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DX Spectrum vs Fortinet FortiManager comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 2, 2025

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 Management Applications
6th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
116
Ranking in other categories
Network Monitoring Software (22nd), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (22nd), Network Troubleshooting (7th), DX NetOps (1st)
Fortinet FortiManager
Ranking in Network Management Applications
3rd
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
64
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2025, in the Network Management Applications category, the mindshare of DX Spectrum is 2.1%, down from 2.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Fortinet FortiManager is 5.5%, down from 5.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Network Management Applications
 

Featured Reviews

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…
HamedWasel - PeerSpot reviewer
Easy to set up with good integration capabilities but we've had troubles when moving devices
We've faced an issue when we need to move devices. Templates need to be recreated instead of having the policies, et cetera, cut and pasted over. Everything should just move over when we need to move devices instead of recreating everything from scratch. For the IPSEC tunnels, Fortimanager doesn't have all of the features that are available on Fortigate.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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."
"Spectrum is great for root cause analysis. It has excellent correlation event management. Spectrum's stability and scalability are also amazing."
"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."
"The solution's most valuable features are its integration with Broadcom tools and scalability."
"We can plan changes and replacement of end-of-life products in our environment very well because it's very accurate."
"I can use it to detect whenever things go wrong on my network."
"We can monitor MPLS network VPN, network configuration, and backups. It's highly scalable for network configuration management."
"It is easy to navigate."
"The main benefit of Fortinet FortiManager is the ability to control all the devices from a central location, view their statuses, and manage their configurations and updates from a single management console."
"The solution has the best stability for application control and inspections."
"You can configure it at your ease."
"The features are good."
"The centralized management of policies and certificates, coupled with the capability to handle multi-site deployments effectively, provides streamlined operations."
"The reports feature is excellent."
"The most valuable feature is the central configuration for firewall policies."
"Without FortiManager, you cannot manage a complex environment across several sites with multiple firewalls."
 

Cons

"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."
"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."
"The biggest issue is our integration right now between UIM and Spectrum is lacking."
"DX Spectrum needs better documentation on its complex features."
"If the integration is simplified or improved, it will be a unique selling point in comparison to the competition on the market."
"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 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..."
"Their EDR products could be better. They need to dedicate more R&D to that area."
"Pricing-wise, it could always be less, even though it is less expensive than Palo Alto."
"There may be a communication issue. However, other items may be the culprit, such as network connectivity. It depends on the customer's network."
"The documentation could be better."
"The solution has some bugs."
"FortiManager could improve by making it easier to port larger policy packages to the FortiGate firewalls. Sometimes, there's an issue when we install a big package of policies. If you have a couple thousand policies for FortiGate firewalls, it can take a few minutes to receive a response from the remote devices. It's only an issue when you're dealing with thousands of policies and installing them on a large number of devices."
"FortiManager could be more user-friendly."
"The graphics interface between Fortinet FortiManager and any Forti products should be standardized."
 

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."
"It’s a great tool, but an expensive one. Learn how to use it properly."
"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."
"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."
"The solution's pricing could be better."
"Fortinet FortiManager can be expensive."
"Fortinet FortiManager operates on a licensing system that is dependent on the number of devices being managed. Yearly subscription renewal is necessary to continue using the service. Although there is a cost associated with Fortinet FortiManager, its price is undoubtedly justified by the value it provides in terms of the purpose it serves."
"Fortinet FortiManager is a low-priced product."
"Fortinet FortiManager is not expensive at all if you compare it with other vendors like Check Point and Cisco. Fortinet products are the least expensive on the market in the category of firewalls."
"The license model they use depends on the size and is not limited to the users."
"In comparison with other products, the price of FortiManager is reasonable."
"If you compare Fortinet and Palo Alto, Fortinet is cheaper, but if you compare Cisco and Fortinet, sometimes Cisco is cheaper because Cisco gives us more discounts because of the size. Cisco isn't cheap, but sometimes, we get a big discount from them."
"For us, it is a little bit expensive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
18%
Manufacturing Company
14%
Computer Software Company
13%
Government
7%
Computer Software Company
19%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

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?
Support from Broadcom could be better. Sometimes we wait a very long time for a solution to level three problems. Challenges and Limitations The only other challenge is the price, which is the main...
What do you like most about Fortinet FortiManager?
The most valuable feature is the centralized management console.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Fortinet FortiManager?
FortiGate offers the same features as Palo Alto yet at a more reasonable price. The ROI justifies the investment.
What needs improvement with Fortinet FortiManager?
FortiManager needs to handle different firewall versions more efficiently. If FortiGate devices have different versions, managing them is challenging. There's also a need to upgrade firewalls or ch...
 

Also Known As

CA Spectrum
No data available
 

Learn More

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

National Informatics Centre India, Banese, Olympus, AlphaServe Technologies, Sicredi
Black Gold Regional Schools, Amadeus Hospitality, Jefferson County, Chunghwa Telecom, City of Boroondara, Dimension Data
Find out what your peers are saying about DX Spectrum vs. Fortinet FortiManager and other solutions. Updated: January 2025.
831,265 professionals have used our research since 2012.