Azure Network Watcher vs Splunk Observability Cloud comparison

Microsoft and Splunk are both solutions in the Network Monitoring Software category. Microsoft is ranked #41 with an average rating of 8.7, while Splunk is ranked #6 with an average rating of 8.4. Microsoft holds a 0.5% mindshare in NMS, compared to Splunk’s 1.3% mindshare. Additionally, 92% of Microsoft users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 96% of Splunk users who would recommend it.

Azure Network Watcher

Read 13 Azure Network Watcher reviews

846 Views
804 Comparison Views

92% willing to recommend

Splunk Observability Cloud

Read 75 Splunk Observability Cloud reviews

7,605 Views
2,358 Comparison Views

96% willing to recommend

Azure Network Watcher

Splunk Observability Cloud

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 28, 2025

Splunk Observability Cloud and Azure Network Watcher compete in the network monitoring and management category. Splunk seems to have the upper hand due to its advanced monitoring capabilities, particularly in real-time analytics and machine learning.

Features: Splunk Observability Cloud is known for log searching, quick deployment, and integration with multiple platforms. It provides advanced monitoring features through custom dashboards and machine learning. Azure Network Watcher offers network monitoring and troubleshooting with packet capture and network topology visualization. Users value its network analysis and security features.

Room for Improvement: Splunk Observability Cloud users seek improved integration with third-party tools, better log management, and lower costs. Azure Network Watcher could enhance open-source tool integration, built-in applications for traffic logging, and improve user interface design. Splunk could also benefit from expanded sensor capabilities, while Azure users request better VPN diagnostics and network visualization.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Splunk Observability Cloud supports various deployment environments including on-premises, hybrid, and public cloud setups, offering flexibility across infrastructures. Azure Network Watcher is more oriented toward public cloud deployments. Splunk's customer service, although effective, can be slow at times, while Azure users note a general adequacy in support without detailed interactions.

Pricing and ROI: Splunk Observability Cloud is often considered expensive, with pricing based on data volume, which may discourage cost-sensitive users despite its strong features. Some organizations report significant ROI through streamlined operations. Azure Network Watcher is recognized as more affordable for basic use, though it can become costly for advanced configurations. Despite the cost concerns, both platforms offer value for their investment.

To learn more, read our detailed Azure Network Watcher vs. Splunk Observability Cloud Report (Updated: December 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Azure Network Watcher vs. Splunk Observability Cloud

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

Splunk Observability Cloud

Ranking in Network Monitoring Software

6th

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

7.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability (8th), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (7th), Cloud Monitoring Software (6th), Container Management (6th), Digital Experience Monitoring (DEM) (2nd)

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 Splunk Observability Cloud is 1.3%, up from 0.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Network Monitoring Software Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Splunk Observability Cloud	1.3%
Azure Network Watcher	0.5%
Other	98.2%

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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Dhananjay Dileep

Senior Software Engineer at a consultancy with 10,001+ employees

Unified monitoring has improved end-to-end visibility and reduced detection time across apps

When we have too many detectors in place for one particular app, such as when I have created 50+ detectors through my account, the entire page becomes a bit loaded when creating the 51st detector, feeling heavy and taking time to load. Additionally, it throws random errors; for example, when we try to save one detector, it might throw some random error which is not even related, with something else being wrong, not that particular error, but the underlying root cause might be different. Sometimes the error is just "some problem occurred," and we are not able to point out what the real cause is. This mainly happens when we have too many detectors or too many alerts in place rather than a standard number. One more thing is in the alert rules; if we have a main general alert, and instead of creating a new detector, we are adding a new rule under one detector, when the number of rules also increases, such as when we have 10 or 15 rules under one generic detector, that again creates the same kind of problem, taking some time to save that particular newly added rule, and it might not save at times, just keeps on spinning. Those are the two drawbacks which I spotted recently; other than that, everything looks perfect.

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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

"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."

"It provides good visibility."

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

"The solution is stable."

"The solution is good for monitoring device behavior."

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

"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."

"I like the visibility."

More Azure Network Watcher pros

"The solution overall is very valuable for me."

"Splunk Observability Cloud has helped me reduce my mean time to detect, and we have worked on around 80 applications last year for one particular client, and since the MTTR has improved drastically, they have given us 245 applications, which is around 150 applications added to the previous number of applications, which is definitely a performance improvement."

"The most valuable features include user time tracking and the ability to analyze application load times."

"The tool's stability is great."

"The data collection from our VMs, containers, databases, and backend components is valuable."

"The product retains a lot of log data for subsequent analysis."

"The features are pretty much ready out of the box."

"Splunk APM has helped us to standardize logging and monitoring procedures."

More Splunk Observability Cloud pros

Cons

"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."

"Azure Network Watcher could improve by having other built-in applications. For example, an application to log activities for in and outbound traffic."

"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."

"Lacks sufficient security features."

"User experience could be improved."

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

More Azure Network Watcher cons

"Splunk isn't an ideal tool for application performance management due to the extensive setup required."

"It is essential for the monitoring tool to deliver quick response times when generating analytical reports, instead of prolonged delays."

"The RUM part of Splunk Observability Cloud can be improved significantly."

"If it is a new deployment and you have a medium client with about 2,000 users or computers or servers, it will take about six months just to install and configure."

"Splunk's functionality could be improved by adding database connectors for other platforms like AWS and Azure."

"Splunk Observability Cloud could be improved by having more integration with Splunk Cloud because at the moment they're two separate products. They're making great moves on what they call unified access; tighter integration is always a good thing."

"The out-of-the-box customizable dashboards in Splunk Observability Cloud are very effective in showcasing IT performance to business leaders. However, there are aspects that could be improved, such as linking dashboards to one another."

"It does not have a user-friendly interface and it is difficult to use."

More Splunk Observability Cloud cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."

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

"Splunk Infrastructure Monitoring is an expensive solution."

"Splunk APM is a very cost-efficient solution."

"It appears to be expensive compared to competitors."

"Splunk APM is expensive."

"The pricing is reasonable."

"Licensing cost is the biggest argument I get from those divesting from Splunk. There are those within our organization who say we are going to go to other tools since Splunk is too expensive."

"I am not in that circle, but we are currently licensing based on our queries. That is working out for us. Previously, it was by volume of data, and now, we can store as much data as we want."

"It is expensive."

More Splunk Observability Cloud 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

13%

Computer Software Company

10%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Retailer

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	10
Large Enterprise	48

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?

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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 do you like most about SignalFx?

The most valuable feature is dashboard creation.

See all answers

What needs improvement with SignalFx?

Regarding dashboard customization, while Splunk has many dashboard building options, customers sometimes need to create specific dashboards, particularly for applicative metrics such as Java and pr...

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What is your primary use case for SignalFx?

The solution involves observability in general, such as Application Performance Monitoring, and generally addresses digital applications, web applications, sites, and mobile applications. I worked ...

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Comparisons

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Compared 27% of the time

Nmap vs Azure Network Watcher

Compared 16% of the time

ThousandEyes vs Azure Network Watcher

Compared 8% of the time

Plixer Scrutinizer vs Azure Network Watcher

Compared 8% of the time

ExtraHop Reveal(x) for IT Operations vs Azure Network Watcher

Compared 7% of the time

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Avantra vs Splunk Observability Cloud

Compared 3% of the time

Sentry vs Splunk Observability Cloud

Compared 3% of the time

Observe vs Splunk Observability Cloud

Compared 2% of the time

Cribl vs Splunk Observability Cloud

Compared 2% of the time

Honeycomb Enterprise vs Splunk Observability Cloud

Compared 2% of the time

More Splunk Observability Cloud Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Azure Network Watcher

January 2026

Download Azure Network Watcher product report

Buyer's Guide

Splunk Observability Cloud

January 2026

Download Splunk Observability Cloud product report

Also Known As

No data available

Splunk Infrastructure Monitoring, Splunk Real User Monitoring (RUM), Splunk Synthetic Monitoring

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

Splunk Observability Cloud offers sophisticated log searching, data integration, and customizable dashboards. With rapid deployment and ease of use, this cloud service enhances monitoring capabilities across IT infrastructures for comprehensive end-to-end visibility.

Focused on enhancing performance management and security, Splunk Observability Cloud supports environments through its data visualization and analysis tools. Users appreciate its robust application performance monitoring and troubleshooting insights. However, improvements in integrations, interface customization, scalability, and automation are needed. Users find value in its capabilities for infrastructure and network monitoring, as well as log analytics, albeit cost considerations and better documentation are desired. Enhancements in real-time monitoring and network protection are also noted as areas for development.

What are the key features?

Log Searching: Efficiently search and analyze logs from various sources.
Data Integration: Seamlessly integrate with multiple environments.
Dashboard Customization: Tailor dashboards to specific monitoring needs.
Monitoring Capabilities: Provides comprehensive insights into application performance.
Security Features: Analyze and address security threats across systems.
Visualization Tools: Enhance data analysis and system performance optimization.

Why consider this for ROI?

Comprehensive Visibility: Gain complete insights into IT infrastructure.
Performance Optimization: Improve overall system performance and efficiency.
Rapid Deployment: Quick setup to meet organization demands swiftly.
Enhanced Security: Strengthen security measures through detailed analytics.

In industries, Splunk Observability Cloud is implemented for security management by analyzing logs from detection systems, offering real-time alerts and troubleshooting for cloud-native applications. It is leveraged for machine data analysis, improving infrastructure visibility and supporting network and application performance management efforts.

Splunk

Sample Customers

Information Not Available

Sunrun, Yelp, Onshape, Tapjoy, Symphony Commerce, Chairish, Clever, Grovo, Bazaar Voice, Zenefits, Avalara

Buyer's Guide

Azure Network Watcher vs. Splunk Observability Cloud

December 2025

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