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DX Spectrum vs VMware Aria Operations for Applications 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 IT Infrastructure Monitoring
29th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
118
Ranking in other categories
Network Management Applications (11th), Network Monitoring Software (30th), Network Troubleshooting (8th), DX NetOps (1st)
VMware Aria Operations for ...
Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring
17th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.3
Number of Reviews
14
Ranking in other categories
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability (20th), Container Monitoring (6th), Cloud Monitoring Software (15th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2026, in the IT Infrastructure Monitoring category, the mindshare of DX Spectrum is 1.4%, up from 0.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of VMware Aria Operations for Applications is 1.6%, up from 1.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
IT Infrastructure Monitoring Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
VMware Aria Operations for Applications1.6%
DX Spectrum1.4%
Other97.0%
IT Infrastructure Monitoring
 

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.
AS
Consultant at HCLTech
Automation and insightful diagnostics elevate operations while improvements are welcome
The new version 8.18 has brought significant improvements. The main purpose of using this tool is having a single console to manage all entities. The cloud integration capabilities, including private, public, and hybrid, are already well-implemented. The ability to manage multiple vCenters across different geographical locations is very effective. The new Skyline health feature and certificate and licensing management are particularly useful improvements. The dashboard's overview tab provides comprehensive information about current vCenter status, resizable amounts, reclamation opportunities, anomalies, diagnostics, licensing, and certificates. However, there is room for improvement in application analysis. The current functionality lacks detailed monitoring at the kernel level, focusing mainly on CPU, memory, and storage matrices. Enhanced application monitoring capabilities, including tracking downtime for specific types of applications such as transactional or e-commerce applications, would be beneficial.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"​It covers a lot of different types of hardware. It can do a lot and saves us time.​"
"The most valuable feature is the event correlation mechanism."
"It is very stable. We have not had any major issues in over 10 years."
"Spectrum is very useful for us, because the product lets us monitor and control all the various components of our infrastructure that support our business from an IT perspective."
"I have found the cross analysis feature to be the most valuable."
"Scalable and stable network monitoring tool with a simple setup."
"The solution's most valuable features are its integration with Broadcom tools and scalability."
"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."
"I gladly recommend VMware Aria Operations for Applications because it is cost effective and has commendable AI response capabilities."
"The most valuable aspects of the solution are its ease of use and its ease of implementation."
"People are very pleased with the implementation."
"VMware comes with a support team, and if you have trouble, you can easily create a ticket, and VMware will help you. Therefore, the best aspect is the support."
"Scalability for VMware Aria Operations for Applications is easy to implement and manage."
"This solution allows me to have true visibility for any metrics when it comes to my cloud, and private."
"The stability of Aria Operations for Applications has improved significantly over the years."
"The solution provides single-console management for multiple VMware environments and cloud integrations, whether hybrid, private, or public cloud."
 

Cons

"From a functionality perspective, the product is not doing what it should. Also, there are some concerns about the accessibility. I would appreciate additional out-of-the-box troubleshooting scripts, like templates for addressing various issues. Currently, when troubleshooting online, I need to create my scripts. It would be beneficial if the platform could provide pre-built scripts or templates to help automate certain troubleshooting tasks."
"The GIS map feature needs to be enhanced and synced with topology views of containers and global collections."
"We want to make our own choice for the AIOps solution and do not want to be forced to use the Broadcom OI solution by default."
"I would like to see CA move Spectrum, Performance Manager, and some of their other tools moved to a SaaS based model. You see a lot of other manufacturers which are moving toward SaaS based models."
"The interface is not nice and needs to be improved."
"We have a lot of different monitoring tools in the background, so orchestration has been a little bit of a challenge."
"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."
"Make it easier to certify devices."
"Its billing model is consumption-based. I understand the consumption-based model, but it is not necessarily easy to estimate and guess how many points or how much we are going to consume on a specific application up until we get to that point. So, for us, it would be helpful to have more insights or predictability into what we can expect from a cost perspective if we are starting to use specific features. This can potentially also drive our consumption a bit more."
"VMware technical support has declined since the Broadcom acquisition. Previously, they were more focused on issue resolution, but now they prioritize licensing verification before providing support."
"The documentation and integration with Kubernetes could be improved."
"An area for improvement would be more in-depth reporting, such as analyzing disk IO during business hours compared to after hours."
"They could make it more easy to plug-in data so that a nontechnical person will be able to use it, like accountants or finance people. That way they don't have to ask us."
"I find that there could be improvements in the support service response time, as the urgency varies unless specified as Priority 2 or 1 cases."
"The solution could be expensive, which might be a limiting factor."
"The return on investment is best suited for organizations that do not have the resources for a dedicated VM environment team. However, the cost of the product doesn't show significant benefits."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"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’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."
"I don't have the details. In our case, there is a mixture in place. We have production usage, and we are also doing training for VMware. So, we also have a training instance. It is worth the money you would spend on it. That's because if you were to build all of this yourself by using some of the open source tools, then you would need a lot of time."
"Different locations require different setups. In your terms, around 300 to around 400K USD."
"The licensing costs are very high, particularly when you consider that we have to purchase a level 1 license for every integration, such as the load balancer, HAProxy, and the MSSP. And if you want to use vSAN, that's another license. Then, of course, Tanzu Observability has its own separate license."
"I would rate the pricing as three out of five."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
16%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Marketing Services Firm
6%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Government
8%
Computer Software Company
7%
 

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 Enterprise1
Large Enterprise10
 

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...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for VMware Tanzu Observability by Wavefront?
The solution includes cost drivers that can be configured according to your environment. You can input server-wise, CPU-wise, storage, and memory costs per hour or day. Once cost drivers are provid...
What needs improvement with VMware Tanzu Observability by Wavefront?
The new version 8.18 has brought significant improvements. The main purpose of using this tool is having a single console to manage all entities. The cloud integration capabilities, including priva...
What is your primary use case for VMware Tanzu Observability by Wavefront?
I have been involved in several projects where I had to implement automation and monitoring alerting. I performed automation using VMware Aria Operations for Applications. There is an automation ta...
 

Also Known As

CA Spectrum
Tanzu Observability, Wavefront, Wavefront by VMware, VMware Tanzu Observability
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

National Informatics Centre India, Banese, Olympus, AlphaServe Technologies, Sicredi
1. Atlassian 2. Cisco 3. Databricks 4. DigitalOcean 5. Equinix 6. Fidelity Investments 7. Google 8. Hewlett Packard Enterprise 9. Honeywell 10. IBM 11. Intel 12. JetBlue Airways 13. LinkedIn 14. Lyft 15. Mastercard 16. Microsoft 17. MongoDB 18. Netflix 19. Nvidia 20. Oracle 21. PayPal 22. Pinterest 23. Qualcomm 24. Red Hat 25. Salesforce 26. SAP 27. Spotify 28. Square 29. TMobile 30. Twitter 31. Uber 32. VMware
Find out what your peers are saying about DX Spectrum vs. VMware Aria Operations for Applications and other solutions. Updated: March 2026.
884,076 professionals have used our research since 2012.