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DX Spectrum vs Network Instruments Observer comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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
16th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
118
Ranking in other categories
Network Management Applications (8th), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (18th), Network Troubleshooting (7th), DX NetOps (1st)
Network Instruments Observer
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
108th
Average Rating
0.0
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2026, in the Network Monitoring Software category, the mindshare of DX Spectrum is 1.6%, up from 1.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Network Instruments Observer is 0.3%, up from 0.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Network Monitoring Software Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
DX Spectrum1.6%
Network Instruments Observer0.3%
Other98.1%
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.
reviewer197955 - PeerSpot reviewer
Engineer at a comms service provider with 11-50 employees
The product has allowed us to have a recording of all business critical network data.
Ring capture buffer. Complex filtering The product has allowed us to have a recording of all business critical network data. The Observer application is very complex to use and setup, this should be improved. Windows is unstable, a possible Linux version in future will fix this. 4 years The…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Spectrum is designed for large infrastructures, anything less than 4000 devices and it is probably a waste of money"
"It is easy to understand and determine when and/or where the network is failing."
"We were able to standardize the internal processes across all internal departments, resulting in almost an elimination of non-standard process flows through our organization."
"Overall it is a good tool."
"This is a very stable product and helps us to be proactive and prevents the company from losing money and business by monitoring the entire network (data and voice) of the company (head office and branches) in real time, showing exactly where errors occur."
"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."
"The performance manager is very good."
"The product has allowed us to have a recording of all business critical network data."
 

Cons

"The platform is complicated to use."
"We're trying to replace this solution with another product because it's too expensive and not very user-friendly; it requires training and takes some time to learn how to use it."
"I would like to see a better, more simple web interface."
"CA Broadcom support is very bad—one of the worst."
"Customer Service: It's poor. Technical Support: It's poor."
"A big problem for us now is the Java requirement for the console."
"The tool fails to launch sometimes, and this was a frequent occurrence."
"There is still room for improvement for mobile clients like tablets and smartphones."
"Customer service was below average and the local value added reseller did not know the product very well."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"Spectrum is expensive."
"It is very pricey. With the current trend of enterprises moving towards cheaper and more modern looking solutions like ManageEngine, SevOne, ServicePilot, and Paesller."
"Currently, a perpetual license but some services are moving to a subscription"
"It’s a great tool, but an expensive one. Learn how to use it properly."
"DX Spectrum's pricing is neither expensive nor cheap."
"It is expensive compared to other tools in the market."
"The price is good enough to expect an ideal solution. It's expensive."
Information not available
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Outsourcing Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Construction Company
11%
Comms Service Provider
8%
No data available
 

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
Brno University of Technology
Find out what your peers are saying about Zabbix, SolarWinds, Datadog and others in Network Monitoring Software. Updated: September 2026.
913,806 professionals have used our research since 2012.