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DX Spectrum vs SolarWinds NPM comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 9, 2024

Review summaries and opinions

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

ROI

Sentiment score
7.1
DX Spectrum users see 100% ROI with automation enhancing data accuracy, reducing labor costs, and improving infrastructure monitoring.
Sentiment score
7.4
SolarWinds NPM delivers quick ROI with cost savings, enhanced efficiency, and improved network visibility for proactive management and profitability.
The return on investment is significant as the solution effectively reduces costs while being worth its expense.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
7.0
DX Spectrum's customer service is highly rated, but technical support experiences vary, with delays post-Broadcom acquisition.
Sentiment score
6.9
SolarWinds NPM's support is knowledgeable but faces issues in response speed, sales tactics, and customization support options.
Broadcom technical support is very good.
We had contact with SolarWinds regarding the implementation, and they were helpful.
They have good technical support.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
8.1
DX Spectrum is praised for its scalability, integrating easily into large infrastructures with minimal adjustments needed for expansion.
Sentiment score
6.9
SolarWinds NPM is scalable and adaptable, with flexible deployments but may need dedicated hardware for optimal performance.
SolarWinds NPM is scalable and effective in handling large network infrastructures.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.3
DX Spectrum is praised for stability, with minor issues often due to configurations, effectively supported for solutions.
Sentiment score
7.5
Properly managed SolarWinds NPM is stable, with fewer issues in updated versions, relying on infrastructure planning and resource allocation.
 

Room For Improvement

DX Spectrum users seek HTML5 transition, better integration, improved event management, and simpler deployment, citing cost concerns versus competitors.
SolarWinds NPM faces challenges with accuracy, user interface, scalability, support, stability, resource use, and pricing concerns.
The event management should have more deduplication and alert correlation and check the bidirectional communication with ServiceNow.
SolarWinds needs to upscale on observability and add full-fledged observability features, including security features.
 

Setup Cost

DX Spectrum is costly for small-to-medium businesses, though flexible and negotiable for enterprises; Broadcom's acquisition increased complexity.
SolarWinds NPM offers competitive pricing but can be costly; complex licensing and additional fees may impact smaller businesses.
The solution is considered expensive.
Pricing-wise, SolarWinds NPM is more expensive than PRTG.
 

Valuable Features

DX Spectrum provides comprehensive network management with topology views, automation, and multi-vendor support, enhanced by a user-friendly interface.
SolarWinds NPM offers easy deployment, intuitive monitoring, customizable dashboards, multi-vendor support, scalability, and community-driven enhancements for proactive management.
DX Spectrum uses an SNMP Trap to accept all the details, especially for device monitoring of faulty devices, allowing me to use Spectrum effectively.
The most valuable feature for us is the database performance analyzer, which we use a lot.
SolarWinds NPM has specific modules for monitoring different network capabilities, which provides rich features for carrying out specific tasks.
 

Categories and Ranking

DX Spectrum
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
21st
Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring
21st
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
117
Ranking in other categories
Network Management Applications (6th), Network Troubleshooting (6th), DX NetOps (1st)
SolarWinds NPM
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
4th
Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring
5th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
157
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Monitoring Software (6th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2025, in the Network Monitoring Software category, the mindshare of DX Spectrum is 0.9%, down from 1.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SolarWinds NPM is 4.6%, down from 6.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Network Monitoring Software
 

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…
MohitKumar - PeerSpot reviewer
High-level, comprehensive, and proactive monitoring in a user-friendly interface
The solution needs to integrate with additional SDN technologies that are part of the hyper market. The solution supports many vendors by default and just included Meraki SDN with the new release, but continued expansion is important. We created a custom method to pair with unsupported vendors but that can produce a lag in performance so future releases should expand SDN support. The solution does a good job of automating features but could expand that even more.
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838,713 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Comparison Review

it_user174738 - PeerSpot reviewer
May 31, 2015
Nagios vs. Zabbix vs. PRTG vs. Spiceworks vs. Solarwinds Network Performance Monitor
I have researched a quite a few network monitoring tools which can be used for various monitoring purposes of not only the servers, but the intermediate routers as well. There are majorly three types of these softwares. Ones which are completely open-source, you can do almost anything you want…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
19%
Computer Software Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Government
7%
Educational Organization
58%
Computer Software Company
6%
Manufacturing Company
5%
Financial Services Firm
4%
 

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...
What is the best network monitoring software for large enterprises?
It actually depends on the exact purpose or kind of devices (network devices, servers, something else). Some tools are better for only network devices while others are better for a cloud monitoring...
What is the best network monitoring software for large enterprises?
We are partners with SolarWinds and we sell a lot of Network management to large enterprises also because of scalability, products like Network Performance Monitor & Netflow Traffic Analyzer ar...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

CA Spectrum
Solarwinds Network Performance Monitor, SolarWinds Network Bandwidth Analyzer
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

National Informatics Centre India, Banese, Olympus, AlphaServe Technologies, Sicredi
Microsoft, Federal Express, Hewlett-Packard, and MasterCard
Find out what your peers are saying about DX Spectrum vs. SolarWinds NPM and other solutions. Updated: February 2025.
838,713 professionals have used our research since 2012.