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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
30th
Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring
29th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
118
Ranking in other categories
Network Management Applications (11th), Network Troubleshooting (8th), DX NetOps (1st)
Ixia Hawkeye
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
85th
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 April 2026, in the Network Monitoring Software category, the mindshare of DX Spectrum is 1.3%, up from 0.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Ixia Hawkeye is 0.4%, 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 Spectrum1.3%
Ixia Hawkeye0.4%
Other98.3%
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

"Spectrum does such a great job of discovering our network that we have a high confidence in what our inventory is."
"It does correlation so instead of producing 20 alarms if a site goes down, it only creates one."
"It's easy to implement, very configurable, and you can easily add new alerts and watch lists so we can certify new devices and watch the behavior of these new devices out of the box."
"Its scalability is very good, as it can be used in huge environments."
"The stability is very good - the best we've seen in the market."
"It creates transparency and makes everything work by being more transparent."
"The stability and reliability of the Spectrum product have been top-notch."
"With CA Spectrum, we are now able to monitor more proactively network assets, reduce the total downtime of these and prevent money from being lost for device stoppages."
"Our customer was happiest with the price of this product."
"The ease of setup is the most valuable aspect of this solution. It's easy to set up and run tests."
"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."
"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."
 

Cons

"Event correlation only works on one server, rather than on all of the servers in the same cluster environment."
"CA Broadcom support is very bad—one of the worst."
"I think the management or configuration of devices needs some improvement."
"The price is high, as compared to other solutions."
"The biggest issue is our integration right now between UIM and Spectrum is lacking."
"For us, the implementation was quite complex but it's because of the large number of different environments we're dealing with."
"The price is high enough to expect an ideal solution."
"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."
"The customization of tests and even the results can be improved."
"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."
"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."
"Improvements in network performance are essential."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price is very high."
"It’s a great tool, but an expensive one. Learn how to use it properly."
"DX Spectrum's pricing is neither expensive nor cheap."
"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)."
"It is expensive compared to other tools in the market."
"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."
"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
14%
Construction Company
10%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Construction Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Outsourcing Company
10%
Comms Service Provider
7%
 

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: March 2026.
885,728 professionals have used our research since 2012.