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Cisco DNA Center vs DX Spectrum 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

Cisco DNA Center
Ranking in Network Management Applications
1st
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
12th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.3
Number of Reviews
41
Ranking in other categories
Network Automation (2nd)
DX Spectrum
Ranking in Network Management Applications
7th
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
21st
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
117
Ranking in other categories
IT Infrastructure Monitoring (20th), Network Troubleshooting (6th), DX NetOps (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Network Management Applications category, the mindshare of Cisco DNA Center is 26.9%, down from 29.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of DX Spectrum is 2.5%, down from 2.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Network Management Applications
 

Featured Reviews

AvrahamSonenthal - PeerSpot reviewer
Efficiently manages our wireless network and provides valuable monitoring features
The platform's biggest benefit has been in managing our wireless network. Having a single pane of glass to control all wireless controllers and access points and to monitor activity has been a significant advantage. We're a small federal agency with around 300 network devices, so automation is a minor focus. It's more relevant for larger networks. The main benefits we've seen are in inventory management and the potential for configuration automation. However, I recommend using the DNA Centre only for larger networks with over a thousand devices; otherwise, it may not be cost-effective. Before proceeding, ensure that your devices are compatible with DNA Center, as not all Cisco devices are supported. Also, investing in proper training is different from plug-and-play. I rate it an eight.
Umair (Abu Mohaymin) Akhlaque - PeerSpot reviewer
Good for monitoring, covers networks well
If you are looking for the right monitoring tool, Spectrum is one of the best solutions. It covers networks very well. It has all the capabilities that you're looking for when it comes to monitoring. Spectrum is great for root cause analysis. It has excellent correlation event management. Spectrum's stability and scalability are also amazing. If you have a CA Service Desk, then it can be integrated so that if you have open tickets they can be closed automatically. The configuration manager is great as well.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It is simple to manage and it is all done from a single dashboard."
"The most valuable feature of Cisco DNA Center is the AI (Artificial Intelligence) that provides us with valuable information."
"Has a good processing feature with a high level of accuracy."
"The solution has the capability to scale."
"The solution helps with the management and orchestration of campaigns. It helps with visibility and analytics. I also like its SDA configuration."
"I like that we can easily configure any new hardware. It's also easy to deploy and easy to troubleshoot."
"I think that their LAN automation is a very good feature."
"It gives us automation capabilities for pushing out the configuration to branch networks. It also provides visibility into the health of user network devices."
"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 most valuable feature is the auto-discovery, which is nice because you don't have to do anything to add a new component."
"Spectrum does such a great job of discovering our network that we have a high confidence in what our inventory is."
"The performance manager is very good."
"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."
"The most valuable feature is the event correlation mechanism."
"The fault management is perfect."
"​Stability has been good. We really have not had any issues.​"
 

Cons

"There should be an option for automation of template deployment by using the stored data. It is not easy to save configuration information for lots of devices without using other tools. There should be a tighter, better repository of information that can be merged with the templates."
"There is a limitation with the number of VRFs that you can have in your network, and this has caused us problems with some customers."
"They should include UTM features in the product."
"The tool's IoT integration should be better."
"An area for improvement in Cisco DNA Center is the latency in data correlation. For example, sometimes, when an issue happens, and I check the logs, I can't find the corresponding log. There's a delay in log replication, so this is what needs improvement in Cisco DNA Center. Reporting in Cisco DNA Center could also be improved because it only has a few templates, and you can't customize it based on your requirements. There aren't many options available in Cisco DNA Center regarding reporting, versus Cisco Prime, which has excellent features for different levels of detailed reports. I'd like to see real-time data replication in the next release of Cisco DNA Center, similar to what's done in Meraki. Data in Meraki is real-time with no delay, so data is immediately replicated in the cloud. Currently, there's a lag in Cisco DNA Center, and addressing that lag is the enhancement I'd like to see in Cisco DNA Center. The solution also needs to be more user-friendly."
"Technical support could be better. The price could be better, and it could be more stable."
"It seems to be a little bit more centered toward wireless than wired. You've got more options you can do wirelessly than you can with the wired switches, but it works for what we need it to do. We would like to see a little bit more about the traffic, and we're looking at what's out there to see about that. We are looking at something that might give us a bit more insight into the actual traffic. If they had the full functionality on the wired side, as they do on the wireless side in terms of being able to view traffic and everything, it would be good."
"The tool's deployment is complex. It also needs to improve its GUI."
"If the integration is simplified or improved, it will be a unique selling point in comparison to the competition on the market."
"For us, the implementation was quite complex but it's because of the large number of different environments we're dealing with."
"The solution's stability needs improvement."
"DX Spectrum is stable. However, now and then there are some issues, but overall it is good."
"We have had some issues with the spec server and the high availability replication of data. It fails over well, but it does not come back very well. We get duplicated events."
"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."
"It doesn't really allow for multi-tenancy. If you're an ISP or an MSP and you want to use this tool to provide these types of fault management services to your customers, you would need a separate SpectroSERVER for each customer..."
"I would recommend AI capability built-in so it becomes more predictable and we jump ahead of the curve. This is the one really important feature I would really like to see in any product that provides alarms."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Cisco DNA Center is too expensive."
"I rate the product's pricing an eight on a scale of one to ten, where one is very cheap, and ten is very expensive."
"We have a three-year license with them."
"The partnership price is notably high, but it ultimately depends on the chosen business model."
"Cisco DNA Center is a licensed product with multiple levels of licensing available such as basic, advanced, and essential. I don't have the exact figure, but Cisco DNA Center is costly. For example, the box has information about the essential license and costs a considerable amount of money. You need to pay extra to use advanced features in Cisco DNA Center. My company sees Cisco DNA Center as a solution that's worth the money, which is why it invested in the solution. If you want centralized management for your network, especially when upgrading it, Cisco DNA Center is perfect, but it's more suitable for a large-scale rather than a small-scale network."
"Affordability is a problem because it's created for large enterprises only. So, some customers, even if their engineers want the solution, might have problems with budget limitations."
"The solution is a little bit expensive but depends a lot on the customer's usage. If you use it in the right place, you can easily pay for it."
"The solution is expensive."
"The price is very high."
"The product, support, and maintenance are all expensive, which is another reason that we are switching to another solution."
"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."
"The solution's pricing could be better."
"The price is good enough to expect an ideal solution. It's expensive."
"DX Spectrum's pricing depends on the license number. It is affordable."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
17%
Government
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
6%
Financial Services Firm
20%
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Cisco DNA Center?
The most valuable feature of the solution stems from the fact that it gives some kind of ease in operations, especially since our company is moving from CLI to GUI-based configuration.
What needs improvement with Cisco DNA Center?
The system is working fine for me currently.
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?
We are a customer of Broadcom, we use a group license that covers various CA products, including DX Spectrum. The company purchases the licenses they need from this group license, and we do not hav...
What needs improvement with DX Spectrum?
DX Spectrum should have an automatic ticketing mechanism with ServiceNow. I need to use other tools for event management. It has a dashboarding mechanism and monitors devices and network switches t...
 

Also Known As

DNA Center
CA Spectrum
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
National Informatics Centre India, Banese, Olympus, AlphaServe Technologies, Sicredi
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco DNA Center vs. DX Spectrum and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
849,190 professionals have used our research since 2012.