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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
6.8
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.
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…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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 monitoring is very valuable to me."
"DNA Center is scalable."
"We have many people from the team who manage a lot of devices. By using Cisco DNA Center, it has taken some of that burden away, we are impressed with it. We did the investment in CAPEX, but in the OPEX was very low."
"Cisco DNA Center is a user-friendly solution."
"We can monitor all devices and get the required information using the product."
"The most valuable features of Cisco DNA Center are wireless assurance and visibility."
"Cisco is a leading network company."
"It is easy to understand and determine when and/or where the network is failing."
"The most valuable features of DX Spectrum are the comprehensive alerts."
"​Stability has been good. We really have not had any issues.​"
"The Spectrum tool improved our network assurance levels for our business units."
"This product provides good visibility into applications at the backend."
"It does correlation so instead of producing 20 alarms if a site goes down, it only creates one."
"The performance manager is very good."
"The tool is very mature, and its valuable features are monitoring and configuration management."
 

Cons

"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."
"The features of Cisco DNA Center and Cisco Prime could have more parity."
"What I want to see in Cisco DNA Center in the future is more support for other platforms so that you can manage third-party products, such as Fortinet."
"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."
"What could be improved is the licensing cost of Cisco DNA Center. It's a little bit expensive."
"One area that needs improvement is the upgrade process."
"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."
"An area that needs improvement is the integration with other vendors."
"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."
"DX Spectrum is stable. However, now and then there are some issues, but overall it is good."
"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."
"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."
"A better integration with the UIM, as far as being able to do root cause analysis and that type of analytics."
"The solution could improve by allowing the ability to monitor the network shortly after installing the software and adding an auto-discovery function."
"The Spectrum OneClick is a Java-based client, and that's aging. Really, before any new feature integration, I'd love to see a comprehensive rebuild of the UI."
"Huawei devices are not properly supported, and there are incompatibility issues related to certain protocols."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution is expensive."
"I would rate the pricing a six out of ten, with ten being expensive."
"We get a yearly license at the time we buy the product."
"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."
"It is an expensive solution."
"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."
"Cisco DNA Center is expensive."
"The price could be better. It's a very expensive tool."
"The solution's pricing could be better."
"DX Spectrum's pricing is neither expensive nor cheap."
"Currently, a perpetual license but some services are moving to a subscription"
"The product, support, and maintenance are all expensive, which is another reason that we are switching to another solution."
"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 very high."
"It is expensive compared to other tools in the market."
"The price is good enough to expect an ideal solution. It's expensive."
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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
11%
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: March 2025.
842,767 professionals have used our research since 2012.