues."
"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."
"Make it easier to certify devices."
"The product should provide performance management features."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I rate the solution's pricing an eight out of ten."
"You need to get special quotes from the company for each order."
"The product is expensive compared to other vendors in the market."
"I would rate the pricing of Cisco Prime a seven out of ten."
"I would rate the solution's pricing an eight out of ten."
"Cisco Prime is an expensive solution."
"The solution is not inexpensive but is worth it for large-scale environments."
"We update the license every five years."
"It is very pricey. With the current trend of enterprises moving towards cheaper and more modern looking solutions like ManageEngine, SevOne, ServicePilot, and Paesller."
"DX Spectrum's pricing is neither expensive nor cheap."
"DX Spectrum's pricing depends on the license number. It is affordable."
"It is expensive compared to other tools in the market."
"The price is very high."
"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 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 is good enough to expect an ideal solution. It's expensive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
16%
Government
14%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Healthcare Company
6%
Financial Services Firm
17%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
9%
Energy/Utilities Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Cisco Prime?
The most valuable features of Cisco Prime include its comprehensive functionality as a one-stop solution for basic SNMP port management.
What needs improvement with Cisco Prime?
The product's performance monitoring feature could be more intuitive.
What is your primary use case for Cisco Prime?
We use Cisco Prime for centralized configuration management backups and monitoring.
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 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, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Fortinet and others in Network Management Applications. Updated: July 2025.
864,155 professionals have used our research since 2012.