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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 (19th), 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

"The most valuable features of Cisco Prime include its comprehensive functionality as a one-stop solution for basic SNMP port management."
"Has a good wireless heatmap and search management features."
"The hardware Cisco provides is excellent. It's a well-made product."
"The most valuable feature of Cisco Prime is its excellent audio and video conferencing with clear quality and no interruptions."
"As a large organization, it is difficult to individually monitor every device. Instead, we use Cisco Prime to keep an eye on the network and services. We do not use it as a node tool, as we have other tools for network operation centers. When services go down, it can cause issues, we rely on Cisco Prime to monitor and notify us of any service disruptions. We mainly use Cisco Prime Infrastructure for configuration-level tasks."
"I have found the solution to be scalable."
"The VLAN mapping function has been most impactful in simplifying our network management tasks."
"It gives you the ability to upgrade switches remotely, schedule the upgrade time, perform backups, and monitor the health of all networks."
"The Spectrum tool improved our network assurance levels for our business units."
"The fault management is perfect."
"I have found the cross analysis feature to be the most valuable."
"The containerization of different objects was very helpful in building an org structure. Being able to separately manage your MSP clients with separate visibility was also helpful."
"The most valuable features of DX Spectrum are the comprehensive alerts."
"It's a good tool. It's simple to do the configuration."
"The monitoring just comes to us: "Oh, there's something wrong with that machine." It tells us. There are some 50,000 machines or so, all doing different things. And if they go down we hear about it."
"The presentation layer is pretty simple and straightforward."
 

Cons

"If you look at some of the wireless site-survey tools that are available in the commercial space, Cisco should include similar solutions, which would help our on-plant engineers when they're doing a site survey."
"I want the tool to improve data visibility."
"Maybe it could be a little cheaper."
"The product's pricing can be cheaper."
"Cisco Prime's initial setup is complex."
"They could consider offering more flexible pricing options for their customers."
"The solution can be slow at times."
"The solution has issues with real time monitoring of devices and NetFlow such as inadequate visualization for reports, sources, and destinations."
"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."
"OS monitoring needs to be better developed, as well as their services, e.g., cluster monitoring, URLs, etc."
"A better integration with the UIM, as far as being able to do root cause analysis and that type of analytics."
"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."
"Huawei devices are not properly supported, and there are incompatibility issues related to certain protocols."
"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 interface is not nice and needs to be improved."
"DX Spectrum needs better documentation on its complex features."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The product is expensive compared to other vendors in the market."
"You need to get special quotes from the company for each order."
"The cost is quite high."
"The solution is not inexpensive but is worth it for large-scale environments."
"I rate the solution's pricing an eight out of ten."
"If we have a license for Cisco DNA, we can use the same license for Cisco Prime."
"The product's performance monitoring feature could be more intuitive."
"We update the license every five years."
"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 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)."
"Spectrum is expensive."
"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."
"DX Spectrum's pricing is neither expensive nor cheap."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
14%
Government
13%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Healthcare Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
16%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
8%
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: October 2025.
870,701 professionals have used our research since 2012.