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DX Spectrum vs Plixer Scrutinizer comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 10, 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
30th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
118
Ranking in other categories
Network Management Applications (11th), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (29th), Network Troubleshooting (8th), DX NetOps (1st)
Plixer Scrutinizer
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
74th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
15
Ranking in other categories
Network Traffic Analysis (NTA) (12th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2026, in the Network Monitoring Software category, the mindshare of DX Spectrum is 1.3%, up from 0.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Plixer Scrutinizer is 0.5%, up from 0.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Network Monitoring Software Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
DX Spectrum1.3%
Plixer Scrutinizer0.5%
Other98.2%
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.
Ira Mulyanti - PeerSpot reviewer
Sales Director at ARGA SOLUSI
An affordable product with great integration capabilities
Plixer Core Platform is a valuable feature and a good software. Plixer Scrutinizer uses NetFlow analysis to monitor whatever is there in a network. Price-wise, Plixer Scrutinizer is not an expensive product. Basically, Plixer Scrutinizer is an affordable product. Plixer Scrutinizer is a tool that allows for customization, especially in scenarios where customers need new product features. Plixer Scrutinizer is a tool that can integrate with any other brand or product in the market, so it is not an area of concern.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Its ability to alert us on network issues before they become critical is a great benefit."
"The alarm and root cause analysis features are the most valuable to me, as they help to pinpoint causes of outages and performance issues and identify the specific component responsible for an issue, thus accelerating problem and issue resolution."
"This is a very good, refined product that, in the fault-tolerant configuration, approaches being bulletproof."
"It has a high-quality graphical interface."
"The most valuable feature is automatic discovery."
"The fact that I don't have to sit and watch things; they get monitored, and then I hear about them and take care of them as needed."
"It is a very stable solution."
"Root-cause analysis and modelling pinpoint the exact cause of problems, which makes life easier."
"Plixer Scrutinizer is an affordable product. Plixer Scrutinizer is a tool that allows for customization, especially in scenarios where customers need new product features."
"We didn't experience any bugs."
"The most valuable features of the solution are the ability to track what a device is doing and to go back historically. It is also able to go down to, and identify, very low levels of traffic."
"The most valuable features of Plixer Scrutinizer are its ease of use, accessibility, and UI."
"The reporting and generating troubleshooting reports would be the best feature; our host-to-host conversation reporting."
"If you really want to know what's happening on your network, this is one of the best tools that you can use."
"My boss and I have been very happy with the product."
"It shows us the saturation of the network of devices. It gives us a clear view of the flows in the network to understand, for instance, planning upgrades in the network to get an idea of what's going on the network on traffic flows. It gives us insight, for instance, on what's going on on our VPN Client. There are a lot of things where it provides very helpful information. It also gives us our security reports with quite detailed information on what's going on in the network, and whether there are data exfiltrations and so on."
 

Cons

"Sometimes the front-line people need to push it up to the second-level quicker."
"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."
"I would like to see easier use in some things, such as trying to configure certain correlations I've been working on. It's been a little bit of a hassle, because I'm not super familiar with their products and the best way to go about things."
"I think it still has room for improvement as far as the application, but support could also be improved."
"Only if the server that hosts the application is restarted without bringing down Spectrum. If this occurs it corrupts the database and has to be restored from the backup."
"I would say integration between performance monitoring and CA Spectrum, as well as improved graphing capabilities."
"The graphical interface is still designed in an old fashioned way, and they should include some management views in a much more modern manner."
"​I would like to see them eliminate the Java console. The user interface for this is a Java applet that runs on your desktop, and it is very problematic for us."
"It would be useful if there was a way to back up the configuration information. E.g., if you wanted to deploy a new instance or disaster recovery, you could quite easily deploy and restore the config, as opposed to having to restore all the NetFlow data. If there was just a button that said "backup config information", that would be good."
"I wish the reporting side was easier to work with, but it does a decent job."
"For updating the Scrutinizer platform, when we have the actual data, it never happens in one day."
"Though Plixer Scrutinizer has network detection and response, it's an area that needs just a little more rounding out. Another room for improvement in the solution is its lack of SaaS offering which some customers were looking for. My company deals in small to medium businesses, mid-market, and some customers wanted the SaaS feature which Plixer Scrutinizer doesn't offer. What I'd like to see in the next release of the solution is for it to have a SaaS offering because my company also deals with educational spaces and smaller businesses that just don't have the staff that can implement this. If there's either a managed service or SaaS-based offering to just make it a little easier for those types of customers, it would be a great addition to Plixer Scrutinizer."
"There is room for improvement around the data that they have on the website about solutions... they should have more templated solutions on their website. Going out and identifying how to do RTP performance with a Cisco router, or how to do application response times in an Arrista data center deployment was where most of the work was... They should spend some more time documenting solutions and putting together white papers."
"We were trying to set up some configuration, but it just wasn't quite working properly; we couldn't get it set up properly."
"There is room for improvement around the data that they have on the website about solutions."
"From what I understand it is that the solution is not very scalable in a high volume traffic environment with a large number of flows."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The product, support, and maintenance are all expensive, which is another reason that we are switching to another solution."
"It is very pricey. With the current trend of enterprises moving towards cheaper and more modern looking solutions like ManageEngine, SevOne, ServicePilot, and Paesller."
"DX Spectrum's pricing is neither expensive nor cheap."
"The price of the solution is reasonable."
"Spectrum is 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."
"It’s a great tool, but an expensive one. Learn how to use it properly."
"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."
"We pay our one-off cost for the licenses, per device, in blocks of 50. And then we pay an annual maintenance fee of about $15,000 Australian, which is, at this point in time, about $9,000 US, for those 250 devices. The upfront costs for the 250-license use, were about $50,000 Australian, which is about $32,000 US."
"Currently, the license for Plixer Scrutinizer is subscription-based and at a yearly fee. The price would depend on the amount of traffic you pull in. For example, there are several blocks from a 10K flow, a 40K flow, and a 100K flow, and based on the number of devices that you receive the flows from, that's the license, and it is not a per-interface pricing model, so that is a very strong, very competitive pricing feature of Plixer Scrutinizer. Licensing for the product is also not based on the number of storage, compared to some competing products that are priced based on the amount of storage you need, particularly based on the retention and the amount of data. Plixer Scrutinizer licensing is based on the device, and it's more in the direction of $10,000 because, with just $1,000, you don't have anything."
"There is a recurring maintenance fee after the initial purchase or if we want the license upgrade."
"Our entire solution, amortized over five years, is in the vicinity of $40,000 to $50,000 a year."
"The licensing cost for Plixer Scrutinizer is in the middle. It's not the cheapest, but it's not the most expensive. Its licensing model is based on how many exporters, how many devices export information to the system. Plixer Scrutinizer has different modules you could add such as the security module which would cost extra."
"There are no extra costs. It's about $8,000 a year. The bang for the buck (cost) is definitely a plus."
"It's about €10,000 a year for initial license and yearly maintenance costs. In addition, the hardware costs are about €10,000 once every five years."
"We have increased the license over time. We have added more licenses as the network has grown."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
14%
Construction Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Government
8%
Manufacturing Company
7%
University
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business25
Midsize Enterprise19
Large Enterprise90
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business4
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise8
 

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
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Also Known As

CA Spectrum
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

National Informatics Centre India, Banese, Olympus, AlphaServe Technologies, Sicredi
Oxford Networks, Squaw Valley Ski Holdings, UltiSat, Wipro, West Aurora School District 129, SUNY Geneseo College, Bloomington Public Schools, First National Bank of Pennsylvania, Kitsap Credit Union, Metropolitan Transit Authority of Harris County Houston Texas, Carilion Clinic, Banner Health, IDEXX Laboratories, Phibro Animal Health Corporation, Goodwill Industries, Parmalat, Armstrong Coal Company, Flybe, James Walker
Find out what your peers are saying about DX Spectrum vs. Plixer Scrutinizer and other solutions. Updated: March 2026.
885,376 professionals have used our research since 2012.