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DX Spectrum vs IBM Tivoli NetCool 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
11th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
117
Ranking in other categories
Network Monitoring Software (32nd), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (30th), Network Troubleshooting (8th), DX NetOps (1st)
IBM Tivoli NetCool
Ranking in Network Management Applications
13th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
13
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2026, in the Network Management Applications category, the mindshare of DX Spectrum is 3.1%, up from 2.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM Tivoli NetCool is 2.8%, up from 1.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Network Management Applications Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
DX Spectrum3.1%
IBM Tivoli NetCool2.8%
Other94.1%
Network Management Applications
 

Featured Reviews

ON
Solution Architect at SA Consulting
Provides proactive network monitoring and effective fault detection for large-scale environments
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, they appear as pop-up messages, but I would prefer having alarm messages shown as a scrolling bar at the taskbar for easier visibility.
Petar Ganev - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Enterprise Monitoring Engineer at Commerzbank
Reliable for enterprise monitoring but no longer actively developed
There are problems with the latest security requirements because many things have changed in recent years, and now the security audits are very strict. And we need to switch to something else. We need to patch it constantly. Moreover, it is a very old tool and a little bit difficult to support. Otherwise, they work okay.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It is easy to navigate."
"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."
"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."
"We can plan changes and replacement of end-of-life products in our environment very well because it's very accurate."
"The granular access control that it provided so that you could only see devices that were related to what you were working on was great. I couldn't see the entire inventory of devices. I could only see the ones that were related to my work. It has got a very granular access control component."
"The fault management is perfect."
"The most valuable feature is the event correlation mechanism."
"Allows us to have a single console/notification point, with the alarms of all the tools that we use for monitoring."
"The tool is much easier to manage than running scripts and figuring out how many endpoints have been exceeded."
"The scalability of monitoring, the breadth of supported network components, the scale of the number of monitoring events, and the flexibility in customization make this a well-rounded product."
"Tivoli NetCool allows us to grasp a lot of data that can be applied toward predictive analytics and auto-remediation."
"The solution has very good integration capabilities."
"NetCool has a huge database that can collect and process about one million alarms a day."
"The tool had many built-in automation capabilities."
"Anything is possible with Tivoli. It's quite a robust system."
"Support is one of the best aspects of this solution. NetCool is a good product that has good flexibility. There are a lot of documents available online which is one of the best features of IBM Tivoli Suite. Whenever an issue happens, rather than going to technical support, if you find the exact issue in Google, you can get tech notes for that particular issue."
 

Cons

"Event correlation only works on one server, rather than on all of the servers in the same cluster environment."
"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 visual is a little archaic."
"If nobody else has said the documentation needs improvement, let's go there. I understand, you can either write about it or you can do it. And most of us would rather they do it, but now that they've done it, those of us that didn't do it, we need to go and find: "Where did they write about this to tell us how to do it?" That's always lacking."
"If the integration is simplified or improved, it will be a unique selling point in comparison to the competition on the market."
"We have had one support issue that's been open for a couple of months, and it is currently open."
"Integration with some other tools, and integration with some Network Packet Broker, need some improvement."
"The solution does not have any AI capabilities."
"The solution is too expensive."
"Tivoli NetCool's has medium scalability - there are some problems with its replications not being mature."
"Customization and integration that you need to do to make the product fit your needs is very complex. It is not a product that somebody could easily pick up without any prior training or experience."
"The solution is not user-friendly."
"UI is outdated, very old legacy."
"The installation could be simplified, and technical support could be faster."
"Tivoli NetCool is based on a Linux platform, it would be beneficial if they moved it to Windows because not everyone is acquainted with Linux."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price is good enough to expect an ideal solution. It's expensive."
"It is expensive compared to other tools in the market."
"Currently, a perpetual license but some services are moving to a subscription"
"DX Spectrum's pricing is neither expensive nor cheap."
"The price is very high."
"The price of the solution is reasonable."
"Spectrum is expensive."
"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 product is too expensive."
"Customers are required to pay a licensing fee."
"Licensing fees are paid on a yearly basis."
"It costs around 100k for every ten servers, which is lower than similar products from other vendors."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
16%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Marketing Services Firm
6%
Computer Software Company
28%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Educational Organization
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business25
Midsize Enterprise19
Large Enterprise89
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business6
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise5
 

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?
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...
What is the best network monitoring software for large enterprises?
I have worked from 1973 with all kind of systems in large enterprises across the world. And have experience with all kind of software in monitoring from infra to end to end, it depends on the funct...
What do you like most about IBM Tivoli NetCool?
The tool had many built-in automation capabilities.
What needs improvement with IBM Tivoli NetCool?
The main challenge is its licensing model, which is very complicated.
 

Also Known As

CA Spectrum
Tivoli NetCool
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

National Informatics Centre India, Banese, Olympus, AlphaServe Technologies, Sicredi
Claranet, Consolidated Communications, Telus, €sterreichische Bundesbahnen (€BB), Telekom Srbija, Bendigo Community Telco, Capgemini, Schweizerische Bundesbahnen (SBB)
Find out what your peers are saying about DX Spectrum vs. IBM Tivoli NetCool and other solutions. Updated: February 2026.
881,733 professionals have used our research since 2012.