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Azure Network Watcher vs SolarWinds NPM comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 10, 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

Azure Network Watcher
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
44th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
11
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
SolarWinds NPM
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
4th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
158
Ranking in other categories
IT Infrastructure Monitoring (5th), Cloud Monitoring Software (6th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Network Monitoring Software category, the mindshare of Azure Network Watcher is 0.4%, down from 0.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SolarWinds NPM is 4.6%, down from 5.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Network Monitoring Software
 

Featured Reviews

Emanuel Kjellin - PeerSpot reviewer
An affordable solution to block and analyze the situation with VPN troubleshooting feature
If Azure Network Monitor is part of the solution, it's a comprehensive tool. For example, during cloud migration, the workload on the cloud can be significant. However, the Ethernet solution is low cost and provides a fast return on investment. In larger scenarios, such as a major deployment, the return on investment might take three months to a year. The solution involves managing workloads, machine storage, and network modes.
MohitKumar - PeerSpot reviewer
High-level, comprehensive, and proactive monitoring in a user-friendly interface
The solution needs to integrate with additional SDN technologies that are part of the hyper market. The solution supports many vendors by default and just included Meraki SDN with the new release, but continued expansion is important. We created a custom method to pair with unsupported vendors but that can produce a lag in performance so future releases should expand SDN support. The solution does a good job of automating features but could expand that even more.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"What I like most about Azure Network Watcher is that it's focused more on the architecture. I also like that it has a packet capture feature that tells you how the packet travels and whether it's exiting Azure, etc."
"It provides good visibility."
"The solution is good for monitoring device behavior."
"The solution is stable."
"The most valuable feature of Azure Network Watcher is using the gateways with the connections. The monitoring is useful for the logs and application insights into the data. The traffic filtering issues when it comes to deploying those applications are helpful."
"The stability is very good. I rate it a ten out of ten."
"The most valuable feature of Azure Network Watcher is the cloud-native application firewall. It is helpful for securing databases."
"The most valuable features I have found are typology, visualization, and capture."
"SolarWinds is user-friendly with a manageable console."
"The ability to customize the views and dashboards is nice. SolarWinds also allows us to access the data via the API. That's probably the feature I liked the most."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is the monitoring capabilities."
"Their support team is efficient, and it is easy to set up."
"As we look to add more servers to our virtual environment and to understand the impact, the solution allows us to dig into the historical charts related to capacity planning."
"The abnormal traffic notifications are good. Most of them are remote, and it is very good for notifications and monitoring for the traffic."
"SolarWinds dashboard is very fast. Also, their interface is very good, it looks very user-friendly. The product allows me to see a summary of the network being monitored at a glance."
"The benefit of this solution is the reporting. We're able to report on and see our network in a graphical form. We are able to detect when a device is added to a network."
 

Cons

"Azure Network Watcher could improve by having other built-in applications. For example, an application to log activities for in and outbound traffic."
"Azure Network Watcher needs to have better documentation and it needs to capture information accurately."
"User experience could be improved."
"The initial setup and initial learning curve could be improved to be easier."
"I would like to see in the future if we can troubleshoot as a firewall because it is equipment as a network player and some diagnostics."
"I still use Wireshark and Azure Network Watcher to get the required data. My team captures the traffic from Azure Network Watcher, downloads it, then imports that traffic into Wireshark to get more details on the number of hits and replies, for example. If you can do that on Azure Network Watcher and have Wireshark built-in, that would make Azure Network Watcher better. If Azure Network Watcher has that functionality where you won't need a third-party tool to get what you need, that would be helpful. I'm also expecting more from Azure Network Watcher. It's more complex than knowing how the IP flows from its source to the destination. The tool also needs more open-source features, such as having some built-in Wireshark that improves monitoring for customers. Sometimes, you encounter a VPN tunnel, network, or routing issue, but finding out more about the blockage is challenging. Is it one hundred percent an Azure issue? Is it a peer issue? You don't get complete information from Azure Network Watcher, so you must use other tools and depend on your strategies to resolve a specific issue. If more features could be added in the next release of Azure Network Watcher, specifically ones you can find on open-source tools, then that would be a plus point for the tool."
"The solution could improve by limiting the need to clarify the logs. When the clarification is minimized, it is better for everyone involved."
"Azure is good, however, the Fortinet GUI is more intuitive and I like it more than anything else."
"The console could be more user-friendly. It would be better if SolarWinds updated the user interface."
"The dashboard of the solution is an area with certain shortcomings that need improvement."
"The improvement would be that SolarWinds NPM thoroughly checks its patches before releasing them to the market. Better testing, alpha testing, and then releasing it to the market."
"The aesthetic widgets should be dynamic widgets, so the customization can be even more customizable."
"It would be nice if SolarWinds could have a polling engine on the site that would collect the reporting and then manage everything itself."
"GUI needs improvement with a more graphical dashboard."
"If they’re going for a “cover everything” approach, then they need to do so and enable a bit more of the "cover everything approach" within every one of the tools."
"One of the challenges with SolarWinds is that in order to pull the data, we have to have a lot of false positives."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price of the solution is reasonable."
"The pricing is good. It's not too expensive."
"Azure Network Watcher is a little bit expensive."
"Price-wise, I have no information on how much Azure Network Watcher costs."
"I find that the pricing is acceptable."
"There are a lot of sub-products and it just continued to increase the price."
"The pricing is very expensive for SolarWinds. That's a huge disadvantage for it."
"The price points are more than competitive when compared to other vendors."
"We pay approximately $700 per year for renewal of the license."
"The price is more expensive than some other products, such as ManageEngine."
"We pay approximately $4,000 annually for SolarWinds NPM. There are no additional fees required other than the standard fees."
"Excluding the costs of running VMs and physical blade servers, our licensing costs run around US$200,000/year for over 60 polling engines."
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Comparison Review

it_user174738 - PeerSpot reviewer
May 31, 2015
Nagios vs. Zabbix vs. PRTG vs. Spiceworks vs. Solarwinds Network Performance Monitor
I have researched a quite a few network monitoring tools which can be used for various monitoring purposes of not only the servers, but the intermediate routers as well. There are majorly three types of these softwares. Ones which are completely open-source, you can do almost anything you want…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
19%
Computer Software Company
16%
Government
9%
Healthcare Company
5%
Educational Organization
54%
Computer Software Company
6%
Manufacturing Company
5%
Financial Services Firm
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What is the best network monitoring software for large enterprises?
It actually depends on the exact purpose or kind of devices (network devices, servers, something else). Some tools are better for only network devices while others are better for a cloud monitoring...
What is the best network monitoring software for large enterprises?
We are partners with SolarWinds and we sell a lot of Network management to large enterprises also because of scalability, products like Network Performance Monitor & Netflow Traffic Analyzer ar...
 

Also Known As

No data available
Solarwinds Network Performance Monitor, SolarWinds Network Bandwidth Analyzer
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Microsoft, Federal Express, Hewlett-Packard, and MasterCard
Find out what your peers are saying about Azure Network Watcher vs. SolarWinds NPM and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
850,671 professionals have used our research since 2012.