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Azure Network Watcher vs OP5 Monitor 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
42nd
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
5.9
Number of Reviews
13
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
OP5 Monitor
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
39th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
4.4
Number of Reviews
7
Ranking in other categories
IT Infrastructure Monitoring (38th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of March 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 OP5 Monitor is 0.6%, down from 0.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Network Monitoring Software Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
OP5 Monitor0.6%
Azure Network Watcher0.5%
Other98.9%
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.
Sumanth Arshanapally - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Analyst at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Monitoring ease and cost-saving benefits enhance operational efficiency
The monitoring in OP5 Monitor is very easy because we can directly use custom plugins. We can write custom scripts and use those scripts directly. It's very low cost, open, and the dashboards are easy to see. We can extract the reports easily, and this is very easy to compare. Real-time monitoring in OP5 Monitor provides data every one minute or every five minutes, enabling us to get live data from the last one minute or last five minutes. OP5 Monitor gave us proper server availability, so we can always check whether a server goes down or the server CPU and memory decreases. Before reaching a particular bottleneck situation, we identified and fixed the issue, which helped us from a cost-saving business perspective. It helped us avoid application downtime.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"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."
"The solution is good for monitoring device behavior."
"I like the visibility."
"The most valuable feature of Azure Network Watcher is the cloud-native application firewall, which is helpful for securing databases."
"The most valuable feature of Azure Network Watcher is the cloud-native application firewall. It is helpful for securing databases."
"It provides good visibility."
"The most valuable features I have found are typology, visualization, and capture."
"It monitors and continuously tests everything that is of importance to you and your users. It could be everything from monitoring disk space to CPU usage to memory. It could include determining if the response time in your e-commerce platform is quick enough, or whether you have too many bounces from some of the pages on your website. You want to monitor anything that could cost you money or time or resources. You can do that with this system. It's very flexible."
"Especially with the API, where I can use the data with many other systems, it's great."
"We can also observe whatever we want, and there are no limitations."
"The best feature is that it is very relatable, stable, and scalable."
"The best feature is that it is very relatable, stable, and scalable. The logger is a part of the software, but it's not the most important point of it."
"The API makes it pretty easy to integrate with any system."
"The monitoring in OP5 Monitor is very easy because we can directly use custom plugins; we can write custom scripts and use those scripts directly, it's very low cost, open, and the dashboards are easy to see."
"Its open-source environment is accessible to everyone."
 

Cons

"Azure is good, however, the Fortinet GUI is more intuitive and I like it more than anything else."
"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."
"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."
"The initial setup and deployment could be improved to be simplified."
"Azure Network Watcher needs to have better documentation and it needs to capture information accurately."
"The solution could improve by limiting the need to clarify the logs. When the clarification is minimized, it is better for everyone involved."
"The initial setup and initial learning curve could be improved to be easier."
"They need to improve the dashboard interface."
"The user interface is not what we are used to these days, and should be improved."
"OP5 Monitor could include application monitoring in addition to infrastructure monitoring. If application business transactions were monitored, it would be helpful."
"The solution is useful for tweaking. However, there have been some negative experiences, such as limited report capabilities. The only report available is in PDF format, making it difficult for teams managing multiple servers to extract data in Excel format. The speaker recommends that the team improve the report capabilities to better serve users."
"They need to improve the dashboard interface."
"OP5 lacks some visualization, a feature that makes some other products nice. Op5 is built for purpose, which is fine, but if you compare it with some new products, the visualization is not so appealing, especially for management... If you don't need fancy visualizations, OP5 is fine."
"We do not get performance reports properly."
"IT environments today are in constant flux. This is driven by the newer cloud technologies such as Kubernetes and Docker, etc. The whole Nagios-based monitoring system that OP5 is created on top of, is based on a host-service model. There is a need for a strategy on what to do with more dynamic environments. There is some cool stuff going on in that direction."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Price-wise, I have no information on how much Azure Network Watcher costs."
"Azure Network Watcher is a little bit expensive."
"The pricing is good. It's not too expensive."
"The price of the solution is reasonable."
"OP5 has a very low price as a solution, compared to many other solutions out there."
"It was not expensive. And because it's less demanding in terms of hardware, you don't have to pay for another SQL or other database license, and you can have a huge installation on one machine..."
"The cost of the license and support are separate. If you want platinum call support, it will cost more than a regular call. I did not opt for it, as it is an additional cost."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
17%
Government
8%
University
8%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Manufacturing Company
13%
Government
12%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Healthcare Company
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business6
Large Enterprise7
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business2
Large Enterprise5
 

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 OP5 Monitor?
The price for OP5 Monitor is fine, but we don't know the exact price because it was managed by us; the customer themselves bought it and gave it to us to monitor.
What needs improvement with OP5 Monitor?
OP5 Monitor could include application monitoring in addition to infrastructure monitoring. If application business transactions were monitored, it would be helpful. For application-related issues, ...
What is your primary use case for OP5 Monitor?
Our previous use case for OP5 Monitor was server monitoring.
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Svenska Spel, Carus, VGL, Tele2, Viking Line, Clas Ohlson, Vanderlande, Försäkringskassan
Find out what your peers are saying about Azure Network Watcher vs. OP5 Monitor and other solutions. Updated: March 2026.
885,264 professionals have used our research since 2012.