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Cisco Prime [EOL] vs DX Spectrum comparison

 

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

Cisco Prime [EOL]
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
35
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
DX Spectrum
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
117
Ranking in other categories
Network Management Applications (7th), Network Monitoring Software (20th), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (19th), Network Troubleshooting (6th), DX NetOps (1st)
 

Featured Reviews

ZeeshanAli1 - PeerSpot reviewer
Robust, cost-effective, and provides good visibility, but the scalability could improve
We are extremely satisfied with the reliability and robustness of Cisco Prime Infrastructure, which we have been using for many years. Compared to newer products such as DNS centers or others, it has proven to be much more stable, which is important for large-scale operations. Stability is a primary concern for us, and we are glad that Cisco Prime Infrastructure meets our expectations in that regard. Furthermore, in regards to Legacy Plus new hardware, Cisco Prime has proven to be a reliable and adaptable solution thus far. Not only can it support older hardware, but it also has the capability to handle new features with the latest updates. If we consider new solutions such as DNS Center, we may have to sacrifice some legacy features that we still rely on. We may need to continue using these legacy features for a few more years due to various reasons such as budget constraints or the site not being a high priority. However, if we switch to a new product at this stage, we may lose a lot of the monitoring and other capabilities that we have with Cisco Prime. We have a close relationship with Cisco and understand that they are not prioritizing investments in Cisco Prime as they are encouraging customers to adopt the Cisco DNA Center. This means that we don't anticipate many new features to be added to the product in the future. While we know that we will eventually have to transition to a new solution, in the meantime, we plan to do a quick refresh of our legacy products.
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

"The most valuable feature of Cisco Prime is the heat maps."
"If an AP or any wireless device goes into critical mode, Cisco Prime sends an alert. That is the most helpful feature."
"The installation is easy."
"What I found most beneficial from Cisco Prime is that it gives you an insight into what your network does, even when you're not actively monitoring what's going on with your network."
"Cisco Prime can help customers fix their Wi-Fi issues with scientific and digital data."
"The VLAN mapping function has been most impactful in simplifying our network management tasks."
"Cisco Prime is user-friendly, so we are comfortable using it."
"Cisco Prime is helpful as it provides us with real-time monitoring. This allows us to be proactive in our environment."
"Generally, I would recommend DX Spectrum because, despite its pricing issue, it is a valuable solution."
"Scalable and stable network monitoring tool with a simple setup."
"The main thing is obviously notifications about alerts, getting ahead of the curve to make sure that we do not have system going down, or if it is down we get to know it earlier."
"It helps our NetOps group actually handle alarms in a way that lets them see the bigger picture of those alarms, and how they might affect our services. It helps us communicate information about the network state better to services that might be impacted by a specific network condition."
"Some of the most valuable features are it's highly scalable, the carrier is great, and if something has SNMP, it can monitor it. It's a great network fault management solution."
"It is easy to navigate."
"What I like best is the configuration management functionality."
"The tool is very mature, and its valuable features are monitoring and configuration management."
 

Cons

"The product needs to improve its stability."
"The product's performance monitoring feature could be more intuitive."
"If you look at some of the wireless site-survey tools that are available in the commercial space, Cisco should include similar solutions, which would help our on-plant engineers when they're doing a site survey."
"We would like to see the inclusion of detailed alerts."
"Lacking in integration with a SIEM tool."
"They can also improve the management of more enterprise devices."
"Cisco Prime could improve the notifications in the system. Having more details about what is happening would be useful, such as traffic numbers or who is connected. We can see them through the firewall controller, but it would be better if you can see them from one place."
"Cisco Prime's initial setup is complex."
"Support from Broadcom could be better. Sometimes we wait a very long time for a solution to level three problems."
"Our consultant was four months on-site doing Spectrum setup and working through issues."
"It needs better integration with other CA products."
"Integration with some other tools, and integration with some Network Packet Broker, need some improvement."
"The platform is complicated to use."
"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."
"It doesn’t give you performance metrics: You need CA eHealth for this."
"I think the management or configuration of devices needs some improvement."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution is not inexpensive but is worth it for large-scale environments."
"The product's performance monitoring feature could be more intuitive."
"The cost is quite high."
"If we have a license for Cisco DNA, we can use the same license for Cisco Prime."
"We update the license every five years."
"The price of Cisco Prime was reasonable because we purchased it as part of a Cisco One package. The package was a bundle of Cisco solutions together, such as Cisco ISE and CMX. The price is reasonable com compared to other solutions."
"Cisco Prime is an expensive solution."
"You need to get special quotes from the company for each order."
"The price is good enough to expect an ideal solution. It's expensive."
"Currently, a perpetual license but some services are moving to a subscription"
"In general, the license cost will be about 30% of the total TCO for this tool (hardware/support team, OS costs, and OS management)."
"DX Spectrum's pricing is neither expensive nor cheap."
"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."
"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."
"It is expensive compared to other tools in the market."
"The product, support, and maintenance are all expensive, which is another reason that we are switching to another solution."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Government
14%
Computer Software Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Healthcare Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
17%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
7%
Comms Service Provider
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business9
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise23
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business26
Midsize Enterprise19
Large Enterprise88
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Cisco Prime?
The most valuable features of Cisco Prime include its comprehensive functionality as a one-stop solution for basic SNMP port management.
What needs improvement with Cisco Prime?
The product's performance monitoring feature could be more intuitive.
What is your primary use case for Cisco Prime?
We use Cisco Prime for centralized configuration management backups and monitoring.
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?
The price of DX Spectrum is not competitive when compared to other solutions, such as SolarWinds. The high price has caused us to lose many deals.
What needs improvement with DX Spectrum?
I would like to see improvements in making the interface more user-friendly. Many people find it not simple to use. One of the common customer complaints is about the alarm notifications. Currently...
 

Also Known As

Cisco Prime Infrastructure
CA Spectrum
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Mohawk Industries, Universidad EAFIT, Halton Healthcare
National Informatics Centre India, Banese, Olympus, AlphaServe Technologies, Sicredi
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Fortinet and others in Network Management Applications. Updated: October 2025.
872,846 professionals have used our research since 2012.