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DX Spectrum vs SolarWinds ipMonitor 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
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
17th
Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring
20th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
118
Ranking in other categories
Network Management Applications (8th), Network Troubleshooting (6th), DX NetOps (1st)
SolarWinds ipMonitor
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
79th
Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring
63rd
Average Rating
6.0
Reviews Sentiment
5.7
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2026, in the Network Monitoring Software category, the mindshare of DX Spectrum is 1.6%, up from 0.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SolarWinds ipMonitor is 0.4%, up from 0.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Network Monitoring Software Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
DX Spectrum1.6%
SolarWinds ipMonitor0.4%
Other98.0%
Network Monitoring Software
 

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.
Masud Alam - PeerSpot reviewer
Manager at Optimum Origens Inc.
IP address management improves network efficiency but licensing cost could decrease
We are using SolarWinds for NPM and NCM, and we use IP address management for IP address monitoring. It helps us track which IP address is live and which is not. It also provides DHCP reservation and allows us to declare IP addresses for our integration. We have been using it for IP address…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The quick notification of issues, quick alerting because timeliness is always valuable, it's very important for us."
"Spectrum is our correlation engine and an integration point of external monitoring tools."
"The way our network is structured, CA Spectrum seems to be able to deal with problems that we have coming up in real time."
"It is easy to understand and determine when and/or where the network is failing."
"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."
"This tool makes it more transparent to the customers, and they can be alerted and be proactive based on the data we are getting."
"CA Spectrum is awesome for networks, but when paired with CA UIM, you can have everything: datacenter, networks, virtualization and on."
"I must say, CA is an excellent company and their client always comes first."
"IPAM is used for IP address reservation and tracking, helping us easily identify live IP addresses."
"The most valuable feature is the availability of end devices."
"The initial setup is very straightforward and it is easy to add nodes."
 

Cons

"Support from Broadcom could be better. Sometimes we wait a very long time for a solution to level three problems."
"Right now, with Java OneClick, it's a problem, because people would like to be able to launch it."
"Sometimes the front-line people need to push it up to the second-level quicker."
"A better integration with the UIM, as far as being able to do root cause analysis and that type of analytics."
"Technical support is so-so. It depends on who you get."
"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."
"The tool fails to launch sometimes, and this was a frequent occurrence."
"We have a lot of different monitoring tools in the background, so orchestration has been a little bit of a challenge."
"The licensing cost is high compared to open source tools."
"The solution does not include enough features and has some performance issues."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution's pricing could be better."
"The price is good enough to expect an ideal solution. It's expensive."
"Currently, a perpetual license but some services are moving to a subscription"
"In general, the license cost will be about 30% of the total TCO for this tool (hardware/support team, OS costs, and OS management)."
"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."
"DX Spectrum's pricing is neither expensive nor cheap."
"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 solution is a bit expensive because the annual license does not include new features that are priced as add-ons."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
16%
Construction Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Outsourcing Company
7%
Construction Company
19%
Comms Service Provider
14%
Healthcare Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business25
Midsize Enterprise19
Large Enterprise90
No data available
 

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...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for SolarWinds ipMonitor?
The licensing cost is high compared to other open-source tools. Being a corporate client, we require corporate licensing, which adds to the cost.
What needs improvement with SolarWinds ipMonitor?
The licensing cost is high compared to open source tools. The state monitoring tools could be improved with AI integration to track IP usage history. There is no local support; we must contact thei...
What is your primary use case for SolarWinds ipMonitor?
We are using SolarWinds for NPM and NCM, and we use IP address management for IP address monitoring. It helps us track which IP address is live and which is not. It also provides DHCP reservation a...
 

Also Known As

CA Spectrum
ipMonitor
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

National Informatics Centre India, Banese, Olympus, AlphaServe Technologies, Sicredi
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about DX Spectrum vs. SolarWinds ipMonitor and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
900,644 professionals have used our research since 2012.