No more typing reviews! Try our Samantha, our new voice AI agent.

Azure Network Watcher vs Nagios Core comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 10, 2024

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
46th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
5.9
Number of Reviews
13
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Nagios Core
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
19th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
51
Ranking in other categories
IT Infrastructure Monitoring (16th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 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 Nagios Core is 1.4%, down from 2.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Network Monitoring Software Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Nagios Core1.4%
Azure Network Watcher0.5%
Other98.1%
Network Monitoring Software
 

Featured Reviews

Bijoyendra Roychowdhury - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
HY
Senior System Administrator at Interactive Group
Monitoring solution provides comprehensive visibility across IT infrastructure
The good thing about Nagios Core is it covers everything. Everything in the IT domain, you can monitor anything. You can even monitor printers, the ports of printers, Core workstations, and storage. You can monitor the workflow Core and the utilization of computes. If you want to grasp everything of your IT equipment on a single interface, you can use Nagios. It's the best one. It provides dashboards, and you can also configure your emails and alerts with it. If something is critical, you can configure it to notify via emails. It has a very handy dashboard, providing live alerts and visibility for everything.

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."
"This is a stable system providing stable performance."
"It provides good visibility."
"The solution is stable, there are no bugs or glitches and it doesn't crash or freeze, it's reliable."
"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."
"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."
"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 solution is stable."
"Other products are good but from the configuration point of view Nagios is really very lightweight. The price is really good in my opinion. Another important thing is that my Nagios engine still works with Dual core 8GB ram for the last 10 years."
"Nagios Core is a great solution for monitoring pretty much any size of deployment but you do need to know your way around a Linux system to set it up and run it."
"What I like about Nagios Core is that it helps me ensure everything is running smoothly by checking the status of hosts and services."
"The most valuable feature depends on the project. It's great if you need to check to ensure a service is running 24/7. I can use the full solution for free, and it's flexible. If I need to add a dashboard, I can integrate it with Nagios. Cloud synchronization is wonderful."
"Its an awesome product to use."
"Nagios allows IT staff and end-users to see the status of critical services on the network and can alert and notify selected users if critical services fail, reducing the mean time to recover."
"We have the ability right now to see and create reports to tell whether or not we're meeting our SLAs on our production servers, through it."
"We can get real time statistics of our servers which improves our monitoring."
 

Cons

"There are some occasional downtimes, but these were based on Azure-specific issues."
"It's not the most friendly or straightforward to set up. I don't see the value versus the way you have to set it up at first."
"The initial setup and initial learning curve could be improved to be easier."
"User experience could be improved."
"Lacks sufficient security features."
"The solution could improve by limiting the need to clarify the logs. When the clarification is minimized, it is better for everyone involved."
"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 needs to have better documentation and it needs to capture information accurately."
"It's not that easy to install the product itself. Also, the UI is a bit hard for regular users to navigate through."
"I would like to see a much better Nagios Manager GUI that can support all type of configuration items, and advance search options."
"Nagios Core is not easy to use, so I don't recommend it for everyone."
"Nagios Core could improve by adding a user interface. If you want the user interface you have to use Nagios XI."
"Setup is bit complicated due to the large set of libraries it needs, but this may be because it's open source."
"This is the open source product, so it's a toolkit rather than a complete solution."
"Making it a little easier to configure and set up from the start would help. There are multiple layers that you have to wade through to be able to set it up, to do it the right way, and to get it to do what you want it to do."
"The NetEase reporting structure needs improvement, especially the availability report, which is weak."
 

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."
"The price of the solution is reasonable."
"Azure Network Watcher is a little bit expensive."
"Nagios Core is an open source solution, and there are no licensing fees."
"Most the plugin features are free."
"The solution is expensive."
"We are using the open-source, unpaid version."
"Nagios Core is free to use."
"I would rate the solution's pricing an eight out of ten."
"We are using the free version."
"The product is cheaply priced."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Network Monitoring Software solutions are best for your needs.
909,099 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
22%
Construction Company
13%
Outsourcing Company
7%
Comms Service Provider
6%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Construction Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business6
Large Enterprise7
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business20
Midsize Enterprise11
Large Enterprise24
 

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 Nagios Core?
Nagios Core is a free and open-source product. We don't charge for the product itself, but we charge for the man-hour costs related to installation, configuration, ongoing operation, and maintenance.
What needs improvement with Nagios Core?
The dashboard should be improved. It's very simple. I don't have a very clear or specific suggestion. You can change the skin of the dashboard, however, it's good for me.
What is your primary use case for Nagios Core?
I was a senior system administrator. I've been using Nagios Core for more than ten years now. It can be used to monitor hosts, such as machines, and monitor services of any kind. I'm using it to mo...
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Airbnb, Cisco, PayPal, FanDuel
Find out what your peers are saying about Azure Network Watcher vs. Nagios Core and other solutions. Updated: August 2026.
909,099 professionals have used our research since 2012.