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Cisco Prime [EOL] vs DX Spectrum comparison

 

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

Cisco Prime [EOL]
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
35
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
DX Spectrum
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
117
Ranking in other categories
Network Management Applications (7th), Network Monitoring Software (20th), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (22nd), Network Troubleshooting (6th), DX NetOps (1st)
 

Featured Reviews

ZeeshanAli1 - PeerSpot reviewer
Robust, cost-effective, and provides good visibility, but the scalability could improve
We are extremely satisfied with the reliability and robustness of Cisco Prime Infrastructure, which we have been using for many years. Compared to newer products such as DNS centers or others, it has proven to be much more stable, which is important for large-scale operations. Stability is a primary concern for us, and we are glad that Cisco Prime Infrastructure meets our expectations in that regard. Furthermore, in regards to Legacy Plus new hardware, Cisco Prime has proven to be a reliable and adaptable solution thus far. Not only can it support older hardware, but it also has the capability to handle new features with the latest updates. If we consider new solutions such as DNS Center, we may have to sacrifice some legacy features that we still rely on. We may need to continue using these legacy features for a few more years due to various reasons such as budget constraints or the site not being a high priority. However, if we switch to a new product at this stage, we may lose a lot of the monitoring and other capabilities that we have with Cisco Prime. We have a close relationship with Cisco and understand that they are not prioritizing investments in Cisco Prime as they are encouraging customers to adopt the Cisco DNA Center. This means that we don't anticipate many new features to be added to the product in the future. While we know that we will eventually have to transition to a new solution, in the meantime, we plan to do a quick refresh of our legacy products.
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…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Enables oversight in order to tweak and tune."
"The endpoint information Cisco Prime generates helps us troubleshoot, and it's also useful for compliance reporting and endpoint identification."
"The technical support team is very good."
"Has a good wireless heatmap and search management features."
"I have found the solution to be scalable."
"What I found most beneficial from Cisco Prime is that it gives you an insight into what your network does, even when you're not actively monitoring what's going on with your network."
"It gives you the ability to upgrade switches remotely, schedule the upgrade time, perform backups, and monitor the health of all networks."
"The most valuable feature of Cisco Prime is the heat map."
"The most valuable feature is the event correlation mechanism."
"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."
"The capability of handling and monitoring with SNMP and working with the SNMP traps is much better than other products."
"DX Spectrum uses an SNMP Trap to accept all the details, especially for device monitoring of faulty devices, allowing me to use Spectrum effectively."
"It creates transparency and makes everything work by being more transparent."
"Generally, I would recommend DX Spectrum because, despite its pricing issue, it is a valuable solution."
"The monitoring just comes to us: "Oh, there's something wrong with that machine." It tells us. There are some 50,000 machines or so, all doing different things. And if they go down we hear about it."
 

Cons

"This solution could be improved if it could monitor configuration changes."
"The solution needs to include centralized management that aligns with the Greenfield network and its focus on real-time, scenario-based applications."
"The reporting feature of Cisco Prime should be improved."
"The solution has issues with real time monitoring of devices and NetFlow such as inadequate visualization for reports, sources, and destinations."
"The reporting could be simplified and the information made clearer to the user."
"The product's performance monitoring feature could be more intuitive."
"It should be able to monitor Palo Alto, Juniper, and Check Point products - not just Cisco solutions."
"The overall management capabilities of Prime need to be improved."
"There should be better integration with other Broadcom products, like network performance manager. Currently, for every part of a product, you need a separate server environment. You have something for Spectrum, you have something for network performance, and you have something for NetFlow. There are a lot of islands and server farms with different technologies. They should be redeveloped to get one platform for all."
"DX Spectrum should have an automatic ticketing mechanism with ServiceNow. I need to use other tools for event management."
"Support from Broadcom could be better. Sometimes we wait a very long time for a solution to level three problems."
"For us, the implementation was quite complex but it's because of the large number of different environments we're dealing with."
"The product should provide performance management features."
"Its visualization can be improved. It doesn't have a very advanced GUI. It is very basic and simple, but it does work."
"Needs better integration with all the other products in the Agile suite of tools; anything they could do to make that less complex, would be great."
"DX Spectrum could be improved by them getting rid of the Java console. It would also be better with Turkish language support."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We update the license every five years."
"The cost is quite high."
"If we have a license for Cisco DNA, we can use the same license for Cisco Prime."
"The price of Cisco Prime was reasonable because we purchased it as part of a Cisco One package. The package was a bundle of Cisco solutions together, such as Cisco ISE and CMX. The price is reasonable com compared to other solutions."
"The product's performance monitoring feature could be more intuitive."
"The product is expensive compared to other vendors in the market."
"I would rate the solution's pricing an eight out of ten."
"I rate the solution's pricing an eight out of ten."
"The product, support, and maintenance are all expensive, which is another reason that we are switching to another solution."
"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 very high."
"DX Spectrum's pricing depends on the license number. It is affordable."
"It’s a great tool, but an expensive one. Learn how to use it properly."
"DX Spectrum's pricing is neither expensive nor cheap."
"Currently, a perpetual license but some services are moving to a subscription"
"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."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
16%
Government
14%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Educational Organization
6%
Financial Services Firm
18%
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Cisco Prime?
The most valuable features of Cisco Prime include its comprehensive functionality as a one-stop solution for basic SNMP port management.
What needs improvement with Cisco Prime?
The product's performance monitoring feature could be more intuitive.
What is your primary use case for Cisco Prime?
We use Cisco Prime for centralized configuration management backups and monitoring.
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...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

Cisco Prime Infrastructure
CA Spectrum
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Mohawk Industries, Universidad EAFIT, Halton Healthcare
National Informatics Centre India, Banese, Olympus, AlphaServe Technologies, Sicredi
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Fortinet and others in Network Management Applications. Updated: June 2025.
860,592 professionals have used our research since 2012.