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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
17th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
118
Ranking in other categories
Network Management Applications (7th), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (16th), Network Troubleshooting (7th), DX NetOps (1st)
Network Instruments Observer
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
104th
Average Rating
0.0
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2026, in the Network Monitoring Software category, the mindshare of DX Spectrum is 1.7%, 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 Spectrum1.7%
Network Instruments Observer0.3%
Other98.0%
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

"It is easy to navigate."
"We were able to monitor their entire network infrastructure and receive valuable alerting in a timely fashion so that we could react to any instances when there were down devices."
"​Stability has been good. We really have not had any issues.​"
"It's a good tool; it's simple to do the configuration and has good discovery and integration."
"We can plan changes and replacement of end-of-life products in our environment very well because it's very accurate."
"The topology correlation for layers one, two, three, and four significantly reduces the number of false positives (>98% ratio)."
"It is an excellent tool for monitoring, managing event correlation, and providing integration with other tools."
"DX Spectrum is a very good solution; it's the best network monitoring tool in the market."
"The product has allowed us to have a recording of all business critical network data."
 

Cons

"Needs better integration with all the other products in the Agile suite of tools; anything they could do to make that less complex, would be great."
"It took a while to understand the product, but once we went hands on, it's great to work with."
"OS monitoring needs to be better developed, as well as their services, e.g., cluster monitoring, URLs, etc."
"It doesn’t give you performance metrics: You need CA eHealth for this."
"The configurations are still XML-based and require a good deal of coding to setup each object for monitoring."
"It's really tough to say because it really does have a lot to do with how much time you put into it."
"There are a very few occasions when the system "barfs" and it looks like your infrastructure has gone dark, but it bounces back quickly (the system)."
"Technical support is so-so. It depends on who you get."
"Customer service was below average and the local value added reseller did not know the product very well."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"DX Spectrum's pricing depends on the license number. It is affordable."
"The price is very high."
"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."
"The price is good enough to expect an ideal solution. It's expensive."
"It’s a great tool, but an expensive one. Learn how to use it properly."
"It is expensive compared to other tools in the market."
Information not available
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
15%
Outsourcing Company
14%
Construction Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
10%
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...
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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, Datadog, SolarWinds and others in Network Monitoring Software. Updated: October 2026.
917,433 professionals have used our research since 2012.