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Azure Network Watcher vs Nagios Core comparison

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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
43rd
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
5.9
Number of Reviews
13
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Nagios Core
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
18th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
51
Ranking in other categories
IT Infrastructure Monitoring (19th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2026, in the Network Monitoring Software category, the mindshare of Azure Network Watcher is 0.6%, up from 0.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Nagios Core is 1.3%, down from 2.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Network Monitoring Software Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Nagios Core1.3%
Azure Network Watcher0.6%
Other98.1%
Network Monitoring Software
 

Featured Reviews

PS
Enterprise Architect at ATOS
Monitoring traffic has improved cost control and threat visibility across network flows
The main area for improvement is AI-based features. Currently, many intelligent tools are coming from third parties, and Azure Network Watcher needs to improve in this area. The focus should be on getting better analytics and foundation models for proactive monitoring through AI models. While these capabilities exist, they are still in beta version. Azure Network Watcher should improve to match the capabilities that Google is targeting from an analytical point of view. Azure Network Watcher needs to improve foundation models in terms of AI-specific features and analytics, which are still evolving. This may take some time, but within one or two years, these improvements should reach a nine rating.
HY
Senior System Administrator at Interactive Group
Monitoring solution provides comprehensive visibility across IT infrastructure
The good thing about Nagios Core is it covers everything. Everything in the IT domain, you can monitor anything. You can even monitor printers, the ports of printers, Core workstations, and storage. You can monitor the workflow Core and the utilization of computes. If you want to grasp everything of your IT equipment on a single interface, you can use Nagios. It's the best one. It provides dashboards, and you can also configure your emails and alerts with it. If something is critical, you can configure it to notify via emails. It has a very handy dashboard, providing live alerts and visibility for everything.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The most valuable features I have found are typology, visualization, and capture."
"We use the solution to monitor network services. It helps to capture any network issues."
"My advice to others looking into using Azure Network Watcher is to go for it, as you'll have the tool by default when you're subscribed to Azure VNet."
"The solution is good for monitoring device behavior."
"The solution is stable."
"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."
"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."
"This is a stable system providing stable performance."
"It sends alerts to the right people which ensures there is no delay in the correct person or team looking into issues, and it has helped to reduce downtime in the production environment to almost zero so we now spend less time on network or server administration."
"I like that it's very simple to install, easy to manage and deploy, and easy to use for monitoring."
"The solution is very complete and mostly easy to manage."
"Nagios doesn't get the respect it deserves; most likely due to the fact that it doesn't have a licensing cost."
"Nagios Core is very configurable. Whatever you want, you can do it."
"Nagios Core is stable."
"It is fairly easy to set up, and we can monitor pretty much everything we want to."
"We've got a medium size distributed system with a lot of locally installed machines, and Nagios provides us with a solid and reliable monitoring solution for these machines."
 

Cons

"Azure is good, however, the Fortinet GUI is more intuitive and I like it more than anything else."
"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."
"The solution could use some additional components of the network culture, not only VMs. I'd like to see some additional security features because what they currently have concentrates only on the network."
"Azure Network Watcher needs to have better documentation and it needs to capture information accurately."
"Sometimes, you encounter a VPN tunnel, network, or routing issue, but finding out more about the blockage is challenging."
"The initial setup and deployment could be improved to be simplified."
"Azure Network Watcher could improve by having other built-in applications, for example, an application to log activities for inbound and outbound traffic."
"There are some occasional downtimes, but these were based on Azure-specific issues."
"Nagios Core does not have a graphic display."
"The configuration and reporting modules need to be improved."
"When compared to earlier versions, it looks like 4.x has lost the statusmap.cgi module."
"We use the free version of Nagios, which needs some administrative skills in order to configure correctly."
"I like to have the option to configure Nagios using the web interface."
"The mapping is a little hard."
"A better UI for graphing would make it better. The present graphs are not very friendly and good to see."
"The dashboard and monitoring features could be improved."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing is good. It's not too expensive."
"The price of the solution is reasonable."
"Azure Network Watcher is a little bit expensive."
"Price-wise, I have no information on how much Azure Network Watcher costs."
"It's free."
"Most the plugin features are free."
"The product is cheaply priced."
"We are using the open-source, unpaid version."
"It's free."
"We have saved a lot of time, money, and effort in reducing disaster times, which is owed to Nagios quick alerting."
"I would rate the solution's pricing an eight out of ten."
"The solution is expensive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
22%
Construction Company
12%
Outsourcing Company
11%
Comms Service Provider
6%
Comms Service Provider
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Outsourcing Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business6
Large Enterprise7
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business20
Midsize Enterprise11
Large Enterprise24
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Azure Network Watcher?
I do not have the exact setup cost information on hand, but it is available in the public Azure portal. You can access the calculator there to get detailed pricing information.
What needs improvement with Azure Network Watcher?
The main area for improvement is AI-based features. Currently, many intelligent tools are coming from third parties, and Azure Network Watcher needs to improve in this area. The focus should be on ...
What is your primary use case for Azure Network Watcher?
Azure Network Watcher is used for monitoring network traffic. It provides insight into egress and ingress traffic, which helps determine whether consumption can be controlled. Most Azure services c...
What needs improvement with Nagios Core?
The dashboard should be improved. It's very simple. I don't have a very clear or specific suggestion. You can change the skin of the dashboard, however, it's good for me.
What is your primary use case for Nagios Core?
I was a senior system administrator. I've been using Nagios Core for more than ten years now. It can be used to monitor hosts, such as machines, and monitor services of any kind. I'm using it to mo...
What advice do you have for others considering Nagios Core?
I want to see something that is proactive to protect me. On the basis of the data, I would like Nagios to improve. That said, I would rate the overall solution ten points out of ten.
 

Comparisons

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Airbnb, Cisco, PayPal, FanDuel
Find out what your peers are saying about Azure Network Watcher vs. Nagios Core and other solutions. Updated: November 2026.
920,769 professionals have used our research since 2012.