No more typing reviews! Try our Samantha, our new voice AI agent.

CA NetQoS Performance Center [EOL] vs DX Spectrum comparison

Why PeerSpot?
 

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

CA NetQoS Performance Cente...
Average Rating
7.6
Number of Reviews
6
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
DX Spectrum
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
118
Ranking in other categories
Network Management Applications (8th), Network Monitoring Software (16th), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (18th), Network Troubleshooting (7th), DX NetOps (1st)
 

Featured Reviews

AS
Netrwork Architect at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees
Multiple modules provide information on everything from TCP packets to latency but report generation is slow
CA Application Delivery Analysis (ADA) When it comes to application and client slowness, this module is able to monitor and analyze TCP packets between clients and servers, providing network metrics, latency, TTL and more. It comes with a friendly GUI, filter, and report function, is easy for management level to understand, and helps network engineers narrow down the problem area. CA Network Flow Analysis (NFA) This module gives you both live and historical network traffic data. Shows which application IP, protocol, or client IP is using the bandwidth, or whether it is an ISP issue. CA NetVoyant Some applications are very sensitive to latency, jitter and bandwidth (they cannot mix with other traffic). This module helps by providing device status, device metrics, and device utilization. CA Event Manager For critical processes that we may need to monitor 24/7, this module helps collect alarms, traps and log streams. This enables the operations team take action quickly.
PinchasAlbalya - PeerSpot reviewer
Network Engineer at a educational organization with 1,001-5,000 employees
Monitoring has become centralized and management now sees real‑time health of key network assets
The time investment required is significant, not because of difficulty but because of the need for free time to invest in it. We need to get the knowledge. We know there are many options, but we took an external vendor to install and make the customization. If we want to make others changes without paying for customization, we need to learn it deeply by ourselves. The tutorials are very complicated. They could work on that area. The tutorial part could be more simplified. I know there are many explanations, and you can get help or documents in one click on the current page in the product, but it is not very clear. If you want to do something new that you did not see from the vendor in the installation, it is not very simple. The documents are good for people that know how to operate the product well, but for new users, it is not simple.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"As we get more and more into what it can do, it's met everything that we've wanted at this point."
"One of the key benefits is doing the performance management piece where you can track the utilization of network connections and see where your block points are, and if you have errors happening that affect performance that you don't necessarily see as alarms."
"If you need solid data and reporting for management, planning, and troubleshooting, this could be the right product."
"The most valuable feature I think is the ability to go in and perform updates yourself."
"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."
"Functionality of the tool is awesome and it is easy for customers to use."
"From the business perspective, they have improved MTTR significantly, creating an elevated ROI ratio."
"Spectrum is heavily loaded with alarm configuration, so it can detect whenever things go wrong, including issues I didn't even know could happen on my network, and I have integrated it into my ITIL incident, change, and problem management systems so it feeds right into my existing processes."
"The great aspect about the CA Spectrum tool is not what it does, but the integration that it provides with the other CA monitoring tools, such as CA APM."
"Without a doubt the most valuable feature of this solution is its scalability."
"It was used as a tool to observe critical alarms on network nodes and act immediately."
"Overall it is a good tool."
 

Cons

"I'd like more ease-of-use."
"It would be really nice if you could do multiple domain authentication as opposed to just a single domain."
"Reports can take a long time to generate."
"So, I guess a more organized view of all the data that it provides would be an improvement we'd want."
"CA Spectrum provides value, but it can be very expensive."
"The EventDisp logic (code) is too complex."
"We found the process of DX Spectrum down from time to time, and we need to interfere manually to restart."
"I would like to see them eliminate the Java console. The user interface for this is a Java applet that runs on your desktop, and it is very problematic for us in a large organization where Java is looked at as the big, bad evil thing that we should never have installed on anybody's computer because of security reasons and all that."
"NCM needs to be more user-friendly and refined."
"It's not a great performance management tool. Its reporting capabilities are not very good at all."
"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."
"It's very difficult to use and customize. In order to maintain the software, we need specialized help."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"The price is very high."
"The price is good enough to expect an ideal solution. It's expensive."
"It’s a great tool, but an expensive one. Learn how to use it properly."
"The product, support, and maintenance are all expensive, which is another reason that we are switching to another solution."
"The solution's pricing could be better."
"The price of the solution is reasonable."
"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 very pricey. With the current trend of enterprises moving towards cheaper and more modern looking solutions like ManageEngine, SevOne, ServicePilot, and Paesller."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Network Monitoring Software solutions are best for your needs.
913,806 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
Outsourcing Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Construction Company
11%
Comms Service Provider
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business2
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise4
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business25
Midsize Enterprise19
Large Enterprise90
 

Questions from the Community

Ask a question
Earn 20 points
What needs improvement with DX Spectrum?
The time investment required is significant, not because of difficulty but because of the need for free time to invest in it. We need to get the knowledge. We know there are many options, but we to...
What is your primary use case for DX Spectrum?
The university purchased DX Spectrum, called ICE. DX Spectrum NAC is working for us only on Cisco 9200 switches. It is not working on any other switch like C1000 or HG or any 2960X. Even other Cisc...
 

Also Known As

NetQoS Performance Center
CA Spectrum
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Empowered Networks, Logicalis
National Informatics Centre India, Banese, Olympus, AlphaServe Technologies, Sicredi
Find out what your peers are saying about Zabbix, SolarWinds, Datadog and others in Network Monitoring Software. Updated: September 2026.
913,806 professionals have used our research since 2012.