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DX Spectrum vs OptiView XG [EOL] 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

DX Spectrum
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
118
Ranking in other categories
Network Management Applications (11th), Network Monitoring Software (30th), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (29th), Network Troubleshooting (8th), DX NetOps (1st)
OptiView XG [EOL]
Average Rating
8.6
Number of Reviews
38
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Featured Reviews

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.
MW
President at Bitwise Micro
A valuable, impressive, and portable product that saves time and has great scalability and stability
It just saves time. We have run into situations where contractors come in, and they plug in a WiFi device that is handing out DHCP addresses, which affects the rest of the network. To be able to quickly identify from where the problem is originating, you need a network tool that can identify the device that is doing this. It just brings into clear focus the exact issue when there is a problem or outage. When there is a crisis and you've several people wanting to know an estimate of when things are going to be back up and running again, you need to have answers. I have been at places that didn't have a tool like that. I know one place that had an outage for almost a week, and it was craziness. It turned out to be just a bad cable. That's all it was. They were having trouble with their email server, which was an on-premise email server, but emails were taking six hours to appear. The whole problem was because of a bad network cable. When I plugged in the Fluke analyzer, it analyzed and told me immediately that there were transmission errors on this one port from one switch. It told me this within 10 minutes. It is an incredible product.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Technical support is the best in class."
"It has really helped to create a complete solution so that clients can see their whole IT network in one complete console/solution."
"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."
"It was used as a tool to observe critical alarms on network nodes and act immediately."
"We use Spectrum for network analysis, failure detection, and sending information to our service management tool."
"The presentation layer is pretty simple and straightforward and the dashboard is pretty easy to read."
"DX Spectrum uses an SNMP Trap to accept all the details, especially for device monitoring of faulty devices, allowing me to use Spectrum effectively."
"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."
"It's worth a shot. Give it a try. Definitely a product worth considering."
"We were able to find out that there was actually double acknowledgments coming from one of the devices, and we were able to share that with the coders and ultimately get it fixed."
"OptiView just made it a little bit easier; it was a neat package that made it easier to utilize."
"I've switched to Fluke Networks products because having an all-in-one tool is more convenient, and the way information is presented makes it easier to share knowledge."
"Technical support was awesome; they were quick to respond, very knowledgeable, and kept us up to date on the status."
"It has helped with troubleshooting and has simplified the way the organization functions."
"The device is easy to use and is effective very quickly; I can plug it into a network and troubleshoot it in 15 minutes and pinpoint problems that would take days to do otherwise."
"The 10 GigE connectivity and ClearSight are the most valuable features for us."
 

Cons

"Only if the server that hosts the application is restarted without bringing down Spectrum. If this occurs it corrupts the database and has to be restored from the backup."
"I would like to see a better, more simple web interface."
"The CA Technologies sales team destroyed their relationship with our business units."
"The only area which I found that can be improved is that sometimes issues come up with alert clearing i.e. alerts don't clear when triggered and clear events occur too fast."
"The platform is complicated to use."
"Code is very complex."
"There is room for improvement in the integration with other non-CA tools and databases."
"Our consultant was four months on-site doing Spectrum setup and working through issues."
"Initial setup was complex."
"Maybe the licensing could come down; the price could come down a little bit, that would be kind of nice. I think it's a little bit expensive, but as far as functionality goes, I'm not too sure about any room for improvement; I'm not the one that uses it every day."
"I think that the discovery of a network can be improved if the OptiView would recognize more kinds of devices independent of the manufacturer."
"That would probably be something I'd want to add on."
"It can’t scale to even one user because it crashes when you're using the AirMagnet survey tool, or even running reports."
"The reports I got back from the guys I sent to training said the guy spent more time telling stories, war stories and that type, rather than actual training about the product."
"Also, the overall weight of the product is a lot to carry around for a long period of time."
"I would like a built-in tap feature which doesn't interfere with the network, and it allows you to see what is happening there."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"In general, the license cost will be about 30% of the total TCO for this tool (hardware/support team, OS costs, and OS management)."
"Spectrum is expensive."
"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’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 is very high."
"Currently, a perpetual license but some services are moving to a subscription"
"Its price was a bit excessive. The device that I had died. It is under warranty, and they want $20,000 for another one. I just don't want to spend that kind of money, so I'm trying to find an alternate solution. They have annual maintenance on it, which probably was 10% a year, so it all starts to add up."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
15%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Marketing Services Firm
6%
Government
14%
Non Profit
11%
Educational Organization
9%
Performing Arts
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business25
Midsize Enterprise19
Large Enterprise90
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business7
Midsize Enterprise8
Large Enterprise26
 

Questions from the Community

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...
Ask a question
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Also Known As

CA Spectrum
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

National Informatics Centre India, Banese, Olympus, AlphaServe Technologies, Sicredi
XG is used in all industries. Example customers include: Republic National Distributing Company, Titelive, CitiGroup, Los Angeles Unified School District, Saudi German Hospital, DeKalb County Schools, Valdosta State University, The Everett Clinic, Bio-Reference, Miami-Dade Library, Mitel, Borsa Istanbul, Cimarex, Air National Guard Lowndes County, High Point City, Carrollton City Schools, Kern County, Pruitt Communications and Bosch Group.
Find out what your peers are saying about Zabbix, Auvik, Datadog and others in Network Monitoring Software. Updated: March 2026.
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