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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
21st
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
65th
Average Rating
9.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
4
Ranking in other categories
Unified Communications Monitoring (5th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 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

"We were able to monitor their entire network infrastructure and receive valuable alerting in a timely fashion so that we could react to any instances when there were down devices."
"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."
"The Spectrum tool improved our network assurance levels for our business units."
"The network monitoring features are the product’s most valuable, due to the lack of these capabilities in any other monitoring tool."
"With the timely alerts that our MTTR reduced, we could determine the impact of the outage as well as the root cause of the issue."
"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."
"Spectrum is the best."
"Scalable and stable network monitoring tool with a simple setup."
"The ease of setup is the most valuable aspect of this solution. It's easy to set up and run tests."
"The most valuable feature is the deployment because it's very easy to deploy real flow through the network."
"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."
"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."
 

Cons

"Customer Service: It's poor. Technical Support: It's poor."
"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."
"I would like to see CA move Spectrum, Performance Manager, and some of their other tools moved to a SaaS based model. You see a lot of other manufacturers which are moving toward SaaS based models."
"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."
"In my opinion, it's the documentation that I find is not up to the mark."
"This solution is too complicated to use for us, especially if you have many components."
"The biggest issue is our integration right now between UIM and Spectrum is lacking."
"It's difficult to analyze and configure. It's not a very smart tool."
"The customization of tests and even the results can be improved."
"The customization of tests and even the results can be improved."
"Improvements in network performance are essential."
"Ixia has one flaw, which is that they do not print the license code on the paper licenses that are shipped to the customers."
"Ixia has one flaw, which is that they do not print the license code on the paper licenses that are shipped to the customers."
"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."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is expensive compared to other tools in the market."
"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."
"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 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 very pricey. With the current trend of enterprises moving towards cheaper and more modern looking solutions like ManageEngine, SevOne, ServicePilot, and Paesller."
"The price of the solution is reasonable."
"The solution's pricing could be better."
"Currently, a perpetual license but some services are moving to a subscription"
"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
17%
Construction Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Construction Company
13%
Outsourcing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Comms Service Provider
9%
 

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: April 2026.
892,868 professionals have used our research since 2012.