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DX Spectrum vs Ixia Hawkeye 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

DX Spectrum
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
17th
Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring
20th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
118
Ranking in other categories
Network Management Applications (8th), Network Troubleshooting (6th), DX NetOps (1st)
Ixia Hawkeye
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
82nd
Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring
66th
Average Rating
9.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
4
Ranking in other categories
Unified Communications Monitoring (5th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2026, in the Network Monitoring Software category, the mindshare of DX Spectrum is 1.6%, up from 0.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Ixia Hawkeye is 0.5%, up from 0.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Network Monitoring Software Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
DX Spectrum1.6%
Ixia Hawkeye0.5%
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.
José Enrique Cano Rodriguez - PeerSpot reviewer
Assistant Consultant at Tata Consultancy
A valuable tool for optimizing network performance and security with comprehensive network monitoring capabilities, user-friendly interface, and flexibility for scripting
Distinguishing itself from network management systems like SolarWinds Orion and Dataminer, Hawkeye offers a distinctive feature. It empowers network administrators to access specialized and detailed views for specific tests, including video streaming and performance related to specific applications like video games. In contrast, SolarWinds and Dataminer typically offer a more general evaluation of network health. Hawkeye's unique capability enables a detailed analysis of network performance through specific tests, allowing administrators to identify areas in need of improvement and take precise actions to enhance network performance.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It allows us to manage alerts, schedule downtime and maintenance, as well as triage documentation for our support teams."
"The valuable features of this tool are its scalability and ability to automate inputs and outputs of a closed system."
"This is a very powerful tool with a lot of functionality."
"The presentation layer is pretty simple and straightforward and the dashboard is pretty easy to read."
"If we can be proactive, we maintain maximum uptime of our network infrastructure."
"With the implementation of the shallow water approach, we've been able to significantly cut down on the number and duration of outages and the number of severities in all the categories."
"It is easy to understand and determine when and/or where the network is failing."
"I have found the cross analysis feature to be the most valuable."
"It empowers network administrators to access specialized and detailed views for specific tests, including video streaming and performance related to specific applications like video games."
"Our customer was happiest with the price of this product."
"So far, this product is doing exactly what it is promised to do."
"The most valuable feature is the deployment because it's very easy to deploy real flow through the network."
"The ease of setup is the most valuable aspect of this solution. It's easy to set up and run tests."
"I would recommend Ixia Hawkeye because there are some KPIs that are very useful."
 

Cons

"Every versions running on Windows Server 2008 (R2) that I've worked after that (versions 9.2, 9.3 and 9.4) have had some issues either with OneClick/Spectro Server communication (hanged alarms for instance) or with global loss of SNMP communication with network devices, or DDMdb increasing indefinitely or with some unexplainable SSDB crashes."
"CA Broadcom support is very bad—one of the worst."
"I would say integration between performance monitoring and CA Spectrum, as well as improved graphing capabilities."
"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."
"For us, the implementation was quite complex but it's because of the large number of different environments we're dealing with."
"CA Spectrum provides value, but it can be very expensive."
"NCM needs to be more user-friendly and refined."
"A big problem for us now is the Java requirement for the console."
"You can't delete more than one thing at a time. It would be great to be able to highlight three out of five things and delete them, whether it's a test or an actual report."
"Ixia has one flaw, which is that they do not print the license code on the paper licenses that are shipped to the customers."
"The customization of tests and even the results can be improved."
"Improvements in network performance are essential."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price of the solution is reasonable."
"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 solution's pricing could be better."
"Currently, a perpetual license but some services are moving to a subscription"
"DX Spectrum's pricing is neither expensive nor cheap."
"The price is very high."
"The price is good enough to expect an ideal solution. It's expensive."
"It cost us approximately 25,000 for two years. This is cheaper than ThousandEyes."
"In larger networks, the costs for licenses tend to be more reasonable, but for smaller networks, it appears relatively costly."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
16%
Construction Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Outsourcing Company
7%
Construction Company
14%
Outsourcing Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Computer Software Company
8%
 

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...
Ask a question
Earn 20 points
 

Also Known As

CA Spectrum
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

National Informatics Centre India, Banese, Olympus, AlphaServe Technologies, Sicredi
EMA
Find out what your peers are saying about DX Spectrum vs. Ixia Hawkeye and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
899,125 professionals have used our research since 2012.