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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
6th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
117
Ranking in other categories
Network Management Applications (7th), Network Monitoring Software (22nd), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (21st), DX NetOps (1st)
NetBrain
Ranking in Network Troubleshooting
14th
Average Rating
7.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
6
Ranking in other categories
Network Automation (6th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Network Troubleshooting category, the mindshare of DX Spectrum is 3.7%, down from 3.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of NetBrain is 2.9%, up from 1.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Network Troubleshooting
 

Featured Reviews

Umair (Abu Mohaymin) Akhlaque - PeerSpot reviewer
Good for monitoring, covers networks well
If you are looking for the right monitoring tool, Spectrum is one of the best solutions. It covers networks very well. It has all the capabilities that you're looking for when it comes to monitoring. Spectrum is great for root cause analysis. It has excellent correlation event management. Spectrum's stability and scalability are also amazing. If you have a CA Service Desk, then it can be integrated so that if you have open tickets they can be closed automatically. The configuration manager is great as well.
Deborah Gamelin - PeerSpot reviewer
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

"The integration point."
"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."
"Allows us to have a single console/notification point, with the alarms of all the tools that we use for monitoring."
"It is easy to navigate."
"It is very stable. We have not had any major issues in over 10 years."
"​It covers a lot of different types of hardware. It can do a lot and saves us time.​"
"It creates transparency and makes everything work by being more transparent."
"The fault management is perfect."
"Enables maps to be drawn out."
"A reliable, time-saving tool for providing accurate layer 2 and layer 3 network mappings."
"NetBrain is a very simple tool."
"Chain management is a good feature. I don't get it on other solutions."
"This product has good network monitoring and troubleshooting capabilities."
 

Cons

"It's not a great performance management tool. Its reporting capabilities are not very good at all."
"The solution's stability needs improvement."
"The biggest issue is our integration right now between UIM and Spectrum is lacking."
"The CA Technologies sales team destroyed their relationship with our business units."
"For my use case, incident coordination was an area of improvement. The internal software engine for coordinating outages could use improvement because sometimes, we used to get false alerts for unrelated devices. They did a really good job of trying to make sure that you got one major alert and any of the subsequent devices downstream were just additions to that, but occasionally, the engine wouldn't properly catch the right things, and we used to get a flood of alerts."
"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."
"It needs better integration with other CA products."
"The upgrade process could be smoother. More of the steps around upgrading could be automated."
"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."
"The IP interface brief isn't consistent."
"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."
"The solution could integrate more automation."
 

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."
"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 product, support, and maintenance are all expensive, which is another reason that we are switching to another solution."
"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"
"The price of the solution is reasonable."
"It’s a great tool, but an expensive one. Learn how to use it properly."
"Licensing is based on a per-device basis, which means that it can get very expensive if you have a large number of devices."
"The product is expensive, but less expensive than some of the competition and worth the price."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
20%
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
7%
Computer Software Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Government
11%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
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: April 2025.
850,671 professionals have used our research since 2012.
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