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DX Spectrum vs NetBrain comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jul 11, 2024

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 Troubleshooting
7th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
117
Ranking in other categories
Network Management Applications (7th), Network Monitoring Software (21st), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (20th), DX NetOps (1st)
NetBrain
Ranking in Network Troubleshooting
16th
Average Rating
7.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
6
Ranking in other categories
Network Automation (5th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Network Troubleshooting category, the mindshare of DX Spectrum is 4.9%, up from 3.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of NetBrain is 3.0%, up from 2.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Network Troubleshooting Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
DX Spectrum4.9%
NetBrain3.0%
Other92.1%
Network Troubleshooting
 

Featured Reviews

Balabrahmam_Chakka - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Program Manager at Tata Consultancy Services
Comprehensive device monitoring enhances operational efficiency
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 through SNMP without an agent, which is good, but it should also have event management. Its LDAP authentication is fine. However, event management is not available, which is a concern. Not much else. If they can add event management, it would help. The event management should have more deduplication and alert correlation and check the bidirectional communication with ServiceNow. If a previous ticket is open and the same alert is generated, there's no need to create another ticket; updating the work notes would suffice. It should help reduce noise in alerting.
Deborah Gamelin - PeerSpot reviewer
Vice President at Asset Track for Cloud, LLC
Good monitoring and troubleshoot capabilities, improves overall network traffic visibility
In my organization, we had 130,000 network devices that needed to be brought into the solution and mapped. NetBrain can handle the scale but the engineers that manage those devices have to go in and update all of them to allow NetBrain permission to poll them. It can get a little stressful for everybody when you're trying to roll out new stuff when you've got other issues that have to be addressed with other devices. In some cases, our devices had no automation at all. One example is the Cisco 3650. Right now, if you went through the inventory list, you see that we have different versions running. Some are on one version, whereas others are on another version. The problem with upgrading them is that they need to be done overnight because we don't want to disrupt any network traffic during business hours. Consequently, it could take us years to upgrade the versions before we can even get them onto these new tools. This may be an internal issue but it's a big one when you have a lot of devices. Even if you had 10,000 devices, it's still an issue. You have to consider the compatibility of the device against the tool, and being able to use certain commands to upgrade it.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"​It covers a lot of different types of hardware. It can do a lot and saves us time.​"
"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."
"It's a good tool. It's simple to do the configuration."
"It helps our NetOps group actually handle alarms in a way that lets them see the bigger picture of those alarms, and how they might affect our services. It helps us communicate information about the network state better to services that might be impacted by a specific network condition."
"It has a high-quality graphical interface."
"Scalable and stable network monitoring tool with a simple setup."
"The Spectrum tool improved our network assurance levels for our business units."
"A reliable, time-saving tool for providing accurate layer 2 and layer 3 network mappings."
"NetBrain is a very simple tool."
"Enables maps to be drawn out."
"Chain management is a good feature. I don't get it on other solutions."
"This product has good network monitoring and troubleshooting capabilities."
 

Cons

"Event correlation only works on one server, rather than on all of the servers in the same cluster environment."
"I would suggest improving the web GUI to improve the device monitor configuration and to improve or to integrate the new tool for reporting."
"It takes some time to learn how to use this solution."
"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."
"​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."
"There's a little bit of complexity to the initial install because you're dealing with operating systems. You have to make sure all the prerequisites are done, anti-virus exceptions, etc. Then there's the bringing it up and then there's discovery of the network and setting that up. It takes time."
"The solution's stability needs improvement."
"We have had some issues with the spec server and the high availability replication of data. It fails over well, but it does not come back very well. We get duplicated events."
"The IP interface brief isn't consistent."
"The solution could integrate more automation."
"Each device needs to be configured to allow NetBrain to poll for the information it needs, which can be very time-consuming for a large network."
"Support needs to improve for the installed product and some of the reporting could be more flexible to provide more complete cataloging."
"It would be nice if the setup was a little simpler. Also, if the solution could provide more training materials for new people coming into our company so they can quickly learn how to use the functionalities."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is very pricey. With the current trend of enterprises moving towards cheaper and more modern looking solutions like ManageEngine, SevOne, ServicePilot, and Paesller."
"The price is very high."
"The solution's pricing could be better."
"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."
"DX Spectrum's pricing depends on the license number. It is affordable."
"Spectrum is expensive."
"It’s a great tool, but an expensive one. Learn how to use it properly."
"The product is expensive, but less expensive than some of the competition and worth the price."
"Licensing is based on a per-device basis, which means that it can get very expensive if you have a large number of devices."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
17%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Energy/Utilities Company
5%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Computer Software Company
11%
Government
10%
Financial Services Firm
10%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business25
Midsize Enterprise19
Large Enterprise89
No data available
 

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...
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Comparisons

 

Also Known As

CA Spectrum
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

National Informatics Centre India, Banese, Olympus, AlphaServe Technologies, Sicredi
CompuCon, TD Ameritrade, Move Inc.
Find out what your peers are saying about DX Spectrum vs. NetBrain and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.
881,082 professionals have used our research since 2012.