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ControlUp vs DX Spectrum comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 9, 2024

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

ControlUp
Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring
37th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.9
Number of Reviews
11
Ranking in other categories
Digital Experience Monitoring (DEM) (5th)
DX Spectrum
Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring
20th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
117
Ranking in other categories
Network Management Applications (7th), Network Monitoring Software (21st), Network Troubleshooting (6th), DX NetOps (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the IT Infrastructure Monitoring category, the mindshare of ControlUp is 0.9%, up from 0.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of DX Spectrum is 0.8%, down from 0.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
IT Infrastructure Monitoring
 

Featured Reviews

Richasvi Tripathi - PeerSpot reviewer
Used to monitor several devices, but most reports do not give information of all the devices
We have approximately 10 to 20 feature requests pending on the vendor side. Most reports give information about the top 100 devices, but not all of the devices. In our case, we are monitoring 200000 devices. So, we need details for all those devices, but that is limited to 100, which they have improved to an extent in some reports. I'm thinking of one feature request for ISPs because the dashboard does not provide a detailed list of ISPs, and it provides the wrong list. I feel some firewall issues are blocking that, and the team cannot send that detail. That may be the case. One feature request pending on the vendor side is the data format change. Once you see a detail in the report, it is mentioned in some other format, which is hard to analyze sometimes.
Umair (Abu Mohaymin) Akhlaque - PeerSpot reviewer
Good for monitoring, covers networks well
If you are looking for the right monitoring tool, Spectrum is one of the best solutions. It covers networks very well. It has all the capabilities that you're looking for when it comes to monitoring. Spectrum is great for root cause analysis. It has excellent correlation event management. Spectrum's stability and scalability are also amazing. If you have a CA Service Desk, then it can be integrated so that if you have open tickets they can be closed automatically. The configuration manager is great as well.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Security, uptime, and reduced capital expenditures are the main reasons we use ControlUp. So basically, the money that we consume is based on the amount of time we are using a service."
"The most valuable feature is the granularity of visibility into the resources that are in use by our applications."
"It shows you so many details of what's going on in that log-on that, if there's a problem, you can identify it in five minutes."
"ControlUp is beneficial as it provides a web interface through which you can access all your infrastructure—servers, devices, and VDI infrastructure—all on the same platform. It supports gathering all infrastructure components in a single, unified dashboard. This helps you identify performance issues or high resource utilization, allowing quick troubleshooting. I appreciate the solid interface that ControlUp offers."
"ControlUp has some good functionalities, such as remotely pushing scripts in the device through the tool."
"The script-based actions have allowed us to extend the core reporting capabilities."
"It has a great career time monitoring tool."
"ControlUp has an easy installation process."
"The granular access control that it provided so that you could only see devices that were related to what you were working on was great. I couldn't see the entire inventory of devices. I could only see the ones that were related to my work. It has got a very granular access control component."
"The most valuable feature is the ability to put health checks in place not only for the infrastructure but for some of the services that are on top of the infrastructure."
"We were able to standardize the internal processes across all internal departments, resulting in almost an elimination of non-standard process flows through our organization."
"The product’s stability and robustness are valuable."
"I have found the cross analysis feature to be the most valuable."
"We use Spectrum for network analysis, failure detection, and sending information to our service management tool."
"As the kind of enterprise that straddles the line between telco size and enterprise size, it scales for us, because we're not all the way at telco yet."
"​It covers a lot of different types of hardware. It can do a lot and saves us time.​"
 

Cons

"We'd like to see the mobile app working again so that we can get alerts 24/7. This is especially useful for the person on call."
"This solution be improved by including load throttling tools. For example, I can identify a service where we spend a lot of CPU but I cannot restrict the service from ControlUp. I have to use another tool like AppSense."
"Most reports give information about the top 100 devices, but not all of the devices."
"Something I would love to see from a partner perspective would be maybe a way to do this in a surface hosting provider."
"It can be improved by including script-based scheduling."
"ControlUp could improve the integration. Microsoft Azure Virtual Desktop monitoring has better integration."
"There was some lag earlier, and reports pulled from the dashboard would sometimes be half an hour old. But now, the information provides real-time status, which is greatly appreciated. Overall, I've seen improvement in the product."
"Integration is always a problem, and we feel that we are doing our best and the service provider thinks they are doing their best. I guess if ControlUp's system could be more capable or if people could understand the integration part, that would be better."
"OS monitoring needs to be better developed, as well as their services, e.g., cluster monitoring, URLs, etc."
"It needs better integration with other CA products."
"There's a little bit of complexity to the initial install because you're dealing with operating systems. You have to make sure all the prerequisites are done, anti-virus exceptions, etc. Then there's the bringing it up and then there's discovery of the network and setting that up. It takes time."
"The product should provide performance management features."
"The solution could improve by allowing the ability to monitor the network shortly after installing the software and adding an auto-discovery function."
"If the integration is simplified or improved, it will be a unique selling point in comparison to the competition on the market."
"The biggest issue is our integration right now between UIM and Spectrum is lacking."
"Our consultant was four months on-site doing Spectrum setup and working through issues."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Personally, I would say that the only thing I could compare it to is another monitoring tool that we use, Nagios."
"We are satisfied with the price compared to other solutions."
"Based on my experience, ControlUp is not that expensive."
"Spectrum is expensive."
"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."
"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 solution's pricing could be better."
"The price is very high."
"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."
"DX Spectrum's pricing is neither expensive nor cheap."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
15%
Computer Software Company
14%
Healthcare Company
12%
Insurance Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
20%
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for ControlUp Real-time?
Based on my experience, ControlUp is not that expensive. It is a cheap tool because it is deployed to many devices where I work.
What needs improvement with ControlUp Real-time?
We have approximately 10 to 20 feature requests pending on the vendor side. Most reports give information about the top 100 devices, but not all of the devices. In our case, we are monitoring 20000...
What is your primary use case for ControlUp Real-time?
We use the tool to monitor approximately 2,00,000 devices for a client. We check how the devices are doing in terms of hardware and software. We also check their health and alerts every day. If som...
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...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

No data available
CA Spectrum
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

B/E Aerospace, North Carolina SECU, Vancouver Island Health Authority, University of Florida
National Informatics Centre India, Banese, Olympus, AlphaServe Technologies, Sicredi
Find out what your peers are saying about ControlUp vs. DX Spectrum and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
850,028 professionals have used our research since 2012.