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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 (21st), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (21st), 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, from a management perspective, has good reporting."
"The technical support team is very good."
"The VLAN mapping function has been most impactful in simplifying our network management tasks."
"We use Cisco Prime for network mapping and surveys."
"The solution provides data that allows us to time travel through logs and perform remote operations or troubleshooting."
"The most valuable feature of Cisco Prime is the heat maps."
"The most valuable feature of Cisco Prime is its excellent audio and video conferencing with clear quality and no interruptions."
"I have found the solution to be scalable."
"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."
"It is easy to navigate."
"It's a good tool. It's simple to do the configuration."
"​The stability of the product is key. It never breaks, really. The stability and reliability of the Spectrum product have been top-notch.​"
"Scalable and stable network monitoring tool with a simple setup."
"What I like best is the configuration management functionality."
"Spectrum is great for root cause analysis. It has excellent correlation event management. Spectrum's stability and scalability are also amazing."
"The presentation layer is pretty simple and straightforward."
 

Cons

"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."
"Cisco Prime's initial setup is complex."
"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."
"Cisco can only be used for Cisco environments and is not compatible with other vendors."
"The user interface of Cisco Prime could be more user-friendly and increase its performance."
"The solution can be slow at times."
"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."
"If you think about a centralized monitoring system, Cisco Prime is not good because it does not support third-party vendors like Palo Alto or FortiGate."
"We have had some issues with the spec server and the high availability replication of data. It fails over well, but it does not come back very well. We get duplicated events."
"DX Spectrum should have an automatic ticketing mechanism with ServiceNow. I need to use other tools for event management."
"DX Spectrum is stable. However, now and then there are some issues, but overall it is good."
"From the users perspective the looks and feel of dashboards of Spectrum would be easier to use and for understanding as APM will be in 10.5 version which we saw in CA World."
"We have had one support issue that's been open for a couple of months, and it is currently open."
"It doesn't really allow for multi-tenancy. If you're an ISP or an MSP and you want to use this tool to provide these types of fault management services to your customers, you would need a separate SpectroSERVER for each customer..."
"DX Spectrum needs better documentation on its complex features."
"DX Spectrum should have an automatic ticketing mechanism with ServiceNow."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Cisco Prime is an expensive solution."
"I would rate the solution's pricing an eight out of ten."
"I rate the solution's pricing an eight out of ten."
"The cost is quite high."
"The product is expensive compared to other vendors in the market."
"If we have a license for Cisco DNA, we can use the same license for Cisco Prime."
"The solution is not inexpensive but is worth it for large-scale environments."
"The product's performance monitoring feature could be more intuitive."
"Currently, a perpetual license but some services are moving to a subscription"
"DX Spectrum's pricing is neither expensive nor cheap."
"The price is good enough to expect an ideal solution. It's expensive."
"It’s a great tool, but an expensive one. Learn how to use it properly."
"The price is very high."
"It is expensive compared to other tools in the market."
"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."
"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."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
15%
Government
13%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Healthcare Company
6%
Financial Services Firm
17%
Computer Software Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business9
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise23
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business26
Midsize Enterprise19
Large Enterprise88
 

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: August 2025.
867,370 professionals have used our research since 2012.