Azure Network Watcher vs Centreon comparison

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Azure Network Watcher

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Jun 3, 2026

Centreon and Azure Network Watcher are both competitors in the network monitoring and diagnostics category. Centreon holds an advantage in on-premises device monitoring and scalability, while Azure Network Watcher excels in cloud-based diagnostics and proactive monitoring through AI.

Features: Centreon offers extensive monitoring across various devices on a single platform, supports LAN and WAN networks, and allows unlimited device monitoring with customization options via an API, enhancing integration and tailored dashboards. Azure Network Watcher provides packet capture, connection troubleshooting, and network flow monitoring, with AI enhancements for proactive monitoring in cloud environments.

Room for Improvement: Centreon requires better downtime management, reduces reliability, and faces limitations in adding devices and web application monitoring. Its API and reporting could be more user-friendly. Azure Network Watcher could enhance its built-in applications for logging activities and advanced AI features, and improve user-friendliness, documentation, and setup processes.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Centreon is flexible with its deployment across on-premises and hybrid cloud environments but receives mixed reviews on customer service responsiveness and support availability. Azure Network Watcher integrates easily within Azure's ecosystem and receives positive reviews, although users desire better documentation and resource access without extensive customization.

Pricing and ROI: As an open-source solution, Centreon offers cost savings, with fair pricing for advanced features, though enterprise versions can be costly. Its value lies in reducing operational costs through efficient monitoring. Azure Network Watcher's pricing is reasonable for default configurations but can rise with custom matrices. Although slightly more expensive, especially for smaller organizations, both solutions offer competitive ROI through time and resource savings in network management.

To learn more, read our detailed Azure Network Watcher vs. Centreon Report (Updated: June 2026).

Azure Network Watcher vs. Centreon

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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

43rd

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

5.9

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Centreon

Ranking in Network Monitoring Software

27th

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

7.2

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

IT Infrastructure Monitoring (27th), Cloud Monitoring Software (20th)

Mindshare comparison

As of July 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 Centreon is 1.3%, down from 2.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Network Monitoring Software Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
Centreon	1.3%
Azure Network Watcher	0.5%
Other	98.2%

Network Monitoring Software

Featured Reviews

Bijoyendra Roychowdhury

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.

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Sulesh PK

Monitoring and Operations Pilot at Egis S.A.

Experience enhanced monitoring with real-time alerts and efficient support

I would like to see automation in the poller features, as currently, the poller is not automated. If we could automate the addition or removal of hosts in the poller, it would improve efficiency. Sometimes, Centreon does not show the status of services as updated, which should be addressed. Additionally, enhancements are needed in identifying configuration issues, providing real-time alerts in case of issues, and improving the HTTP configuration tasks, as Centreon does not currently display issues with HTTP links, requiring manual investigation.

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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."

"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."

"It provides good visibility."

"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 solution is good for monitoring device behavior."

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

"The most valuable features I have found are typology, visualization, and capture."

"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."

More Azure Network Watcher pros

"The most valuable feature is that we can manually configure everything we need. After it comes inside the interface of Centreon, you can display it. Because the interface is quite user-friendly, you can manually configure the configuration very deeply, which is very pleasant and useful because you can monitor and see everything on your service list, dashboard, or MAP. The most useful feature for me is that you can create your own plugin and monitoring query."

"Centreon is one of our core tools and if we didn't have it, we couldn't do our job effectively."

"If they have the same issues that we had, which means a lot of pollers spread across the whole infrastructure and no central view to look at the entire status with the need to manage everything together, then it is a good solution."

"I can't point to one valuable feature. All of Centreon is good."

"We are alerted on service impacts and not when something is down. We have saved a lot of time on non-business-hours intervention."

"In addition, the flexibility, customizability, and analytics of Centreon's dashboards are all very good. The dashboards help us see the whole network map, and that is quite valuable for us. In addition, the dashboards have helped to improve our visibility and ability to proactively ensure the right data is available at the right time... The flexibility has given us the ability to add in our own monitoring metrics and that has been quite interesting and very useful for us."

"I find the product's scalability to be one of the most valuable features since it allows us to add unlimited devices for monitoring and to set up additional polling servers without additional license cost or downtime in our monitoring."

"It supports active monitoring so we don't have to use traps. From time to time traps are not very useful because we never know if they are actually working or not. The reporting part is also valuable as are the event logs. Using them we can check right away if something has had a hiccup."

More Centreon pros

Cons

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

"The initial setup and initial learning curve could be improved to be easier."

"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 could improve by having other built-in applications, for example, an application to log activities for inbound and outbound traffic."

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

"The solution could improve by limiting the need to clarify the logs. When the clarification is minimized, it is better for everyone involved."

"Lacks sufficient security features."

"Azure is good, however, the Fortinet GUI is more intuitive and I like it more than anything else."

More Azure Network Watcher cons

"The reporting has room for improvement."

"The problem with the reporting is you have to configure the report, and after that, you will have the same report every month, every week, every day. You have to sync it in order to have a great report."

"The Home view could be improved by adding customization functions that allow users to change the size of the widgets for a more uniform layout."

"Centreon supports officially 10,000 services per poller. That is not much for larger customers, because this limit is reached very quickly. We use it with three times the limit without any problems, but Centreon says, "Okay, we are only supporting it with 10,000 services." We are aware that increasing the limit has different impacts because they need to support it. However, for most customers, it would be be very good if they could increase the limit of services."

"I went through a few things with them to do with Centreon MAP, to do with active polygons, being able to draw an area and make that active. The functionality was in the older version of Centreon MAP and in the new version, which was a complete rewrite, they dropped it."

"The most important issue is the capability to interconnect with other systems."

"There are improvements that they need to make to their API. When we're using different systems and we want to disable monitoring for a specific server, we still can't do that through the API. That's something that's lacking."

"Now that we got it, I haven't had time to work on it since it is a paid solution that is quite expensive."

More Centreon cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

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

"Azure Network Watcher is a little bit expensive."

"The price of the solution is reasonable."

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

"The pricing starts at around 5000 euro. However, this depends on: Your environment, the size of your host, how many hosts you have, how many remote pollers you have, and if you want to use the Monitoring Business Intelligence or Centreon MAP functionalities."

"The pricing works out well for us, given our environment and where we are."

"For more complex tasks, we use prepaid support days and ask Centreon to come onsite."

"Centreon is better than Nagios XI in regards to cost and support response times, when you have a problem. If you have a problem, it costs money to contact the Nagios XI support."

"I would like to see improvement in the licensing model. You can purchase X number of licenses, up to 1,000 devices or 1,000 instances. Your next batch is 2,000. But what if you only need, say, 1,200? The model could be changed a little bit."

"They only sell four hour slots for support, so if you have just one question, then you need to pay for four hours. Or, you need to wait until you have enough questions to fill those four hours. They are not flexible in this."

"Centreon is an open source product. Thus, there is no need for licensing."

"The solution has a free part and after that threshold, you will need to pay. For example, if you believe you can create an interesting map, most of the time, you will have to pay 10,000 Euros per year for having access to these components."

More Centreon pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

24%

Construction Company

12%

Comms Service Provider

Media Company

Computer Software Company

11%

Construction Company

10%

Financial Services Firm

Comms Service Provider

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	11
Midsize Enterprise	5
Large Enterprise	14

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 is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Centreon?

Centreon's pricing is not very expensive. Initially, I rated it seven, but corrected to five out of ten.

What needs improvement with Centreon?

I have certain concerns with Centreon, such as being unable to set downtime for multiple devices at once due to the limitation of adding only 50 devices in a single go. Increasing this limit would ...

What is your primary use case for Centreon?

We are using Centreon for monitoring devices, both LAN and WAN devices. There are subsidiaries for my company, so if any devices go down or there are any service alerts, we receive alerts through C...

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Product Reports

Azure Network Watcher

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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

Centreon offers a robust IT infrastructure monitoring platform, featuring user-friendly dashboards and real-time monitoring. It excels in scalability and integration, making it suitable for monitoring diverse network environments.

Centreon stands out with its unified monitoring capabilities, providing businesses with user-friendly dashboards and extensive plugins for customization. Its scalability ensures companies can expand monitoring tasks without incurring additional costs. Integration capabilities allow seamless interaction with ticketing systems and automation tools. Centreon offers customizable reporting and effectively manages downtimes, providing real-time feedback and proactive maintenance through Business Activity and Anomaly Detection features. Despite its strengths, users find areas for improvement including downtime scheduling, API functionalities, UI enhancements, end-to-end monitoring, and documentation. Businesses are increasingly demanding better automation, network discovery, cloud monitoring, and notification options.

What are Centreon's standout features?

Unified Monitoring: Delivers a comprehensive monitoring platform for IT infrastructure.
User-Friendly Dashboards: Offers intuitive and customizable dashboards for efficient monitoring.
Extensive Plugins: Enables flexibility and customization through numerous plugins.
Scalability: Allows expansion of monitoring duties without additional costs.
Integration Capabilities: Seamlessly integrates with ticketing systems and other tools.

What benefits should users look for in reviews?

Cost Efficiency: Minimized resolution time through proactive maintenance features.
Ease of Use: Simplifies monitoring with its user-friendly interface.
Proactive Issue Resolution: Real-time monitoring and alerts help prevent service outages.
Customizable Reporting: Adapts reports to meet specific organizational requirements.
Diverse Network Management: Capable of handling diverse IT environments efficiently.

Centreon is implemented across industries to monitor IT infrastructures, including networks, servers, and applications. Companies leverage it to track server performance, manage network devices, and receive timely alerts on device status. Its ability to integrate with ticketing systems and automation tools streamlines operations, enhancing global IT infrastructure monitoring and customer service management with real-time feedback and issue resolution.

Sample Customers

Information Not Available

Airbus, Bollore, BT, Canal Plus, Kuehne Nagel, Limagrain, LVMH, Oberthur Technologies, Orange, Darty, Addax Petroleum, Plastic Omnium, Auchan, Valeo, Saint Gobin, Clarins, Hugo Boss, JC Decaux, French Government (Defense, Justice, Environment, Agriculture), OptiComm, Thales, Zeiss.

Azure Network Watcher vs. Centreon