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Azure Network Watcher vs ThousandEyes 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
ThousandEyes
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
8th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
25
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Monitoring Software (10th), Digital Experience Monitoring (DEM) (2nd)
 

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 ThousandEyes is 1.7%, down from 3.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Network Monitoring Software Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
ThousandEyes1.7%
Azure Network Watcher0.5%
Other97.8%
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.
Shreyans Parekh - PeerSpot reviewer
Vice President, Finance and Operations at Fruitist
Proactive monitoring has transformed digital experience and now optimizes application delivery
With ThousandEyes, there are some configuration and metric screens that are not entirely intuitive with ThousandEyes, so they can certainly improve in terms of the usability of certain metric screens. ThousandEyes can also offer deeper traffic insights relative to specific applications, so detailed analytics on application-level traffic would help in better understanding and managing our network resources effectively. I would say that ThousandEyes can also, in terms of providing more extensibility with other observability tools, offer more out-of-the-box integrations with other observability tools so that ThousandEyes can serve as that single source of truth, so that we don't necessarily need to go to other tools to be able to be that one-source dashboard. I think there's a lot that ThousandEyes can continue to improve on there. The issues that I've talked about, including extensibility with other platforms and the improvement of accessing specific metric screens in order to be able to provide for fuller access and more detailed access to network-level metrics would make the platform feel less complicated to navigate. It wouldn't require as many manual integration inputs.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"This is a stable system providing stable performance."
"We use the solution to monitor network services. It helps to capture any network issues."
"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, which is helpful for securing databases."
"The solution is stable, there are no bugs or glitches and it doesn't crash or freeze, it's reliable."
"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 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."
"It provides good visibility."
"The solution's most valuable feature is network security."
"The most valuable features of ThousandEyes are the full monitoring capabilities and the ability to identify the exact location of problems in the path between the application and the end-user."
"I think the analysis service that Cisco provides is extremely valuable."
"ThousandEyes offers the best features including global internet and cloud visibility from distributed vantage points, application and network performance monitoring, real-time outage detection and incident alerts, end-to-end path visualization for rapid troubleshooting, proactive issue demarcation, and historical data."
"The most valuable features are integration and ease of use."
"ThousandEyes is an excellent product that really provides accurate metrics into network performance as well as the user experience, and I would highly recommend it."
"Overall, I would rate ThousandEyes nine out of ten."
"The advice I would give to those looking into using ThousandEyes is about the possibilities it offers to the operations teams, as ThousandEyes is an extremely powerful solution that makes operations able to detect issues effectively."
 

Cons

"Azure Network Watcher needs to have better documentation and it needs to capture information accurately."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"Lacks sufficient security features."
"Technical support from Microsoft needs significant improvement compared to other product vendors."
"I feel it needs more holistic integration. It needs more improvement."
"An area where ThousandEyes can be improved is in providing more in-depth packet analysis; we've found instances where ThousandEyes indicates everything is okay, but it's actually not."
"It might be practical to extend monitoring capabilities to include network devices"
"We can show the traffic path in some cases, but it's almost impossible to do so in cloud networks like CDN, Akamai, or Microsoft."
"ThousandEyes definitely has differentiators versus the peers in the space, as there are other tools that are a bit more user-friendly to configure, especially around enterprise agents; for example, when upgrades are required, it sometimes needs a complete de-installation and re-installation of a newer version, which leads to a bit of administrative overhead from time to time, but overall, it has been an excellent product."
"ThousandEyes should expand its application monitoring to monitor some communication applications."
"ThousandEyes could be improved by unifying the GUI with the rest of the Cisco products since it remains legacy from its original state when Cisco acquired it."
"It would be nice if the solution covered other areas like server monitoring."
 

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."
"The solution costs several thousand dollars per year."
"The solution is cheap."
"The solution's pricing is cheap; I rate it a five out of ten."
"It is a quite expensive solution."
"In our company, we incur a yearly expense in our company for the licensing part. I rate the solution's pricing a seven out of ten since it is expensive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
25%
Construction Company
12%
Media Company
6%
University
6%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Healthcare Company
8%
Government
8%
 

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 Business7
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise17
 

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 the best network monitoring software for large enterprises?
It actually depends on the exact purpose or requirements. Some tools are better for only network devices while others are better from a cloud monitoring or APM monitoring perspective. You can check...
What needs improvement with ThousandEyes?
ThousandEyes could be improved by unifying the GUI with the rest of the Cisco products since it remains legacy from its original state when Cisco acquired it.
What is your primary use case for ThousandEyes?
My main use cases for ThousandEyes are troubleshooting slow speeds and investigating disconnection issues that users report.
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Wayfair, GitHub, Craigslist, Comcast, SurveyMonkey, Lyft, Box, HP, Zendesk, IO Data Centers, Good Technology, NNTCommunications, Proofpoint, Schneider, Crowdstrike, Avera, Pitney Bowes, InstartLogic, Shutterfly, Shutterstock, Condé Nast, Roche, Jive, Actelion, Brocade, Infor, Okta, JLL, DigitalOcean, Zuora, NetSuite, CloudFlare, One, DemonWare, Quantcast, Carbonite, CareerBuilder, Prosper, Oscar, Slack
Find out what your peers are saying about Azure Network Watcher vs. ThousandEyes and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
900,644 professionals have used our research since 2012.