Azure Network Watcher vs DX Performance Management comparison

Microsoft and Broadcom are both solutions in the Network Monitoring Software category. Microsoft is ranked #41 with an average rating of 8.7, while Broadcom is ranked #52 with an average rating of 8.5. Microsoft holds a 0.5% mindshare in NMS, compared to Broadcom’s 0.5% mindshare. Additionally, 92% of Microsoft users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 96% of Broadcom users who would recommend it.

Azure Network Watcher

Read 13 Azure Network Watcher reviews

846 Views
804 Comparison Views

92% willing to recommend

DX Performance Management

Read 32 DX Performance Management reviews

1,172 Views
856 Comparison Views

96% willing to recommend

Azure Network Watcher

DX Performance Management

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 10, 2024

DX Performance Management and Azure Network Watcher compete in network performance and monitoring. Azure Network Watcher has the upper hand due to its robust features, though DX Performance Management is favorable for its cost-effectiveness and customer support.

Features: DX Performance Management provides comprehensive insights into network performance, offers extensive analytics, and customizable reports. Ideal for continuous performance improvement, it caters to diverse monitoring needs. Azure Network Watcher stands out with built-in diagnostics, detailed network topology visualization, and automatic configuration checks, making it powerful for monitoring and troubleshooting.

Room for Improvement: DX Performance Management can improve in areas such as expanding advanced diagnostics capabilities, enhancing visualization features, and streamlining integration with other tools. Azure Network Watcher might benefit from simplified user onboarding, improved customer training resources, and more consistent support experiences.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: DX Performance Management is recognized for smooth deployment and effective customer support, catering to various network environments efficiently. Azure Network Watcher offers integrated deployment within the Azure ecosystem, benefitting Azure Cloud users particularly, but it may present a steeper learning curve with varying levels of support satisfaction.

Pricing and ROI: DX Performance Management presents a lower initial setup cost, appealing to organizations seeking a cost-effective solution with tangible ROI improvements in performance. Conversely, Azure Network Watcher, while having higher upfront costs, delivers substantial ROI through comprehensive monitoring and agile troubleshooting capabilities, adding value for those deeply integrated with the Azure platform.

To learn more, read our detailed Azure Network Watcher vs. DX Performance Management Report (Updated: December 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Azure Network Watcher vs. DX Performance Management

December 2025

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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

41st

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

5.9

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

DX Performance Management

Ranking in Network Monitoring Software

52nd

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

7.4

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Infrastructure Capacity Planning (2nd), DX NetOps (2nd)

Mindshare comparison

As of January 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 DX Performance Management is 0.5%, up from 0.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Network Monitoring Software Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Azure Network Watcher	0.5%
DX Performance Management	0.5%
Other	99.0%

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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reviewer1810893

Senior IT Operations Specialist at a financial services firm with 5,001-10,000 employees

Flexibility and detailed performance stats enable effective network monitoring

Spectrum is very good at monitoring all network faults and configurations. It enables me to take action based on network issues. The Performance Management provides detailed network performance stats, including CPU, memory, and interface bandwidth. Additionally, Spectrum is flexible and allows me to organize and treat devices uniquely without impacting other devices.

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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

"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."

"The most valuable feature of Azure Network Watcher is the cloud-native application firewall. It is helpful for securing databases."

"I like the visibility."

"The stability is very good. I rate it a ten out of ten."

"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."

"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."

More Azure Network Watcher pros

"The most valuable feature of DX Performance Management is the quick way we can collect data without putting much effort. They have a lot of customization and features with the solution internally and out of the box. We can discover the device, and start collecting information. For example, if the device is available, we can receive the CPU and memory utilization, and the interface optimization is simple and very fast to implement."

"You can create intelligent alerts so you have enough time to replace the router or interface before it's full. The same is applicable for CBQoS channels."

"My sales representative, I would not trade him in for the world. He has done a really good job. I am really happy with him."

"When devices are having performance issues, it proactively build dashboards which allow us to go and do health checks, and resolve problems before they become an issue."

"The ability to quickly do drag and drop customized reports for dashboards."

"Customer service is top-notch."

"I can get it to run a report showing, for instance, what root drives are in the critical range in terms of being full, like 90 percent full, and disseminate that information to the other areas of the organization."

"One of the most valuable features is the ease of use."

More DX Performance Management pros

Cons

"Azure Network Watcher needs to have better documentation and it needs to capture information accurately."

"User experience could be improved."

"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."

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

"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."

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

More Azure Network Watcher cons

"This may be available by now but for server space, when it comes to the disk file system, I'd like to see that graphically represented, or the trend, rather than what I'm seeing now."

"CA PM Business Hours Filtering: I understand that all monitoring systems have defects. The Business Hours Filtering does not always function properly. Sometimes, when applying business hours to CA PM reports that are 30 or more days in duration, the report generation times out and does not display results. We have other CA PM reports that, when we apply Business Hours Filtering, the report results displayed are the same as without the filter. We are not sure if this is a defect in CA PM or if it is a result of our complex configuration (folder structure) and application of business hours."

"We would like to be capable of reporting network performance with a report strictly focused on the times outside business hours, which CA PM does not currently support. We have discontinued the use of the Business Hours Filtering until CA engineers are able to resolve or offer guidance."

"There are some areas in the technology right now, like with VMs, where we are lacking with our abilities to get inside the VM to monitor traffic within the machine."

"It could be a little easier to integrate new metrics."

"I'm not a fan of many extra features since they usually burden the software and reduce its reliability."

"We experience disconnections between the solutions own components."

"Spectrum's topology view sometimes does not rebuild automatically when a device is shut down and reconnected. It requires manual discovery and rebuilding of the topology, which I hope can be improved."

More DX Performance Management cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

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

"The price of the solution is reasonable."

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

"Azure Network Watcher is a little bit expensive."

"We were looking at other vendors in the marketplace for NetFlow, and CA just beat everybody else in price, cost, and the size to implement. "

"I like the licensing model because it's device-based."

"We purchase a license to use the solution every three years and we have multiple contracts. They have been increasing the price annually. We have a baseline for three years and then we need to pay the difference from the baseline, and we are in the process of negotiating a new price for all the licenses we need. The price overall is affordable."

"Do your homework and know how many devices you will be managing out of the gate. Be sure to project what your growth will be each year."

"The tool's pricing is based on the number of network devices."

"They should provide more scalable licensing for the product."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

17%

Government

11%

University

Comms Service Provider

Manufacturing Company

15%

Educational Organization

11%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Healthcare 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	5
Large Enterprise	25

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Azure Network Watcher?

Azure Network Watcher is affordable from the perspective of basic costing. It doesn't cost too much at this point unless you are requesting customizable detailed matrices. For the default configura...

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What needs improvement with Azure Network Watcher?

See all answers

What is your primary use case for Azure Network Watcher?

The purpose of using Azure Network Watcher is to observe the network flow logs during any kind of troubleshooting. If there is any performance issue or latency issue over the network, we check the ...

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What needs improvement with DX Performance Management?

Spectrum's topology view sometimes does not rebuild automatically when a device is shut down and reconnected. It requires manual discovery and rebuilding of the topology, which I hope can be improved.

See all answers

What is your primary use case for DX Performance Management?

I have used Spectrum for monitoring all network faults, configurations, and troubleshooting network issues. It provides network performance stats, such as CPU, memory, and interface bandwidth detai...

See all answers

What advice do you have for others considering DX Performance Management?

I would recommend this solution based on its functionality, flexibility, customizability, and ease of use. Overall, I would rate the solution an eight out of ten. I am just a customer and not a par...

See all answers

Comparisons

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Compared 27% of the time

Nmap vs Azure Network Watcher

Compared 16% of the time

ThousandEyes vs Azure Network Watcher

Compared 8% of the time

Plixer Scrutinizer vs Azure Network Watcher

Compared 8% of the time

ExtraHop Reveal(x) for IT Operations vs Azure Network Watcher

Compared 7% of the time

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IBM SevOne Network Performance Management (NPM) vs DX Performance Management

Compared 11% of the time

Datadog vs DX Performance Management

Compared 11% of the time

WhatsUp Gold vs DX Performance Management

Compared 10% of the time

DX Spectrum vs DX Performance Management

Compared 8% of the time

SolarWinds AppOptics vs DX Performance Management

Compared 8% of the time

More DX Performance Management Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Azure Network Watcher

January 2026

Download Azure Network Watcher product report

Buyer's Guide

DX Performance Management

January 2026

Download DX Performance Management product report

Also Known As

No data available

CA Performance Management

Overview

Azure Network Watcher is a comprehensive network monitoring and diagnostic service offered by Microsoft Azure. It provides a range of tools and capabilities to help users monitor, diagnose, and gain insights into their Azure network infrastructure. With Network Watcher, users can capture and analyze network traffic, monitor network performance, troubleshoot connectivity issues, and gain visibility into network topology. It also offers features like packet capture, flow logs, connection monitoring, and VPN diagnostics to ensure the smooth operation of Azure networks. Network Watcher enables users to proactively identify and resolve network issues, optimize network performance, and enhance the overall reliability and security of their Azure network environment.

Microsoft

CA Performance Management is a comprehensive and highly scalable network performance monitoring and analytics platform. It was built to meet the unique demands of big data and modern networks architectures, including highly dynamic and complex hybrid cloud and software-defined networks (SDN).

The platform is design to reduce complexity inherent in modern networks built across numerous technology stacks through advanced network performance monitoring and relationship mapping for improved operational assurance.

Combined with CA Virtual Network Assurance, the platform extends operator visibility through advanced discovery and network performance monitoring of highly sensitive cloud and multi-layered SDN networks and service chains.

Broadcom

Sample Customers

Information Not Available

Jack Henry & Assoc, Target, CenturyLink, Bell Canada, BrightHouse Networks, Telus, Unisys, Verizon, Southern California Edison, GEICO, Fidelity Investments, Wells Fargo, American Family Insurance Group, Deutsche Telekom AG

Buyer's Guide

Azure Network Watcher vs. DX Performance Management

December 2025

Free Report: Azure Network Watcher vs. DX Performance Management

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