Azure Network Watcher vs Nagios Core comparison

Why PeerSpot?

Microsoft and Nagios are both solutions in the Network Monitoring Software category. Microsoft is ranked #46 with an average rating of 8.0, while Nagios is ranked #19 with an average rating of 8.7. Microsoft holds a 0.5% mindshare in NMS, compared to Nagios’s 1.3% mindshare. Additionally, 92% of Microsoft users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 80% of Nagios users who would recommend it.

Azure Network Watcher

Read 13 Azure Network Watcher reviews

2,673 Views
2,620 Comparison Views

92% willing to recommend

Nagios Core

Read 51 Nagios Core reviews

9,323 Views
7,458 Comparison Views

80% willing to recommend

Azure Network Watcher

Nagios Core

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 10, 2024

Nagios Core and Azure Network Watcher are competitors in the network monitoring category. Each product offers distinct advantages with Nagios Core valued for customization and variety, while Azure Network Watcher stands out in cloud integration and advanced diagnostics.

Features: Nagios Core offers flexibility with customizable monitoring, an extensive plugin ecosystem, and robust alerting systems. Azure Network Watcher provides network insights, packet tracing, and topology visualization.

Room for Improvement: Nagios Core has a complex command-line configuration, an outdated interface, and requires manual changes for dynamic configurations. Azure Network Watcher needs better third-party tool integration, enhanced visualization, and detailed logging improvements.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Nagios Core requires significant setup for on-premises and hybrid environments and relies on community support. Azure Network Watcher, with seamless Azure integration, is cloud-based and backed by Microsoft customer service.

Pricing and ROI: Nagios Core's open-source model is cost-effective with no licensing fees, offering a high ROI in operational efficiency. Azure Network Watcher, while potentially expensive for smaller businesses, aligns with enterprise budgets and justifies costs through robust features.

To learn more, read our detailed Azure Network Watcher vs. Nagios Core Report (Updated: September 2026).

Buyer's Guide

Azure Network Watcher vs. Nagios Core

September 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

46th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

5.9

Number of Reviews

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

Ranking in other categories

IT Infrastructure Monitoring (18th)

Mindshare comparison

As of October 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 1.3%, down from 2.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Network Monitoring Software Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
Nagios Core	1.3%
Azure Network Watcher	0.5%
Other	98.2%

Network Monitoring Software

Featured Reviews

PrashantSarmalkar

Enterprise Architect at ATOS

Monitoring traffic has improved cost control and threat visibility across network flows

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 getting better analytics and foundation models for proactive monitoring through AI models. While these capabilities exist, they are still in beta version. Azure Network Watcher should improve to match the capabilities that Google is targeting from an analytical point of view. Azure Network Watcher needs to improve foundation models in terms of AI-specific features and analytics, which are still evolving. This may take some time, but within one or two years, these improvements should reach a nine rating.

Read full review

Husham Yaqoob

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.

Read full review

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."

"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."

"I like the visibility."

"It provides good visibility."

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

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

"The solution is stable, there are no bugs or glitches and it doesn't crash or freeze, it's reliable."

More Azure Network Watcher pros

"Its an awesome product to use."

"Our customers like that Nagios Core is an open source solution. It can be customized to our customers' specific needs."

"We have used this product now for quite some time and we are happy with it."

"The most valuable feature of Nagios Core is the ability to check the availability of the server for network connectivity. Additionally, the interface is good."

"Extensibility is good as this makes it easy to write checks on your own."

"It has made the life of the network operations staff more proactive in managing the resources of the infrastructure. It prevents disasters long before they can take place."

"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."

"We use the product to monitor server applications."

More Nagios Core pros

Cons

"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."

"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."

"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."

"Lacks sufficient security features."

"Sometimes, you encounter a VPN tunnel, network, or routing issue, but finding out more about the blockage is challenging."

"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."

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

More Azure Network Watcher cons

"Cloud monitoring is an area for improvement because there aren't too many plugins available."

"Don't use it. If you're starting from scratch, there are products that scale better and perform better, and they use the same plugin syntax as they were initially Nagios forks."

"Nagios Core would benefit from aggregations if a particular server goes down."

"We're using the free version, which limits us in terms of the things that we can do."

"The NetEase reporting structure needs improvement, especially the availability report, which is weak."

"We're using the free version, which limits us in terms of the things that we can do. If we had the paid version, a lot of our issues would probably go away. For example, we can't isolate instances that are being built or updated with the production ones. When they're being built, on Nagios, they're showing in red. It'd be nice to be able to partition those off until they're all green, and then we can bring them into the environment. This is probably because we've got the free version and not the paid version. If we went for the paid version, it would probably allow us to do exactly what we want to or remove the restrictions that we have, but if we are able to isolate instances in the free version, it would make life much easier."

"Bandwidth monitoring is the pain point for me because Nagios Core does not monitor bandwidth effectively like Cacti does."

"Nagios Core does not have a graphic display."

More Nagios Core cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price of the solution is reasonable."

"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."

"Nagios Core is a cheap solution."

"The Nagios Core (PNP4Nagios + Core) is free and can be setup by Netadmin within a few hours. The only additional cost is the cloud server."

"We are using the open-source, unpaid version."

"We have saved a lot of time, money, and effort in reducing disaster times, which is owed to Nagios quick alerting."

"The solution is expensive."

"The product is cheaply priced."

"We are using the free version of Nagios Core."

"Nagios Core is an open source solution, and there are no licensing fees."

More Nagios Core pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

21%

Construction Company

13%

Outsourcing Company

Comms Service Provider

10%

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

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	20
Midsize Enterprise	11
Large Enterprise	24

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?

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 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.

See all answers

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.

See all answers

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...

See all answers

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Azure Network Watcher

October 2026

Download Azure Network Watcher product report

Buyer's Guide

Nagios Core

September 2026

Download Nagios Core product report

Overview

Azure Network Watcher provides advanced network monitoring capabilities including packet capture, cloud-native firewall, and traffic diagnosis, aiding in VPN troubleshooting and security enforcement with enhanced visibility and alerting features.

Azure Network Watcher is essential for monitoring, diagnosing, and analyzing network traffic. It efficiently handles VPN connection issues and enhances network security by capturing and analyzing traffic to assess performance or latency problems. The tool facilitates traffic flow control, security rule verification, and bandwidth monitoring. Users benefit from its capabilities in diagnosing service connections, offering insights into network activity, and identifying potential threats, crucial for maintaining compliance and efficient network management.

What are the key features of Azure Network Watcher?

Packet Capture: Enables detailed network traffic inspection to troubleshoot issues.
Cloud-Native Application Firewall: Provides enhanced protection for applications running in the cloud.
Traffic Monitoring: Allows for real-time analysis and troubleshooting of network traffic.
NSG Flow Logs & AI-Based Monitoring: Enhances flow control and threat detection.
Alerting & Threshold Configuration: Offers customizable alerts via Azure Monitor for proactive management.

What benefits can users look for in reviews?

Improved Network Security: Helps in identifying and mitigating threats efficiently.
Enhanced Visibility: Provides clear insights into network operations and potential issues.
Compliance Support: Assists in maintaining regulatory compliance with thorough monitoring capabilities.
Effective Bandwidth Management: Facilitates control and optimization of network bandwidth.

In industries like finance and healthcare, Azure Network Watcher is implemented to ensure robust security and compliance, crucial for safeguarding sensitive data. It aids retail and manufacturing sectors in optimizing network performance and maintaining seamless connectivity, supporting their digital infrastructure needs.

Microsoft

Nagios Core offers a versatile monitoring solution that efficiently manages notifications, reporting, and resource usage. Its open-source architecture provides flexibility and customization options for comprehensive infrastructure health management.

Nagios Core, known for its extensible plugin architecture, proactively enhances infrastructure management with customizable notifications and reliable reporting. Seamlessly integrating various plugins, it offers real-time dashboards and efficient alerting systems for thorough monitoring. Its adaptability and ease of configuration make it popular among users seeking flexible monitoring solutions. However, improvements in the web interface, scalability, performance, and visualization are needed to enhance accessibility. Users seek better alert mechanisms, more robust PDF export features, and simpler setup processes for increased efficiency.

What are the key features of Nagios Core?

Customizable Notifications: Tailor alerts to suit specific needs.
Reliable Reporting: Provides detailed insights into system performance.
Light Resource Usage: Operates efficiently with minimal resource demands.
Extensible Plugin Architecture: Supports a wide range of third-party integrations.
Real-Time Dashboards: Offers instant insights into system health.

What benefits should users expect from Nagios Core?

Flexibility: Allows detailed customization for unique monitoring requirements.
Open-Source Nature: Encourages community-driven enhancements and support.
Integration Capabilities: Facilitates seamless interaction with other tools and platforms.
Adaptability: Supports monitoring across different environments seamlessly.

In many industries, Nagios Core is integral to monitoring infrastructure and services, including cloud servers, applications, and network devices. Users rely on it for issue detection, capacity planning, and maintaining system stability in environments like AWS and on-premise servers. Its capabilities in CPU, memory, and bandwidth monitoring along with alert systems support sectors needing real-time oversight of critical equipment.

Nagios

Sample Customers

Information Not Available

Airbnb, Cisco, PayPal, FanDuel

Buyer's Guide

Azure Network Watcher vs. Nagios Core

September 2026

Free Report: Azure Network Watcher vs. Nagios Core

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