Azure Network Watcher vs ITRS Geneos comparison

Microsoft and ITRS are both solutions in the Network Monitoring Software category. Microsoft is ranked #42 with an average rating of 8.5, while ITRS is ranked #64 with an average rating of 5.0. Microsoft holds a 0.5% mindshare in NMS, compared to ITRS’s 0.6% mindshare. Additionally, 92% of Microsoft users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 96% of ITRS users who would recommend it.

Azure Network Watcher

Read 13 Azure Network Watcher reviews

1,082 Views
1,039 Comparison Views

92% willing to recommend

ITRS Geneos

Read 57 ITRS Geneos reviews

4,758 Views
1,570 Comparison Views

96% willing to recommend

Azure Network Watcher

ITRS Geneos

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 10, 2024

ITRS Geneos and Azure Network Watcher compete in the realm of IT monitoring solutions. ITRS Geneos takes the lead in proactive monitoring and alerting capabilities, while Azure Network Watcher stands out with its network diagnostics and cloud-native tools.

Features: ITRS Geneos offers real-time monitoring with customizable dashboards and extensive plugin support, particularly beneficial for the financial industry. It supports multiple platforms, enhancing incident management. Azure Network Watcher provides robust network-centric monitoring tools such as packet capture and architecture visualization, designed for seamless integration with Azure’s cloud ecosystem.

Room for Improvement: ITRS Geneos could benefit from enhanced data visualization and a more intuitive configuration setup. There is a need for better support of cloud-based infrastructures and mobile application integration. Azure Network Watcher, on the other hand, could improve by incorporating more open-source features and enhancing its user documentation. Users have also identified a steep initial learning curve and the need for more comprehensive logging and visualization tools.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: ITRS Geneos primarily operates on-premises, requiring complex deployment but is strongly supported with personalized customer service. Azure Network Watcher offers straightforward cloud-based integration with Azure, with customer support regarded as responsive though slightly less personalized.

Pricing and ROI: ITRS Geneos is priced at a premium level, suitable for large enterprises with extensive monitoring needs, providing significant ROI through system reliability. Azure Network Watcher's pricing is more accessible for users seeking cost-effective network monitoring, with value demonstrated in network efficiency and stress reduction.

To learn more, read our detailed Azure Network Watcher vs. ITRS Geneos Report (Updated: March 2026).

Buyer's Guide

Azure Network Watcher vs. ITRS Geneos

March 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

42nd

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

5.9

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

ITRS Geneos

Ranking in Network Monitoring Software

64th

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

7.1

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability (34th), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (45th)

Mindshare comparison

As of April 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 ITRS Geneos is 0.6%, down from 0.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Network Monitoring Software Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
Azure Network Watcher	0.5%
ITRS Geneos	0.6%
Other	98.9%

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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DeepakR

Site Reliability Engineer(Observability) at Sapiens

If one server fails, the agent will automatically be reinstalled

ITRS Geneos is a legacy system. It predicts or provides proactive measures once an issue is resolved. It doesn't offer any predictive capabilities or root cause analysis. They throw a lot of data if there's a 90% error. You need to check which process is consuming more CPU and determine the root cause for yourself. You need to troubleshoot it manually. This legacy system could introduce predictive analysis and root cause identification. They are reluctant to switch to newer solutions, which may require writing queries to fetch data. Manually logging into servers, checking CPU usage, identifying processes, and determining root causes is time-consuming. Once the root cause is identified, the issue can be resolved efficiently. The manual troubleshooting process is time-consuming. The content is not openly available in the market. If you search for it somewhere, it is not readily accessible. If you want to try it out, no trial version is available. Therefore, it will be challenging to learn. Loading ITRS is difficult, as you need to purchase it first. Secondly, only a few people are knowledgeable about ITRS in the market, making it challenging to find resources. Thirdly, the documentation must be well-documented, making finding content or training material hard. The UI also needs to be updated, which adds to the difficulty.

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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

"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."

"This is a stable system providing stable performance."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"The solution is good for monitoring device behavior."

"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."

More Azure Network Watcher pros

"We have been able to monitor the repeated critical alerts and work on producing a more stable environment for our customers."

"The ITRS central Help Desk is absolutely awesome."

"Customizable Dashboard to display real time business flow monitoring is extremely useful to operations as well as business users, not only to monitor health but also capacity and performance at a glance, catering well to capital markets trading environments from on-exchange order latency to client RFQ type multi-stage tracking, with Geneos providing tools to capture data in near real-time and highly customizable ingestion of metrics that allow users to create tailored scripts and tools for their monitoring needs."

"The solution is used across the entire investment banking division, covering environments such as electronic trading, algo-trading, fixed income, FX, etc. It monitors that environment and enables a bank to significantly reduce down time."

"The clean and colorful UI and easy to use options like snooze and active times."

"The solution's log monitoring and alerting mechanisms are very user-friendly and easy to plug and play."

"It is better than any monitoring product I've ever used in terms of providing real-time metric data."

"One of the best aspects of Geneos is that it has a broad scope and can cover a lot of use cases. You can write your own scripts to monitor really specific things. And the rules that you can put in place can be quite complex for the alerts."

More ITRS Geneos pros

Cons

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

"Technical support from Microsoft needs significant improvement compared to other product vendors."

"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 inbound and outbound traffic."

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

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

"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."

More Azure Network Watcher cons

"I would also like to see suggested guidelines to accomplish a monitoring task. The issue is that ITRS is so flexible that there is more than one way to complete a task, each with benefits and disadvantages."

"Much of the reporting outside of the user interface is very basic and requires much customization to be useful."

"One area where there is room for improvement is the log file. I would like to be able to do a pre-run on the log files."

"Not a ten because when the Gateway was very overloaded it was very hard to monitor the alerts, especially for the product services."

"ITRS Geneos is not on the cloud at a time when everyone is moving to the cloud."

"ITRS Geneos cloud monitoring is very weak and can use improvement."

"t needs to have better middleware integration for things such as application and Microsft SQL servers."

"Their cloud monitoring solution needs to be improved. I have already given them the feedback that it's not capable of meeting the latest technology needs."

More ITRS Geneos cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

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

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

"Azure Network Watcher is a little bit expensive."

"The price of the solution is reasonable."

"When I first came in, their pricing was very high. ITRS had a high expectation of what their price should be based on perceived value. I think they have been realizing, more recently, that there are other competitors, so their pricing is a lot better. Licensing for on-premise is okay, however I feel there is quite some work to be done for cloud and containers. We're still working with them to try and work out what that pricing should look like."

"The pricing seems reasonable. We're happy enough with it."

"Its price is reasonable. It isn't too expensive, and it isn't too cheap, but it also depends on a company's volume and negotiation."

"The licensing cost may seem expensive upfront. However, the service is outstanding, the tool does things that no other tools can do, and the customizability more than makes up for the cost of licensing."

"You will get the best price if you get a single global deal."

"Given our spend and the amount of service we have in it, the pricing is quite reasonable."

"Based on feedback from colleagues and friends working in the financial sector, Geneos is relatively costly. Many companies have been switching from Geneos to Dynatrace, Sysdig, or other monitoring tools in the past two years because of the price."

"The organization is not just purchasing a license for the product, but also managing services and professional services from ITRS. Another factor is if the implementation is going to be in production, non-production, or both."

More ITRS Geneos pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

15%

Construction Company

10%

University

Comms Service Provider

Financial Services Firm

67%

Computer Software Company

Construction Company

Outsourcing 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	6
Midsize Enterprise	12
Large Enterprise	39

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?

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 ...

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 your experience regarding pricing and costs for ITRS Geneos?

The pricing is high. Licensing fees might be around 500$ per server monthly.

See all answers

What needs improvement with ITRS Geneos?

See all answers

What is your primary use case for ITRS Geneos?

ITRS offers multiple products, including upgrades for synthetic monitoring and a SaaS platform. Geneos is used for infrastructure monitoring, covering KPIs such as CPU, memory, processes, network l...

See all answers

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Azure Network Watcher

March 2026

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Buyer's Guide

ITRS Geneos

March 2026

Download ITRS Geneos product report

Also Known As

No data available

Geneos

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

ITRS Geneos is a real-time monitoring tool designed for managing increasingly complex, hybrid and interconnected IT estates.

Built with financial services and trading organisations in mind, it collects a wide range of data relating to server performance, infrastructure, trading, connectivity and applications, and analyses it to provide relevant information and alerts in real time.

Geneos can give full stack visibility across highly dynamic environments and presents all the information through a single pane of glass and its configurable and customisable dashboards provide end-to-end visibility to both technical and business users.

For more information, please visit https://www.itrsgroup.com/products/geneos

ITRS

Sample Customers

Information Not Available

ITRS Geneos is used by over 170 financial institutions, including JPMorgan, HSBC, RBS, Deutsche Bank and Goldman Sachs. Clients range from investment banks to exchanges and brokers.

Buyer's Guide

Azure Network Watcher vs. ITRS Geneos

March 2026

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