Azure Network Watcher vs ITRS Geneos comparison

Microsoft and ITRS are both solutions in the Network Monitoring Software category. Microsoft is ranked #41 with an average rating of 8.7, while ITRS is ranked #68 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

846 Views
804 Comparison Views

92% willing to recommend

ITRS Geneos

Read 57 ITRS Geneos reviews

4,305 Views
1,292 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: December 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Azure Network Watcher vs. ITRS Geneos

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

ITRS Geneos

Ranking in Network Monitoring Software

68th

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

7.1

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability (33rd), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (45th)

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 ITRS Geneos is 0.6%, down from 0.7% 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%
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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Durai CT

Head FM Monitoring at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees

A stable, scalable, and flexible monitoring tool

Real-time data is one of the unique features that ITRS Geneos offers. For example, if there is an impact on a particular server and a particular application, I want to see what the impact is or what the CPU or hardware usage information is, as well as the service in the same application. I can see the real-time data and the impact by accessing ITRS Geneos and looking at the tree. I don't want a tool that tells me when something is broken. I want the tool to tell me when something is going to break. That is the difference between ITRS Geneos and other tools. I want proactive monitoring, not reactive. I don't need to be notified after the fact that something has broken. If something is broken, I get a notification by email, and some of my customers are going to call me. ITRS Geneos provides proactive monitoring. The great advantage of this tool is real-time monitoring. ITRS Geneos not only alerts us but also gives us a real-time view of the data. This is the tool's first great advantage. It is also lightweight and flexible and can adapt to monitor even low-latency systems, which is the tool's second advantage. Another great feature of this tool is its good presentation layer, which allows us to build custom dashboards to present to business stakeholders. This gives them a high-level status of what is being monitored. If we compare ITRS Geneos to other tools, we will find that each one specializes in a specific area, but the ITRS Geneos tool is more comprehensive. This is its great advantage.

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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

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

"The solution is stable."

"I like the visibility."

"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."

"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 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."

More Azure Network Watcher pros

"Geneos automatically sends email notifications when any batch job fails, the database is down or the website is down. It is automatically monitoring everything and reduces manual effort."

"The biggest benefit of Geneos is the fact that we can clearly see, if we have an alert, where that alert has come from. We can see the data around that alert and anything that might be relevant is also shown. We can very easily right-click and see why we've received that alert. That's the best part about it, that you've got all the data there with the alerting."

"The great advantage of this tool is real-time monitoring."

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

"The filtering in the Active Console is exceptional. Depending on the user base, some people don't want to see server-level errors, so we have filters set up in the Managed Entities view, which allow us to filter out things that certain groups don't want to see, while allowing them to see other things. It's a great real-time monitoring solution. And you can draw graphs immediately, right from the Active Console, whether they're current graphs or historical graphs."

"In my experience, being able to monitor our databases is a valuable feature as we can create our own queries and aren't reliant on the in-built ones."

"It's a very powerful application monitoring tool across the industry. Many free, open-source tools are available. There are also paid tools, but ITRS Geneos is a real-time application monitoring tool where the user can monitor, self-configure, and manage alerts through their console."

"The flexibility of the product is most valuable. It is highly customizable. If you put your mind to it and think of something you could do, there's a good possibility you can get it integrated within the console, if it's not readily available. The simplicity or ease of customization has been valuable."

More ITRS Geneos pros

Cons

"The initial setup and deployment could be improved to be simplified."

"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."

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

"Lacks sufficient security features."

"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."

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

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

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."

"The ITA, the post-incident analytics, could be improved."

"There is one drawback to using lightweight data collection: we lack the feature of observability based on time series, such as historical model data. This makes it difficult to view data in ITRS. ITRS needs to improve this feature."

"For the last year or two, I've been asking the vendor about the mobile app. This is something that probably everyone asks when they see the tool and they see how powerful it is. If there is any mobile app for this or if there is any way this tool can be more easily accessible other than having a big client installed, it would be great. I know you can build dashboards, et cetera, but there is no quick and easy way. I should be able to download an app, log in, and see my status. That will put this product above everything else out there. I believe it's on their roadmap."

"The main feature that needs work is the Dashboard designer."

"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."

"The deployment method for upgrading is a bit tricky. It takes a little bit of manual effort. If that could be a bit more automated, it would help us a lot."

"I would like to see ITRS integrate its setup editor with a SVN to check-in setup XML after major changes."

More ITRS Geneos cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

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

"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."

"I can say it's not that cheap because the licensing is a little bit costly"

"It is expensive. They have to look at the model around when we move to cloud and how that's going to work. The licensing cost does pay off because of the improvements in support to our business."

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

"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."

"ITRS Geneos is not a cheap tool. It's a moderate price for the banking industry. The reason we are not able to add the ITRS monitoring tool for the non-banking industries, and non-finance industries, is that the pricing is too high."

"The product is priced quite high. There are pricing options for customers based on the size of the environment and plug-ins used by the monitoring system."

"The pricing is fairly market-related. They have been very lenient because we have been working with them for so long. An example is that we're currently migrating some of our services to AWS, and they've given us a grace period for some of the things to help with the migration and not to grow additional costs while we are migrating, but it's still on par with the market."

More ITRS Geneos pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

17%

Government

11%

University

Comms Service Provider

Financial Services Firm

70%

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?

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 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?

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 i...

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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

January 2026

Download Azure Network Watcher product report

Buyer's Guide

ITRS Geneos

January 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

December 2025

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