Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

DX Spectrum vs NetBrain comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jul 11, 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 Troubleshooting
6th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
117
Ranking in other categories
Network Management Applications (7th), Network Monitoring Software (21st), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (21st), DX NetOps (1st)
NetBrain
Ranking in Network Troubleshooting
15th
Average Rating
7.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
6
Ranking in other categories
Network Automation (4th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the Network Troubleshooting category, the mindshare of DX Spectrum is 4.6%, up from 2.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of NetBrain is 3.0%, up from 1.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Network Troubleshooting
 

Featured Reviews

DickBaker - PeerSpot reviewer
An all-inclusive monitoring solution that adapts to emerging technologies
The product helps to correlate events.  The solution's most valuable features are its integration with Broadcom tools and scalability. DX Spectrum needs better documentation on its complex features.  I have been using the product since 2005.  I rate DX Spectrum's stability an eight point five…
Deborah Gamelin - PeerSpot reviewer
Good monitoring and troubleshoot capabilities, improves overall network traffic visibility
In my organization, we had 130,000 network devices that needed to be brought into the solution and mapped. NetBrain can handle the scale but the engineers that manage those devices have to go in and update all of them to allow NetBrain permission to poll them. It can get a little stressful for everybody when you're trying to roll out new stuff when you've got other issues that have to be addressed with other devices. In some cases, our devices had no automation at all. One example is the Cisco 3650. Right now, if you went through the inventory list, you see that we have different versions running. Some are on one version, whereas others are on another version. The problem with upgrading them is that they need to be done overnight because we don't want to disrupt any network traffic during business hours. Consequently, it could take us years to upgrade the versions before we can even get them onto these new tools. This may be an internal issue but it's a big one when you have a lot of devices. Even if you had 10,000 devices, it's still an issue. You have to consider the compatibility of the device against the tool, and being able to use certain commands to upgrade it.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"We can monitor MPLS network VPN, network configuration, and backups. It's highly scalable for network configuration management."
"Scalability is a highly rated feature of this solution. It is better than some of the other tools that I've used in terms of scalability. We scaled it to tens of thousands of devices."
"Offers a lot of functionality."
"The main thing is obviously notifications about alerts, getting ahead of the curve to make sure that we do not have system going down, or if it is down we get to know it earlier."
"​It covers a lot of different types of hardware. It can do a lot and saves us time.​"
"DX Spectrum uses an SNMP Trap to accept all the details, especially for device monitoring of faulty devices, allowing me to use Spectrum effectively."
"It has a high-quality graphical interface."
"The Spectrum tool improved our network assurance levels for our business units."
"A reliable, time-saving tool for providing accurate layer 2 and layer 3 network mappings."
"This product has good network monitoring and troubleshooting capabilities."
"Chain management is a good feature. I don't get it on other solutions."
"Enables maps to be drawn out."
"NetBrain is a very simple tool."
 

Cons

"If the integration is simplified or improved, it will be a unique selling point in comparison to the competition on the market."
"It was somewhat complex to implement."
"For us, the implementation was quite complex but it's because of the large number of different environments we're dealing with."
"OS monitoring needs to be better developed, as well as their services, e.g., cluster monitoring, URLs, etc."
"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 takes some time to learn how to use this solution."
"It's not a great performance management tool. Its reporting capabilities are not very good at all."
"It doesn't really allow for multi-tenancy. If you're an ISP or an MSP and you want to use this tool to provide these types of fault management services to your customers, you would need a separate SpectroSERVER for each customer..."
"It would be nice if the setup was a little simpler. Also, if the solution could provide more training materials for new people coming into our company so they can quickly learn how to use the functionalities."
"Each device needs to be configured to allow NetBrain to poll for the information it needs, which can be very time-consuming for a large network."
"Support needs to improve for the installed product and some of the reporting could be more flexible to provide more complete cataloging."
"The IP interface brief isn't consistent."
"The solution could integrate more automation."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price is good enough to expect an ideal solution. It's expensive."
"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."
"DX Spectrum's pricing depends on the license number. It is affordable."
"The product, support, and maintenance are all expensive, which is another reason that we are switching to another solution."
"The price is very high."
"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."
"Licensing is based on a per-device basis, which means that it can get very expensive if you have a large number of devices."
"The product is expensive, but less expensive than some of the competition and worth the price."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Network Troubleshooting solutions are best for your needs.
865,295 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
17%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Computer Software Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
6%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Computer Software Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Government
10%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about DX Spectrum?
The solution's most valuable features are its integration with Broadcom tools and scalability.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for DX Spectrum?
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.
What needs improvement with DX Spectrum?
I would like to see improvements in making the interface more user-friendly. Many people find it not simple to use. One of the common customer complaints is about the alarm notifications. Currently...
Ask a question
Earn 20 points
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

CA Spectrum
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

National Informatics Centre India, Banese, Olympus, AlphaServe Technologies, Sicredi
CompuCon, TD Ameritrade, Move Inc.
Find out what your peers are saying about DX Spectrum vs. NetBrain and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
865,295 professionals have used our research since 2012.