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DX Spectrum vs Pandora FMS 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
21st
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
117
Ranking in other categories
Network Management Applications (7th), Network Troubleshooting (6th), DX NetOps (1st)
Pandora FMS
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
46th
Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring
44th
Average Rating
9.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
22
Ranking in other categories
Server Monitoring (18th), Log Management (34th), Cloud Monitoring Software (28th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the Network Monitoring Software category, the mindshare of DX Spectrum is 0.9%, down from 1.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Pandora FMS is 0.5%, up from 0.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Network Monitoring Software
 

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…
Gabriel Glusgold - PeerSpot reviewer
Personalized metrics; simplicity of data
My primary use case for Pandora is monitoring This solution has helped us improve our organization by allowing us to create a lot of metrics on several platforms, including Windows, Linux, and Unix. We then use these Pandora metrics to create an interface. We then pass the interface off to the…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The Global Collections are what I found to be most valuable. With the Global Collections, you're able to organize and categorize devices into "folders," or functional groups and categories, so that it doesn't matter which SpectroSERVER those devices are on."
"The quick notification of issues, quick alerting because timeliness is always valuable, it's very important for us."
"The tool is very mature, and its valuable features are monitoring and configuration management."
"It is easy to understand and determine when and/or where the network is failing."
"The capability of handling and monitoring with SNMP and working with the SNMP traps is much better than other products."
"We use Spectrum for network analysis, failure detection, and sending information to our service management tool."
"All networks (or network equipment) are monitored through CA Spectrum."
"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."
"The monitoring system within this solution is very good. It is easy to use and navigate, and makes issue alarms easily viewable."
"The official forum is active enough to answer most of the high-end technical questions that you may have."
"What I value most about Pandora FMS is the simplicity of working with it."
"Pandora's architecture is interesting. It's open so you can easily extend and enhance it. It's simpler to customize Pandora compared to other solutions. It's also scalable enough to support large environments."
"The administration of the console is very easy. I like that Pandora FMS is interactive and easy to manage."
"The most valuable features are auto-discovery and automatic detection of the network topology and network monitoring."
"The solution is so lightweight that with only 4GB of ram, it allows keeping track of up to two hundred agents from a single console."
"The most valuable feature is that it is an all-in-one monitoring system."
 

Cons

"There's a little bit of complexity to the initial install because you're dealing with operating systems. You have to make sure all the prerequisites are done, anti-virus exceptions, etc. Then there's the bringing it up and then there's discovery of the network and setting that up. It takes time."
"Event correlation only works on one server, rather than on all of the servers in the same cluster environment."
"If they could interact with the MIBs of vendors better, and have a lot more pre-loaded ones, that would be amazing for us right now."
"If nobody else has said the documentation needs improvement, let's go there. I understand, you can either write about it or you can do it. And most of us would rather they do it, but now that they've done it, those of us that didn't do it, we need to go and find: "Where did they write about this to tell us how to do it?" That's always lacking."
"DX Spectrum should have an automatic ticketing mechanism with ServiceNow."
"Its visualization can be improved. It doesn't have a very advanced GUI. It is very basic and simple, but it does work."
"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."
"Huawei devices are not properly supported, and there are incompatibility issues related to certain protocols."
"I would like for the solution to be faster and have a better tolerance between parallel servers for Pandora and Pest Control."
"Pandora FMS is relatively new, and the interface with the older version crashes at times. We have several different operating systems, such as Linux and Windows, and Pandora does not run as well in these."
"I sincerely believe that Pandora needs new ideas for functionality closer to advanced device security monitoring."
"A nice feature in the next release would be an automation module to run workflow actions."
"Pandora FMS is an overall great monitoring solution, but it does not have a community that is as large as Zabbix or Nagios."
"We would like to see improvement in the mainframe integration that this solution is capable of."
"Improvements are needed for server and network discovery, including service-based discovery."
"Their support is good, but it is just online communication. It would be great to be able to just call someone and talk to them instead of always writing. It works well for me because I am a decent communicator in email, but some people might find it difficult to describe in a written fashion and communicate with them that way. There is a learning curve to the interface, but once you get used to it, it is actually very powerful. They have a lot of options, but people struggle with the interface. They've improved it though, and it is getting better. They need to keep improving the learning curve to help buy-in. I'm the guy that manages it, so I'm comfortable with it. They can refine the upgrade agents to be easier. They can also do more refinement in end-user usability because not everyone is strong technically, and people who aren't strong technically might be averse to the product, even though it has come a long way. It has a complete GUI and everything."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price of the solution is reasonable."
"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)."
"The solution's pricing could be better."
"Spectrum is expensive."
"It’s a great tool, but an expensive one. Learn how to use it properly."
"DX Spectrum's pricing depends on the license number. It is affordable."
"DX Spectrum's pricing is neither expensive nor cheap."
"My rule of thumb would be that if you need more than thirty agents, and you lack an automation tool such as Chef or Puppet, you will save a lot of time and money going to the Enterprise edition."
"You get the license and it includes updates, new versions, and access to the complete library of modules."
"You have to pay for the number of agents and models that you are monitoring. I would rate the cost at three with one being the most expensive and five being the cheapest."
"Growing the solution or migrating to the Enterprise version is easy, and various plans are available."
"Only one payment and it includes support, updates, new versions, and access to the complete library of plugins except for SAP and z/OS."
"They are very competitive on the pricing side. That's one reason why my manager keeps using it."
"The open-source version offers 100% functionality and the hardware requirements for a solution like this one are very modest."
"The Open Source Community Edition is great to just explore the software, or use it on medium-sized infrastructures."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
17%
Computer Software Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Government
13%
Comms Service Provider
11%
Computer Software Company
8%
Media Company
8%
 

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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Comparisons

 

Also Known As

CA Spectrum
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

National Informatics Centre India, Banese, Olympus, AlphaServe Technologies, Sicredi
Rakuten, Prosegur, Repsol, Teléfonica, Allianz, Ottawa Hospital, Hughes
Find out what your peers are saying about DX Spectrum vs. Pandora FMS and other solutions. Updated: August 2025.
865,670 professionals have used our research since 2012.