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DX Spectrum vs Fortra's Intermapper comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 10, 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

DX Spectrum
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
16th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
118
Ranking in other categories
Network Management Applications (8th), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (18th), Network Troubleshooting (7th), DX NetOps (1st)
Fortra's Intermapper
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
79th
Average Rating
8.2
Number of Reviews
4
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2026, in the Network Monitoring Software category, the mindshare of DX Spectrum is 1.6%, up from 1.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Fortra's Intermapper is 0.5%, up from 0.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Network Monitoring Software Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
DX Spectrum1.6%
Fortra's Intermapper0.5%
Other97.9%
Network Monitoring Software
 

Featured Reviews

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.
AL
SVP of Networking and Operations at Skywire Networks
It tremendously cuts down our troubleshooting timeframe, but needs advanced SLA monitoring and reporting
They can do a better job with SLA reporting. It does some basic reporting, but it really doesn't offer the ability to monitor devices by groups, customers, or carrier to give an overall health performance of specifically-defined environments. That's where HelpSystems Intermapper could have done a better job. I would love to see advanced SLA monitoring and reporting in this solution. They already have a lot of ingredients. They already have SNMP polling. It is really about what people are looking for from SLA monitoring, especially someone who looks at the network topology. You want to see your endpoints. You want to see half of your endpoints by simply analyzing ICMP or SNMP-based availability of your endpoints. Having an ability to define your group and how you bring devices into your group would be a huge benefit.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The topology correlation for layers one, two, three, and four significantly reduces the number of false positives (>98% ratio)."
"It is very stable. We have not had any major issues in over 10 years."
"CA Spectrum helps our organization improve network service levels, and with Spectrum’s integrated automated fault management and fault isolation features, it helped us reduce MTTR by 50% and costs as well."
"Clear picture of all network and server pictures Centralized console to manage network and systems All backup for router configurations"
"CA Spectrum allowed our client, a Tier 1 TELCO, to manage their E2E network infrastructure, proactively monitor Enterprise: GMPLS, IPVPN, ISDN, LTE and Leased Line services against set SLAs, and maintain a top quality of service, while the easy integration of topology views to a web portal provided a wow factor by exposing real-time performance and health status of enterprise infrastructure setups to customers."
"It does correlation so instead of producing 20 alarms if a site goes down, it only creates one."
"DX Spectrum has been great for us; it's the strongest available, the main problem is the pricing, but it's in accordance with the features."
"For network management, this application is by far the best."
"The solution has a couple of features which are really interesting; it's not a fancy or expensive solution but we wanted to have a cost effective one and it's doing its job pretty well."
"It's a nice graphical interface, a nice map, that relates Layer 1 to Layer 3, virtually instantly, to the Helpdesk support staff. It provides a default place to get critical information so we can deploy our staff."
"Put Intermapper in as your base to start from, hands-down."
"What is really cool about HelpSystems InterMapper is that because of its SNMP base, you can integrate all different makes and models on the same map. You, of course, can have more than one map, but you have an option to have visibility into the entire network from one centralized system. You can monitor IPs, routers, radios, DC power plants, and UPS. You can do it all from one network management and monitoring solution. That's what really makes HelpSystems Intermapper great. Another great thing about HelpSystems InterMapper is that you can really bundle different probes under one device. You can have a bundled device. You can monitor the physical status of a host based on the IP availability. You can also monitor services and actually see if anything happens. You can quickly determine whether it is the application layer, host layer, or network layer. HelpSystems Intermapper gives such a unique representation of a network. Ever since we started using HelpSystems InterMapper, we don't have to document everything in a detailed format and store it somewhere. Right now, it is really a combination of network topology, network monitoring, and network analyzing. So, in my opinion, it is awesome. When you have your SNMP topology defined, you don't require a dedicated NMS engineer to manage your system, which is another great thing about HelpSystems InterMapper. I see how our operators get so excited by having the ability to map a device or interface and connect interfaces together. HelpSystems InterMapper is also very operator friendly; not just user friendly, but also operator friendly. This is a unique feature, and it works really great."
"The most valuable features are its: log history, real-time monitoring capabilities, accuracy - the number of false positives is very low, and the mapping features."
"Right now, it is really a combination of network topology, network monitoring, and network analyzing, so, in my opinion, it is awesome."
"The graphical alerting with the ability to obtain a quick overview of a monitored device is my favorite feature."
"It's all today portal-based which is a good feature for us."
 

Cons

"I would recommend AI capability built-in so it becomes more predictable and we jump ahead of the curve. This is the one really important feature I would really like to see in any product that provides alarms."
"The biggest issue is our integration right now between UIM and Spectrum is lacking."
"I would suggest improving the web GUI to improve the device monitor configuration and to improve or to integrate the new tool for reporting."
"I'd like to have more dynamic weather map capabilities and network mapping tools."
"Sometimes the front-line people need to push it up to the second-level quicker."
"CA Broadcom support is very bad—one of the worst."
"Our consultant was four months on-site doing Spectrum setup and working through issues."
"The Spectrum OneClick is a Java-based client, and that's aging. Really, before any new feature integration, I'd love to see a comprehensive rebuild of the UI."
"It's a smaller solution so tools are not as advanced as you would find in a larger solution"
"They can do a better job with SLA reporting. It does some basic reporting, but it really doesn't offer the ability to monitor devices by groups, customers, or carrier to give an overall health performance of specifically-defined environments. That's where HelpSystems Intermapper could have done a better job. I would love to see advanced SLA monitoring and reporting in this solution. They already have a lot of ingredients. They already have SNMP polling. It is really about what people are looking for from SLA monitoring, especially someone who looks at the network topology. You want to see your endpoints. You want to see half of your endpoints by simply analyzing ICMP or SNMP-based availability of your endpoints. Having an ability to define your group and how you bring devices into your group would be a huge benefit."
"I'd love to see more of the network management side of it coming back into it. If we were able to run scripts to bounce ports on switches, that would be great. It's asking a lot, but it's actually very doable because I do it through scripting into other products. If we could incorporate that directly into Intermapper, that would be fantastic."
"I have seen instances where Intermapper does not seem to recover from network changes."
"I'd love to see more of the network management side of it coming back into it."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"The product, support, and maintenance are all expensive, which is another reason that we are switching to another solution."
"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."
"The price is very high."
"Currently, a perpetual license but some services are moving to a subscription"
"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."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Outsourcing Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Construction Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Outsourcing Company
12%
Government
11%
Comms Service Provider
11%
Construction Company
10%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business25
Midsize Enterprise19
Large Enterprise90
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

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...
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Also Known As

CA Spectrum
HelpSystems Intermapper
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

National Informatics Centre India, Banese, Olympus, AlphaServe Technologies, Sicredi
Greater Media Detroit, University of British Columbia, Don's Farm Supply
Find out what your peers are saying about DX Spectrum vs. Fortra's Intermapper and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
912,818 professionals have used our research since 2012.