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Azure Network Watcher vs Nagios Core 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
41st
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
5.9
Number of Reviews
14
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Nagios Core
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
11th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
51
Ranking in other categories
IT Infrastructure Monitoring (11th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2026, in the Network Monitoring Software category, the mindshare of Azure Network Watcher is 0.5%, up from 0.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Nagios Core is 1.5%, down from 2.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Network Monitoring Software Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Nagios Core1.5%
Azure Network Watcher0.5%
Other98.0%
Network Monitoring Software
 

Featured Reviews

Bijoyendra Roychowdhury - PeerSpot reviewer
Program Manager at a consultancy with 10,001+ employees
Network monitoring provides comprehensive analytics while the interface requires further development
The quality of Azure Network Watcher is quite good in terms of the in-depth analysis you can create from these matrices. There are other monitoring tools such as New Relic, AppDynamics, and Dynatrace which provide very detailed network tracing. Cloud providers such as Azure or AWS do not have that kind of GUI-based capability at this point, but using PowerShell or Python, you can develop it yourself. From the GUI perspective, it still needs to evolve in terms of quality and standard, though overall, it is quite good for troubleshooting. Regarding areas for improvement, when comparing to other network tools beyond Azure Monitor or Azure Network Watcher, those tools can identify single failed packets. This level of granularity is not currently possible with cloud providers as they only go to a certain level rather than the granular level needed for deep troubleshooting, though they do provide hints with available matrices.
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

"I like the visibility."
"It provides good visibility."
"Azure Network Watcher provides valuable features based on your specific requirements and use cases, helping you monitor network bandwidth, throughput, data flow consumption, and control costs by giving insight into egress and ingress traffic, total input and output operations, bandwidth, and threats through IP identification."
"We use the solution to monitor network services. It helps to capture any network issues."
"The solution is stable, there are no bugs or glitches and it doesn't crash or freeze, it's reliable."
"This will help the company or the administrator, by helping them see how the traffic moves, to make sure that no entities are having any communication issues or different endpoints with task issues."
"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."
"This is a stable system providing stable performance."
"You should really try Nagios; it will help a lot and I have found that it is the best buddy for system admins."
"Using Nagios, I'm managing more than 1000 services, which involves the following operating nodes: IBM AIX, Red Hat Enterprise Linux, HP-Unix, Windows enterprise-grade OS, Cisco router/switches, FortiGate and WatchGuard firewalls, APC UPS systems, and many more."
"We have used this product now for quite some time and we are happy with it."
"Key features include the GUI interface, its notification capabilities, and the real-time reporting."
"Provides timely notifications."
"Extensibility is good as this makes it easy to write checks on your own."
"We can get real time statistics of our servers which improves our monitoring."
"This is a fit for purpose product which means that if you have a definite list of requirements and are not willing, or unable, to spend money on big enterprise tools, then Nagios is a tool to go to."
 

Cons

"Azure Network Watcher needs to have better documentation and it needs to capture information accurately."
"There are some occasional downtimes, but these were based on Azure-specific issues."
"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."
"It's not the most friendly or straightforward to set up. I don't see the value versus the way you have to set it up at first."
"Azure is good, however, the Fortinet GUI is more intuitive and I like it more than anything else."
"The initial setup and deployment could be improved to be simplified."
"The initial setup and initial learning curve could be improved to be easier."
"Sometimes, you encounter a VPN tunnel, network, or routing issue, but finding out more about the blockage is challenging."
"It's not that easy to install the product itself. Also, the UI is a bit hard for regular users to navigate through."
"Nagios Core is limited in terms of distributed setups, and there is no central view for remote data centers."
"Don't use it. If you're starting from scratch, there are products that scale better and perform better, and they use the same plugin syntax as they were initially Nagios forks."
"The dashboard should be improved."
"Nagios' great customizability is also one of its greatest drawback."
"The UI is a little outdated and graphics could be displayed in a better way."
"Bandwidth monitoring is the pain point for me because Nagios Core does not monitor bandwidth effectively like Cacti does."
"The alerting mechanism in Nagios Core could be improved."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price of the solution is reasonable."
"Price-wise, I have no information on how much Azure Network Watcher costs."
"The pricing is good. It's not too expensive."
"Azure Network Watcher is a little bit expensive."
"We have saved a lot of time, money, and effort in reducing disaster times, which is owed to Nagios quick alerting."
"The enterprise version has technical support. The version we are using is free."
"The Nagios Core (PNP4Nagios + Core) is free and can be setup by Netadmin within a few hours. The only additional cost is the cloud server."
"Lessening the price point would be an improvement."
"It's free."
"Nagios Core is an open source solution, and there are no licensing fees."
"We are using the free version."
"I would rate the solution's pricing an eight out of ten."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
25%
Construction Company
12%
Media Company
6%
University
6%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Computer Software Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business6
Midsize Enterprise1
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?
My experience with Azure Network Watcher regarding pricing, setup cost, and licensing has been positive because it is integrated into the Azure ecosystem and does not require complex licensing. The...
What needs improvement with Azure Network Watcher?
From my experience, Azure Network Watcher could be improved with more centralized dashboards, longer-term traffic analytics, and easier correlation between network diagnostics and security events. ...
What is your primary use case for Azure Network Watcher?
Azure Network Watcher is my primary tool for network troubleshooting, connectivity validation, traffic analysis, and monitoring Azure network performance across customer environments. I use it regu...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Nagios Core?
Nagios Core is a free and open-source product. We don't charge for the product itself, but we charge for the man-hour costs related to installation, configuration, ongoing operation, and maintenance.
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...
 

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: June 2026.
900,644 professionals have used our research since 2012.