Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

Azure Network Watcher vs Datadog comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Apr 6, 2025

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
44th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
11
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Datadog
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
3rd
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
188
Ranking in other categories
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability (1st), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (2nd), Log Management (3rd), Container Monitoring (1st), Cloud Monitoring Software (1st), AIOps (1st), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (8th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Network Monitoring Software category, the mindshare of Azure Network Watcher is 0.4%, down from 0.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Datadog is 3.4%, down from 4.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Network Monitoring Software
 

Featured Reviews

Emanuel Kjellin - PeerSpot reviewer
An affordable solution to block and analyze the situation with VPN troubleshooting feature
If Azure Network Monitor is part of the solution, it's a comprehensive tool. For example, during cloud migration, the workload on the cloud can be significant. However, the Ethernet solution is low cost and provides a fast return on investment. In larger scenarios, such as a major deployment, the return on investment might take three months to a year. The solution involves managing workloads, machine storage, and network modes.
Kevin Palmer - PeerSpot reviewer
Useful log aggregation and management with helpful metrics aggregation
Datadog provides us value in three major ways: First, Datadog provides best-in-class functionality in many, if not all, of the products to which we subscribe (infrastructure, APM, log management, serverless, synthetics, real user monitoring, DB monitoring). In my experience with other tools that provide similar functionality, Datadog provides the largest feature set with the most flexibility and the best performance. Second, Datadog allows us to access all of those services in one place. Having to learn and manage only one tool for all of those purposes is a major benefit. Third, Datadog provides significant connectivity between those services so that we can view, summarize, organize, translate and correlate our data with maximum effect. Not needing to manually integrate them to draw lines between those pieces of information is a huge time savings for us.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The solution is stable."
"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."
"The most valuable features I have found are typology, visualization, and capture."
"The solution is good for monitoring device behavior."
"The stability is very good. I rate it a ten out of ten."
"We use the solution to monitor network services. It helps to capture any network issues."
"The most valuable feature of Azure Network Watcher is the cloud-native application firewall. It is helpful for securing databases."
"I like the visibility."
"We can handle debugging and find out why things are breaking in our applications."
"Datadog is easy to use and easy to deploy. It's a better solution compared to others on the market in terms of being budget friendly for our customers."
"The ingestion points are unlimited and support customization. We haven't had anything yet that we haven't been able to integrate with it."
"The real-time data helps us make informed decisions and optimize our operations, ultimately enhancing our overall efficiency and performance."
"The visibility into our network has allowed for quick diagnosis of failures, identification of underutilized or over-utilized resources, and allowed for cloud cost optimization opportunities."
"The tool's deployment is easy."
"The solution has offered increased visibility via logging APM, metrics, RUM, etc."
"The product has offered increased visibility via logging APM, metrics, RUM, etc."
 

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."
"The solution could improve by limiting the need to clarify the logs. When the clarification is minimized, it is better for everyone involved."
"The initial setup and initial learning curve could be improved to be easier."
"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."
"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."
"Azure is good, however, the Fortinet GUI is more intuitive and I like it more than anything else."
"Lacks sufficient security features."
"They need to offer better/more customization on what logs we get and making tracing possible on Edge runtime logs is a real requirement."
"More pre-configured "Monitor Alerts" would be helpful."
"I want to applaud the efforts in making the UI extremely usable and approachable. My suggestion would be to take another look at how the menu structure is put together, however. Even after using the platform mostly every day for months, I still find myself trying to find a service or feature in the menus."
"The product needs to have more enterprise approach to configuration."
"Once agents are connected to the Datadog portal, we should be able to upgrade them quickly."
"It's not that straightforward when creating an alert. The syntax is a little confusing."
"It would also be nice if we had more insight into our own usage of Datadog (agents and custom metrics). They provide a usage page which does help, but it is not in real-time."
"Geo-data is also something very critical that we hope to see in the future."
 

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 price of Datadog is reasonable. Other solutions are more expensive, such as AppDynamics."
"It has a module-based pricing model."
"They prefer monthly subscriptions."
"The pricing and licensing through AWS Marketplace has been good. It would be nice if it was cheaper, but their pricing is reasonable for what it is. Sometimes, for their newer features, they charge as if it's fully fleshed out, even though it is a newer feature and it may have less stuff than their other items."
"While it is an expensive product, I would rate the pricing level at four out of five."
"The solution's pricing depends on project volume."
"The tool is open-source."
"Sometimes it's very hard to project how much it will cost for the monthly subscription for the next month when you add certain features. Having better visibility of the cost would give a better experience."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Network Monitoring Software solutions are best for your needs.
850,900 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
19%
Computer Software Company
15%
Government
10%
Manufacturing Company
5%
Educational Organization
29%
Computer Software Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

Any advice about APM solutions?
There are many factors and we know little about your requirements (size of org, technology stack, management systems, the scope of implementation). Our goal was to consolidate APM and infra monitor...
Datadog vs ELK: which one is good in terms of performance, cost and efficiency?
With Datadog, we have near-live visibility across our entire platform. We have seen APM metrics impacted several times lately using the dashboards we have created with Datadog; they are very good c...
Which would you choose - Datadog or Dynatrace?
Our organization ran comparison tests to determine whether the Datadog or Dynatrace network monitoring software was the better fit for us. We decided to go with Dynatrace. Dynatrace offers network ...
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Adobe, Samsung, facebook, HP Cloud Services, Electronic Arts, salesforce, Stanford University, CiTRIX, Chef, zendesk, Hearst Magazines, Spotify, mercardo libre, Slashdot, Ziff Davis, PBS, MLS, The Motley Fool, Politico, Barneby's
Find out what your peers are saying about Azure Network Watcher vs. Datadog and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
850,900 professionals have used our research since 2012.