Azure Network Watcher vs SolarWinds NPM comparison

Why PeerSpot?

Microsoft and SolarWinds are both solutions in the Network Monitoring Software category. Microsoft is ranked #46 with an average rating of 8.0, while SolarWinds is ranked #2 with an average rating of 8.3. Microsoft holds a 0.5% mindshare in NMS, compared to SolarWinds’s 3.6% mindshare. Additionally, 92% of Microsoft users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 92% of SolarWinds users who would recommend it.

Azure Network Watcher

Read 13 Azure Network Watcher reviews

2,469 Views
2,420 Comparison Views

92% willing to recommend

SolarWinds NPM

Read 161 SolarWinds NPM reviews

24,818 Views
19,358 Comparison Views

92% willing to recommend

Azure Network Watcher

SolarWinds NPM

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 10, 2024

SolarWinds NPM and Azure Network Watcher compete in the network management and diagnostics category. SolarWinds NPM has the advantage with its comprehensive feature set and customization capabilities, while Azure Network Watcher excels in cloud-native integration and visibility.

Features: SolarWinds NPM offers comprehensive network management with modular pricing, proactive updates, and strong SNMP monitoring. It provides high customization and extensive vendor support. Azure Network Watcher focuses on diagnostics with packet capture, connection monitoring, and cloud-native security features. Its integration within the Azure ecosystem enhances user visibility.

Room for Improvement: SolarWinds NPM requires enhancements in network discovery, alert configuration, and customer support responsiveness. Reducing resource consumption and strengthening dependency management are also needed. Azure Network Watcher could improve initial setup and documentation clarity, and add built-in diagnostics for a better user experience.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: SolarWinds NPM is primarily used in on-premises or hybrid environments, with customer service often requiring external support. Azure Network Watcher is designed for public cloud environments and integrates well within its ecosystem. SolarWinds technical support is knowledgeable but slow, whereas Azure benefits from Azure's robust support infrastructure.

Pricing and ROI: SolarWinds NPM's complex licensing and module costs make it expensive, yet the extensive feature set provides a quick return on investment through reduced downtime. Azure Network Watcher's pricing is reasonable for large enterprises but costly for smaller ones. It is cost-effective within large cloud infrastructures.

To learn more, read our detailed Azure Network Watcher vs. SolarWinds NPM Report (Updated: September 2026).

Buyer's Guide

Azure Network Watcher vs. SolarWinds NPM

September 2026

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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

46th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

5.9

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

SolarWinds NPM

Ranking in Network Monitoring Software

2nd

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

6.8

Number of Reviews

161

Ranking in other categories

IT Infrastructure Monitoring (5th), Cloud Monitoring Software (7th)

Mindshare comparison

As of September 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 SolarWinds NPM is 3.6%, down from 4.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Network Monitoring Software Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
SolarWinds NPM	3.6%
Azure Network Watcher	0.5%
Other	95.9%

Network Monitoring Software

Featured Reviews

PrashantSarmalkar

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.

Read full review

Vivek Jaiswal

Manager IT at a manufacturing company with 1,001-5,000 employees

Central monitoring has improved outage alerts and now needs smarter detection and modern dashboards

Regarding the automated network topology and mapping feature in SolarWinds NPM, I am not satisfied with it. For static monitoring, it is acceptable. However, if it is possible, I would need a feature in SolarWinds in the future for some kind of malfunctioning detection, such as malware attacks or that type of environment. We did not have any facility to detect that in SolarWinds. I think it would be better to incorporate those types of features. Regarding customization options in SolarWinds, the ability to customize the dashboard has room for improvement. The dashboard is quite old, and we need some improvement in it. Nowadays, we have multiple tools with AI-based monitoring and web-based dashboards. SolarWinds also has a web-based dashboard, but I think there is scope for improvement in the UI. There may be other areas I would like to improve in SolarWinds NPM.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"We use the solution to monitor network services. It helps to capture any network issues."

"This is a stable system providing stable performance."

"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."

"I like the visibility."

"It provides good visibility."

"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."

"The solution is stable, there are no bugs or glitches and it doesn't crash or freeze, it's reliable."

More Azure Network Watcher pros

"SolarWinds Orion NPM tracks bottlenecks in your network infrastructure and lets you troubleshoot them before a disaster happens."

"The nice thing about SolarWinds is that it's kind of all-in-one. I can manage the status of my networking devices, whether they are up or down, I can see how much traffic is going across an interface, and I can run a report that tells me exactly what that traffic is."

"The solution is stable and reliable."

"SolarWinds is a great product that can do a lot."

"I like that SolarWinds NPM is a strong tool for monitoring network devices, switches, and routers. It's also a user-friendly tool. My team also likes how scalable it is."

"This solution provides one standardized platform for network device monitoring."

"We switched back to SolarWinds because of ease of use."

"Feature rich produce suite that addresses many aspects of BSM."

More SolarWinds NPM pros

Cons

"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."

"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."

"Lacks sufficient security features."

"There are some occasional downtimes, but these were based on Azure-specific issues."

"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."

"Sometimes, you encounter a VPN tunnel, network, or routing issue, but finding out more about the blockage is challenging."

"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."

More Azure Network Watcher cons

"I faced a problem with GRE over IPSec tunnel traffic, it was not showing Netflow enabled traffic and without IPSec tunnel traffic Netflow was working fine."

"The stability when multiple modules are added could be addressed. We have the need to restart the monitoring solution on a weekly basis as we've combined NPM with a variety of other SolarWinds utilities."

"It would be nice to have a test to check if you can access a particular device via API without installing it and waiting for a poll cycle. You should have the capacity to initiate a test to see if it was reachable and get the results almost immediately."

"Time: A worldwide deployment can be confusing for dispersed users with non-local times. Each node should have a local time (with summer offset if appropriate) & each user should view & report in their local time."

"Better offline license management. I’ve had to get in touch with customer support several times simply to remove an expired license from our NPM servers (which have no connection to the public internet)."

"Customer Service: 0/10 as there were no knowledge base articles when I used it, and every new patch required customer login to apply."

"It needs group views with performance metrics."

"The product is scalable, but at a cost. Extra modules have to be purchased for each extra server. The initial set up isn't complex, but will require someone who is experienced with the network monitoring system"

More SolarWinds NPM cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Price-wise, I have no information on how much Azure Network Watcher costs."

"Azure Network Watcher is a little bit expensive."

"The pricing is good. It's not too expensive."

"The price of the solution is reasonable."

"Quite highly priced"

"Most of the licenses are perpetual, and the annual maintenance charges are not high."

"I think that the cost has risen, but the functionality and versatility is way above other products."

"There are a lot of sub-products and it just continued to increase the price."

"It is relatively inexpensive compared to other products in the same category."

"The price is more expensive than some other products, such as ManageEngine."

"The NPM component of the system costs approximately $1,000 USD per year."

"We have a perpetual license for this solution, and my impression is that this solution is cheap."

More SolarWinds NPM pricing and cost advice

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Comparison Review

it_user174738

IT Developer at a tech services company with 51-200 employees

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…

Read full review

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

22%

Construction Company

13%

Outsourcing Company

Comms Service Provider

Outsourcing Company

11%

Financial Services Firm

Manufacturing Company

Construction Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	6
Large Enterprise	7

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	60
Midsize Enterprise	33
Large Enterprise	87

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.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Azure Network Watcher?

See all answers

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...

See all answers

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...

See all answers

What is the best network monitoring software for large enterprises?

From my point of view, SolarWind is the best tool.

See all answers

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...

See all answers

Comparisons

Nmap vs Azure Network Watcher

Compared 13% of the time

Kentik vs Azure Network Watcher

Compared 10% of the time

Ixia Network Taps vs Azure Network Watcher

Compared 7% of the time

PRTG Network Monitor vs Azure Network Watcher

Compared 7% of the time

More Azure Network Watcher Competitors

Nagios XI vs SolarWinds NPM

Compared 3% of the time

DX Spectrum vs SolarWinds NPM

Compared 3% of the time

ManageEngine OpManager vs SolarWinds NPM

Compared 3% of the time

Zabbix vs SolarWinds NPM

Compared 3% of the time

PRTG Network Monitor vs SolarWinds NPM

Compared 2% of the time

More SolarWinds NPM Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Azure Network Watcher

September 2026

Download Azure Network Watcher product report

Buyer's Guide

SolarWinds NPM

August 2026

Download SolarWinds NPM product report

Also Known As

No data available

Solarwinds Network Performance Monitor, SolarWinds Network Bandwidth Analyzer

Overview

Azure Network Watcher provides advanced network monitoring capabilities including packet capture, cloud-native firewall, and traffic diagnosis, aiding in VPN troubleshooting and security enforcement with enhanced visibility and alerting features.

Azure Network Watcher is essential for monitoring, diagnosing, and analyzing network traffic. It efficiently handles VPN connection issues and enhances network security by capturing and analyzing traffic to assess performance or latency problems. The tool facilitates traffic flow control, security rule verification, and bandwidth monitoring. Users benefit from its capabilities in diagnosing service connections, offering insights into network activity, and identifying potential threats, crucial for maintaining compliance and efficient network management.

What are the key features of Azure Network Watcher?

Packet Capture: Enables detailed network traffic inspection to troubleshoot issues.
Cloud-Native Application Firewall: Provides enhanced protection for applications running in the cloud.
Traffic Monitoring: Allows for real-time analysis and troubleshooting of network traffic.
NSG Flow Logs & AI-Based Monitoring: Enhances flow control and threat detection.
Alerting & Threshold Configuration: Offers customizable alerts via Azure Monitor for proactive management.

What benefits can users look for in reviews?

Improved Network Security: Helps in identifying and mitigating threats efficiently.
Enhanced Visibility: Provides clear insights into network operations and potential issues.
Compliance Support: Assists in maintaining regulatory compliance with thorough monitoring capabilities.
Effective Bandwidth Management: Facilitates control and optimization of network bandwidth.

In industries like finance and healthcare, Azure Network Watcher is implemented to ensure robust security and compliance, crucial for safeguarding sensitive data. It aids retail and manufacturing sectors in optimizing network performance and maintaining seamless connectivity, supporting their digital infrastructure needs.

Microsoft

SolarWinds NPM is a network performance monitoring tool offering a user-friendly interface with customizable dashboards. It provides real-time tracking of device health, latency, and bandwidth utilization, supporting diverse integration and scalability needs.

SolarWinds NPM's robust features include real-time monitoring of network performance and efficient tracking of device health, latency, and bandwidth utilization. The tool is appreciated for its ease of deployment, scalability, and support for integration with other tools. Features like SNMP monitoring, NetPath, and comprehensive reporting enhance its diagnostic capabilities and network visibility. However, users identify areas for improvement such as real-time analytics, advanced customization options, and enhanced scalability for larger enterprises. Better customer support, improved integrations, and security measures are also desired.

What are the key features of SolarWinds NPM?

User-Friendly Interface: Simplifies navigation and operation.
Customizable Dashboards: Allows personalized data views.
Real-Time Monitoring: Provides instant updates on network performance.
Strong Alerting Capabilities: Offers immediate notifications for issues.
Scalability: Supports growth with ease.
Integration: Works smoothly with other tools for comprehensive monitoring.
SNMP Monitoring: Tracks device stats effectively.
NetPath: Helps visualize network paths and performance.

What benefits and ROI can users expect?

Improved Network Visibility: Enables proactive issue resolution.
Enhanced Diagnostics: Facilitates quicker troubleshooting.
Real-Time Performance Data: Supports informed decision-making.
Ease of Deployment: Reduces setup time and complexity.
Infrastructure Monitoring: Ensures network stability and reliability.
Custom Integration: Adapts to existing IT environments.

In enterprise environments, SolarWinds NPM is deployed to monitor network health and device status, sending alerts for any issues. It provides visibility into network performance, tracking bandwidth utilization and server metrics efficiently. Its applications span from monitoring routers, switches, and firewalls to supporting infrastructure monitoring across industries.

SolarWinds

Sample Customers

Information Not Available

Microsoft, Federal Express, Hewlett-Packard, and MasterCard

Buyer's Guide

Azure Network Watcher vs. SolarWinds NPM

September 2026

Free Report: Azure Network Watcher vs. SolarWinds NPM

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