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DX Spectrum vs LinkRunner comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jul 11, 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

DX Spectrum
Ranking in Network Troubleshooting
6th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
117
Ranking in other categories
Network Management Applications (7th), Network Monitoring Software (21st), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (20th), DX NetOps (1st)
LinkRunner
Ranking in Network Troubleshooting
1st
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
8.2
Number of Reviews
20
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Network Troubleshooting category, the mindshare of DX Spectrum is 3.7%, up from 3.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of LinkRunner is 19.6%, down from 23.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Network Troubleshooting
 

Featured Reviews

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.
Jesse_B - PeerSpot reviewer
Impressive ease of use, gives comprehensive results in seconds, and saves a lot of time and resources
I've found the VLAN test feature to be most valuable. That's because not many devices do VLAN tests. Normally, I have to send a center technician to check a line and see if it's alive. If it's working, then I have to send a network technician out to log into a switch and see which port it's on and on which VLAN that port is. That's two persons and two separate visits. This device does all of this in a matter of seconds, and that has saved me a lot of time, troubleshooting, and resources. Its ease of use is very impressive. LinkRunner allows me to have my technicians run tests that are normally too complex and require a network specialist. AutoTest works with just one click. AutoTest does a lot of testing that would normally require a network specialist to log in to a switch and check out VLAN based on a port. My technicians don't have to log in to the switch anymore. They can just do AutoTest and information is provided online. So, I no longer have to send a specialist. I can have my technician run these very complex tests. It saves me on resources, time, and site visits. When it comes to troubleshooting, based on my experience, it has given very useful and very helpful information, especially for my field technicians. It has reduced my visits and the amount of presence because it gives a very comprehensive report on your network tests. It tests multiple variables and multiple parameters and gives a very informative report that makes it easy to pinpoint what is the root cause. There are many tools in this one solution. It's basically a bunch of toolkits or tool sets in one device, which makes it very powerful testing equipment.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"We use Spectrum for network analysis, failure detection, and sending information to our service management tool."
"Offers a lot of functionality."
"The containerization of different objects was very helpful in building an org structure. Being able to separately manage your MSP clients with separate visibility was also helpful."
"The most valuable feature is the event correlation mechanism."
"As the kind of enterprise that straddles the line between telco size and enterprise size, it scales for us, because we're not all the way at telco yet."
"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."
"What I like best is the configuration management functionality."
"The quick notification of issues, quick alerting because timeliness is always valuable, it's very important for us."
"It is fast in providing results. It is pretty accurate."
"LinkRunner 10G is very handy for onsite troubleshooting and implementations. We can quickly identify the links in terms of 1G, 2.5G, 5G, and 10G on the copper side, and also from 1G up to 10G on the fiber side. It is very handy for me because we deal with a lot of banks. Especially for the provisioning of new services, we use this tool to identify the link capacity and do the necessary testing to ensure all the circuits are ready before the handover to the next team to operate the technology. This is something that saves a lot of time as compared to the old days."
"The auto-test feature is vital and does 90 percent of what I need on its own. It's fast and I can get there in just a few clicks. It does a good job and tells me everything I need to know. LinkRunner works pretty quickly and always seems to be accurate."
"The most valuable feature is the end-to-end testing with the "dart," as they call it, where you can test for faults in the cable or if they've been terminated properly."
"I like the fact that I can tell the equipment to stop at a certain point during the test of a cable, to see whether or not there is basic connectivity. I can stop it before it starts pinging the outside world, such as Google or, perhaps, our core network switch. Those basic results—do I have a basic connection and power—finish up fast and I can move on."
"The solution's ability to simplify network validation and configuration of copper and fiber Ethernet networks is very useful to me. Otherwise, I’m guessing. Having a tool that I can trust doesn't solve all problems, but for the problems it solves, I can trust that it has told me “yes” or “no.” I would rate it highly for that."
"Having the results sent directly, via email, from the LinkRunner itself makes it really great for logging different things that you're trying to document within your organization. You can have a paper trail of what your organization has as far as infrastructure goes."
"It provides a way to test 10Gig connectivity. Previously, we had to hook up a switch. That was our only way. Now, with LinkRunner, we can test on the fly if an SFP is bad or if the switch has the right configuration on it."
 

Cons

"DX Spectrum should have an automatic ticketing mechanism with ServiceNow."
"The product should provide performance management features."
"Huawei devices are not properly supported, and there are incompatibility issues related to certain protocols."
"I think the management or configuration of devices needs some improvement."
"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."
"It doesn’t give you performance metrics: You need CA eHealth for this."
"For my use case, incident coordination was an area of improvement. The internal software engine for coordinating outages could use improvement because sometimes, we used to get false alerts for unrelated devices. They did a really good job of trying to make sure that you got one major alert and any of the subsequent devices downstream were just additions to that, but occasionally, the engine wouldn't properly catch the right things, and we used to get a flood of alerts."
"I would like to see CA move Spectrum, Performance Manager, and some of their other tools moved to a SaaS based model. You see a lot of other manufacturers which are moving toward SaaS based models."
"Unlike using an application like Wireshark, this device gives us no way to see network packets specifically to look at what's going on. It doesn't have the capability."
"It's a little bit tough getting used to at first, but once you get the hang of it, and once you start using it more, like anything, it gets easier. The difficult part, at first, is knowing where to find each test and how to use the tests."
"It runs tests quickly, but it takes a while to boot up. It's somewhat disappointing that LinkRunner takes some time to turn on. When I arrive in the space, I usually spend the first two minutes waiting."
"Being really nitpicky about the LinkRunner G2, I wish the form factor was a little bit smaller. However, I'm sure that the size of the unit is compromised by the fact that the battery is large. If that were to mean having less battery life, I would not change it."
"It doesn't turn off automatically, but the toning function goes to sleep. It seems to stop toning after five or six minutes if you don't find the cable. It could be up to ten minutes, but if you don't find the cable that you're trying to tone quick enough, you'll have to go back and restart the tone. So, it doesn't turn itself off, but while toning, it turns itself off."
"It does take a little while to boot up if it's turned off."
"It's a bit bulky. It would be nicer if it were a little bit smaller and packed with all its features. I would also like it if the screen were a bit bigger."
"If it weren't for the battery, it would probably get an eight out of 10. But because of the battery, it's infuriating and it's not reliable."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"In general, the license cost will be about 30% of the total TCO for this tool (hardware/support team, OS costs, and OS management)."
"The price of the solution is reasonable."
"DX Spectrum's pricing depends on the license number. It is affordable."
"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."
"The product, support, and maintenance are all expensive, which is another reason that we are switching to another solution."
"The price is very high."
"DX Spectrum's pricing is neither expensive nor cheap."
"It’s a great tool, but an expensive one. Learn how to use it properly."
"They offer one price. I do like paying for support because I get software updates that way."
"I didn't have to buy it, but if I was going to have my choice, I wouldn't buy it just because of the price point. It works pretty well to do one thing. For the cost, it is definitely not worth it. There are other products out there that can do the same thing for probably 70% less. I am not aware of any additional costs."
"I would buy another one if I had a chance but they're too expensive. If they made it a bit cheaper, I think a lot of network engineers and network administrators would immediately jump onto it."
"Compared to another company's product, LinkRunner is cheaper, but it's still about $1,000 too expensive, considering that the operating system is a free operating system. The OS has just been tweaked to give you a graphical interface. I don't think it's priced right."
"Its pricing is all right. Of course, from the business point of view, the cheaper it is, the better it is, but I prefer to spend a bit more money to get a quick response, which is helpful especially when we are onsite or in a very critical situation. We are not only paying for the product. We are paying for the people behind the product in terms of developers and technical support. When you need some help, they will be behind it, and they'll support you. There are no additional costs other than the standard licensing fee."
"It's reasonably priced in my market. It provides good value for money. The device is competitively priced as compared to other solutions. It gives you a lot of functionality and saves you a lot of time and resources. I see it as a good buy and good value for money. I stand for it."
"The area where the product could be improved is by having a lower cost so that I could have more than one. The price is competitive, but everybody would always like to see the price go down. I'd buy another one if it were cheaper."
"The cost of this device is very expensive, especially with the NetAlly Care on top of the costs. It is not for personal use and would be very expensive for smaller businesses."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
20%
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Government
7%
University
11%
Healthcare Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
9%
 

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?
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...
Ask a question
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Comparisons

 

Also Known As

CA Spectrum
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

National Informatics Centre India, Banese, Olympus, AlphaServe Technologies, Sicredi
Philips Healthcare, HCA Healthcare, University of South Dakota, Memorial Hermann, Baltimore County Public Schools, Aaramrak.
Find out what your peers are saying about DX Spectrum vs. LinkRunner and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
848,253 professionals have used our research since 2012.