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DX Spectrum vs OptiView XG [EOL] comparison

 

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
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 (17th), Network Troubleshooting (6th), DX NetOps (1st)
OptiView XG [EOL]
Average Rating
8.6
Number of Reviews
38
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

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…
MW
A valuable, impressive, and portable product that saves time and has great scalability and stability
It just saves time. We have run into situations where contractors come in, and they plug in a WiFi device that is handing out DHCP addresses, which affects the rest of the network. To be able to quickly identify from where the problem is originating, you need a network tool that can identify the device that is doing this. It just brings into clear focus the exact issue when there is a problem or outage. When there is a crisis and you've several people wanting to know an estimate of when things are going to be back up and running again, you need to have answers. I have been at places that didn't have a tool like that. I know one place that had an outage for almost a week, and it was craziness. It turned out to be just a bad cable. That's all it was. They were having trouble with their email server, which was an on-premise email server, but emails were taking six hours to appear. The whole problem was because of a bad network cable. When I plugged in the Fluke analyzer, it analyzed and told me immediately that there were transmission errors on this one port from one switch. It told me this within 10 minutes. It is an incredible product.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The most valuable features have been the interface and the ability to do equipment management."
"​The stability of the product is key. It never breaks, really. The stability and reliability of the Spectrum product have been top-notch.​"
"The containerization of different objects was very helpful in building an org structure. Being able to separately manage your MSP clients with separate visibility was also helpful."
"Spectrum is great for root cause analysis. It has excellent correlation event management. Spectrum's stability and scalability are also amazing."
"The fault management is perfect."
"​Stability has been good. We really have not had any issues.​"
"It is very stable. We have not had any major issues in over 10 years."
"Scalable and stable network monitoring tool with a simple setup."
"Gives us the ability to see our network."
"It is a very valuable tool. It goes out and does a discovery, which is a great process of it. You could have something like a rogue DHCP server, and it will identify it, and then you can see to which switch port it is connected. It is quite an impressive tool. I really liked it because you didn't have to install an agent on anything. It would just go out and do its discovery. For me, that's great."
 

Cons

"The visual is a little archaic."
"The solution's stability needs improvement."
"I would suggest improving the web GUI to improve the device monitor configuration and to improve or to integrate the new tool for reporting."
"I think the management or configuration of devices needs some improvement."
"Its visualization can be improved. It doesn't have a very advanced GUI. It is very basic and simple, but it does work."
"It doesn’t give you performance metrics: You need CA eHealth for this."
"It was somewhat complex to implement."
"It's not a great performance management tool. Its reporting capabilities are not very good at all."
"Its price can be improved. Their support can also be improved a little bit. In terms of features, it did everything I wanted it to do. With more features, I would have to start installing network agents or something else, and I don't want to have to install anything. This was the value for me about this device."
"I would like a built-in tap feature which doesn't interfere with the network, and it allows you to see what is happening there."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"DX Spectrum's pricing is neither expensive nor cheap."
"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."
"The price of the solution is reasonable."
"It is expensive compared to other tools in the market."
"Currently, a perpetual license but some services are moving to a subscription"
"It is very pricey. With the current trend of enterprises moving towards cheaper and more modern looking solutions like ManageEngine, SevOne, ServicePilot, and Paesller."
"Spectrum is expensive."
"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."
"Its price was a bit excessive. The device that I had died. It is under warranty, and they want $20,000 for another one. I just don't want to spend that kind of money, so I'm trying to find an alternate solution. They have annual maintenance on it, which probably was 10% a year, so it all starts to add up."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
18%
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
6%
Government
14%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Computer Software Company
11%
Comms Service Provider
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

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...
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Also Known As

CA Spectrum
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

National Informatics Centre India, Banese, Olympus, AlphaServe Technologies, Sicredi
XG is used in all industries. Example customers include: Republic National Distributing Company, Titelive, CitiGroup, Los Angeles Unified School District, Saudi German Hospital, DeKalb County Schools, Valdosta State University, The Everett Clinic, Bio-Reference, Miami-Dade Library, Mitel, Borsa Istanbul, Cimarex, Air National Guard Lowndes County, High Point City, Carrollton City Schools, Kern County, Pruitt Communications and Bosch Group.
Find out what your peers are saying about Zabbix, Auvik, SolarWinds and others in Network Monitoring Software. Updated: May 2025.
859,579 professionals have used our research since 2012.