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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
118
Ranking in other categories
Network Management Applications (8th), Network Monitoring Software (17th), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (20th), Network Troubleshooting (6th), DX NetOps (1st)
 

Featured Reviews

AR
Network Engineer at Edmonton Catholic School Board
Has an easy implementation process, but the performance monitoring feature could be more intuitive
The project implementation was easy overall. Adapting Cisco's solutions to our specific environment required effort, as their documentation only covers some network scenarios. The deployment didn't happen all at once; it was staged and controlled to ensure a smooth transition. We started with a small test environment before gradually rolling it out to all campuses. This gradual approach helped mitigate the risk of any issues arising across multiple locations simultaneously, especially on a critical day like Monday morning. We have a team of three executives working on the process. Their job roles included network specialists and a manager. It requires maintenance, which is included in the annual cost. We receive updates and support as part of the renewal process.
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

"Operationally, Prime is quite easy to use and I like the wireless heatmap and search management features."
"I have found the solution to be scalable."
"The dashboard is a valuable feature. It's very clear, and the metrics make it easy to see the current network situation."
"Our primary use case for this solution is Assurance; it helps us manage and monitor analytics and fix issues such as poor voice quality, with real-time alert generation for VoIP infrastructure so that, for example, if there is latency during calls, it can be immediately alerted to take immediate action before we investigate the deeper issue."
"If an AP or any wireless device goes into critical mode, Cisco Prime sends an alert. That is the most helpful feature."
"The technical support team is very good."
"Cisco Prime allows us to do a lot of functions with the users and it is flexible."
"Cisco Prime allows us to manage all the wireless controllers and access points."
"The most valuable feature is that after setup, using it is very straightforward."
"The response detection of an incident was very low, that is, I could work more efficiently and effectively in my incident management."
"DX Spectrum is a very good solution; it's the best network monitoring tool in the market."
"Monitoring window, graphical representation of devices, automatic updating of databases, high scalability, high robustness, and user-friendly options are some of the most valuable features for us."
"Root-cause analysis and modelling pinpoint the exact cause of problems, which makes life easier."
"It is easy to navigate."
"The flexibility is impressive, as it is so customizable that you can almost make it do anything you want it to do, with many ways to tailor it to your environment and business needs that I have not seen in other products in this space."
"With the implementation of the shallow water approach, we've been able to significantly cut down on the number and duration of outages and the number of severities in all the categories."
 

Cons

"That is unacceptable and it's the biggest downfall of the solution."
"We would like to see the inclusion of detailed alerts."
"Cisco Prime's initial setup is complex."
"Prime is used for managing all the infrastructure and if it can be integrated with the SIEM tool it could be well managed."
"I rate Cisco Prime seven out of 10 for affordability. All Cisco solutions are expensive."
"The solution is not easy to configure. It's not user-friendly for admins."
"The solution needs to include centralized management that aligns with the Greenfield network and its focus on real-time, scenario-based applications."
"Maybe it could be a little cheaper."
"Once something goes down, that is when we get alerted versus we need more predictive analytics in place so we know a case based on patterns putting AI in place, or something along those lines, so we know that there is a pattern growing that the systems going to go down."
"It took a while to understand the product, but once we went hands on, it's great to work with."
"It's not a great performance management tool. Its reporting capabilities are not very good at all."
"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."
"We're trying to replace this solution with another product because it's too expensive and not very user-friendly; it requires training and takes some time to learn how to use it."
"Integration with some other tools, and integration with some Network Packet Broker, need some improvement."
"I only encountered stability issues in very rare situations; mainly when we used our own extensions for private management modules."
"The visual is good but it's a little archaic."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We update the license every five years."
"The product's performance monitoring feature could be more intuitive."
"I would rate the solution's pricing an eight out of ten."
"I rate the solution's pricing an eight out of ten."
"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 solution is not inexpensive but is worth it for large-scale environments."
"You need to get special quotes from the company for each order."
"I would rate the pricing of Cisco Prime a seven out of ten."
"DX Spectrum's pricing depends on the license number. It is affordable."
"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."
"The price is very high."
"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."
"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 solution's pricing could be better."
"DX Spectrum's pricing is neither expensive nor cheap."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Construction Company
12%
Government
12%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Financial Services Firm
16%
Construction Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Outsourcing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business9
Midsize Enterprise5
Large Enterprise24
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

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, Fortinet, Hewlett Packard Enterprise and others in Network Management Applications. Updated: June 2026.
900,838 professionals have used our research since 2012.