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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
67th
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

"The tool is very mature, and its valuable features are monitoring and configuration management."
"I switched from Spectrum to Nimsoft because it's a better product for me."
"Spectrum is designed for large infrastructures, anything less than 4000 devices and it is probably a waste of money"
"Monitoring window, graphical representation of devices, automatic updating of databases, high scalability, high robustness, and user-friendly options are some of the most valuable features for us."
"Scalability and performance are great."
"Spectrum is heavily loaded with alarm configuration, so it can detect whenever things go wrong, including issues I didn't even know could happen on my network, and I have integrated it into my ITIL incident, change, and problem management systems so it feeds right into my existing processes."
"Everything being centrally located in one infrastructure management tool allows anyone anywhere, between the IT help desk, to Windows teams, Unix teams, or the network team to see exactly what devices are causing the issue, as well as the severity of those issues."
"I must say, CA is an excellent company and their client always comes first."
"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."
"Our customer was happiest with the price of this product."
"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."
"I would recommend Ixia Hawkeye because there are some KPIs that are very useful."
 

Cons

"There appears to be no intelligence within Spectrum itself, for example if we were to move a network device to a different switch port, it will see the neighbor as being available, but the link or switch port as down."
"Integration with some other tools, and integration with some Network Packet Broker, need some improvement."
"For my use case, incident coordination was an area of improvement. The internal software engine for coordinating outages could use improvement because sometimes, we used to get false alerts for unrelated devices. They did a really good job of trying to make sure that you got one major alert and any of the subsequent devices downstream were just additions to that, but occasionally, the engine wouldn't properly catch the right things, and we used to get a flood of alerts."
"The interface is not nice and needs to be improved."
"It doesn’t give you performance metrics: You need CA eHealth for this."
"Huawei devices are not properly supported, and there are incompatibility issues related to certain protocols."
"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."
"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."
"Improvements in network performance are essential."
"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."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It’s a great tool, but an expensive one. Learn how to use it properly."
"It is very pricey. With the current trend of enterprises moving towards cheaper and more modern looking solutions like ManageEngine, SevOne, ServicePilot, and Paesller."
"The price is good enough to expect an ideal solution. It's expensive."
"Spectrum is expensive."
"DX Spectrum's pricing depends on the license number. It is affordable."
"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 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."
"In larger networks, the costs for licenses tend to be more reasonable, but for smaller networks, it appears relatively costly."
"It cost us approximately 25,000 for two years. This is cheaper than ThousandEyes."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
16%
Construction Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Outsourcing Company
7%
Construction Company
13%
Outsourcing Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
11%
University
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.
900,644 professionals have used our research since 2012.