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Azure Network Watcher vs ThousandEyes comparison

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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
43rd
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
5.9
Number of Reviews
13
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
ThousandEyes
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
8th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
35
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Monitoring Software (8th), Digital Experience Monitoring (DEM) (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2026, in the Network Monitoring Software category, the mindshare of Azure Network Watcher is 0.6%, up from 0.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of ThousandEyes is 1.6%, down from 3.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Network Monitoring Software Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
ThousandEyes1.6%
Azure Network Watcher0.6%
Other97.8%
Network Monitoring Software
 

Featured Reviews

PS
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.
Siddumanisria Mindi - PeerSpot reviewer
Network engineer at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Monitoring has transformed internet visibility and speeds up resolving external service issues
ThousandEyes needs to specify unit consumption forecasting or scaling testing and deeper app analytics. It needs deeper out-of-the-box Layer 7 code or database-level insights. Additionally, it should unify the GUI with broader Cisco platforms and flatten the learning curve, adding better correlation with local laptop system metrics such as endpoint depth, CPU, RAM, or processes. ThousandEyes isn't designed to be a full-blown SNMP monitoring tool for on-premises infrastructure. While it tracks network paths effectively, it doesn't provide deep local device telemetry such as switch port buffer utilization, fan status, or power supply health. For full internal device monitoring, you'll still need to pair it with traditional tools such as SolarWinds or Cisco Catalyst Center.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The stability is very good. I rate it a ten out of ten."
"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."
"This is a stable system providing stable performance."
"We use the solution to monitor network services. It helps to capture any network issues."
"The most valuable features I have found are typology, visualization, and capture."
"This will help the company or the administrator, by helping them see how the traffic moves, to make sure that no entities are having any communication issues or different endpoints with task issues."
"The solution is good for monitoring device behavior."
"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."
"ThousandEyes has provided my organization with invaluable network visibility and insights and incredible ease of use."
"The most valuable features of ThousandEyes are the full monitoring capabilities and the ability to identify the exact location of problems in the path between the application and the end-user."
"The company provides excellent service."
"The solution is very easy to use."
"Overall, I would rate ThousandEyes nine out of ten."
"ThousandEyes actually advanced the troubleshooting part and the monitoring of the devices, or I would say the management of the devices with monitoring and to identify the root cause."
"The advice I would give to those looking into using ThousandEyes is about the possibilities it offers to the operations teams, as ThousandEyes is an extremely powerful solution that makes operations able to detect issues effectively."
"It's fairly easy to set up."
 

Cons

"Lacks sufficient security features."
"Azure Network Watcher needs to have better documentation and it needs to capture information accurately."
"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 initial setup and initial learning curve could be improved to be easier."
"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."
"Azure is good, however, the Fortinet GUI is more intuitive and I like it more than anything else."
"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."
"The tool does not provide features for application-level monitoring."
"Cisco is the standard for anyone wanting something good, the problem with it is the cost and that means that it's not accessible to many smaller companies."
"ThousandEyes could improve the dashboards by adding more features."
"They only offer synthetic requests, so they should create an agent for users that can track your request."
"<p>ThousandEyes can be improved by making the installation procedure less time-consuming and enhancing the interface to be more user-friendly.</p>"
"I chose a six out of 10 because it lacks monitoring features for application performance and database monitoring, especially end-user experience; it excels mainly in network performance monitoring and network device monitoring."
"Regarding needed improvements, I think the user interface could be better. It is sometimes a little confusing and should be very user-friendly, including a guide for how alerts are configured to assist first-time users."
"<p>ThousandEyes definitely has differentiators versus the peers in the space, as there are other tools that are a bit more user-friendly to configure, especially around enterprise agents; for example, when upgrades are required, it sometimes needs a complete de-installation and re-installation of a newer version, which leads to a bit of administrative overhead from time to time, but overall, it has been an excellent product.</p>"
 

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."
"Azure Network Watcher is a little bit expensive."
"The price of the solution is reasonable."
"The solution costs several thousand dollars per year."
"In our company, we incur a yearly expense in our company for the licensing part. I rate the solution's pricing a seven out of ten since it is expensive."
"The solution's pricing is cheap; I rate it a five out of ten."
"It is a quite expensive solution."
"The solution is cheap."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
22%
Construction Company
12%
Outsourcing Company
11%
Comms Service Provider
6%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Healthcare Company
9%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business6
Large Enterprise7
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business10
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise25
 

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 the best network monitoring software for large enterprises?
It actually depends on the exact purpose or requirements. Some tools are better for only network devices while others are better from a cloud monitoring or APM monitoring perspective. You can check...
What needs improvement with ThousandEyes?
I believe ThousandEyes is working perfectly, but I feel that with more AI integration, it could flag issues with more detailed error information, which would help support engineers immediately pinp...
What is your primary use case for ThousandEyes?
My main use case for ThousandEyes is that it checks our product website, and if it flags that it is unable to log in, it checks for all the components from all the agents, which are from different ...
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Wayfair, GitHub, Craigslist, Comcast, SurveyMonkey, Lyft, Box, HP, Zendesk, IO Data Centers, Good Technology, NNTCommunications, Proofpoint, Schneider, Crowdstrike, Avera, Pitney Bowes, InstartLogic, Shutterfly, Shutterstock, Condé Nast, Roche, Jive, Actelion, Brocade, Infor, Okta, JLL, DigitalOcean, Zuora, NetSuite, CloudFlare, One, DemonWare, Quantcast, Carbonite, CareerBuilder, Prosper, Oscar, Slack
Find out what your peers are saying about Azure Network Watcher vs. ThousandEyes and other solutions. Updated: November 2026.
920,939 professionals have used our research since 2012.