Azure Network Watcher vs Zabbix comparison

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Azure Network Watcher

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 10, 2024

Zabbix and Azure Network Watcher compete in the network monitoring solutions category. Zabbix has an advantage due to its cost-effective open-source nature, whereas Azure Network Watcher offers superior advanced features.

Features: Zabbix provides email and SMS alerts, automated network discovery, and a low-level discovery system. Its scalability and open-source nature allow customization without additional costs. Azure Network Watcher includes cloud-native capabilities such as packet capture and network visualization, enhancing network security and troubleshooting efficiency.

Room for Improvement: Zabbix needs a more user-friendly graphical interface and built-in reporting, predictive capabilities, and relies on external tools for some security functions. Azure Network Watcher could improve initial setup, better documentation, integrate more open-source features, and reduce third-party tool reliance.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Zabbix is suitable for on-premises and hybrid environments, benefiting from community support but has mixed reviews on technical support. Azure Network Watcher is used in public cloud scenarios with efficient customer service but requires clearer setups and configurations as per user feedback.

Pricing and ROI: Zabbix's open-source model offers a budget-friendly solution without licensing fees. Azure Network Watcher, though expensive, offers users features justifying its cost due to its strong capabilities in cloud environments.

To learn more, read our detailed Azure Network Watcher vs. Zabbix Report (Updated: August 2026).

Azure Network Watcher vs. Zabbix

August 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

Zabbix

Ranking in Network Monitoring Software

1st

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

7.0

Number of Reviews

109

Ranking in other categories

Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability (8th), Server Monitoring (1st), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (1st), Cloud Monitoring Software (2nd)

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 Zabbix is 3.8%, down from 12.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Network Monitoring Software Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
Zabbix	3.8%
Azure Network Watcher	0.5%
Other	95.7%

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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KamranBhatti

Network Engineer at a computer software company with 11-50 employees

Helps reduce response time but has room to improve customization complexity

We are not working on simple standalone solutions like Kaspersky DDoS Protection or Hybrid Cloud Security. Once you understand Zabbix, then it is easy to customize those web pages and graphs for our customer use. It is fully automated to your requirements. Zabbix is working fine with no issues, and I am satisfied with it. We have combined Zabbix and SolarWinds. The integration works fine, and it is easy to integrate Zabbix with the IT environment. We were trying to purchase MDR (Managed Detection and Response), but we are not working on that. I don't have real experience with MDR. We are using Falcon software for that. We are working with Falcon Complete, not with Sandbox. We are not using Kaspersky for business or cloud protection. For that, we are using Zabbix CrowdStrike Falcon Complete solution. I have given this review an overall rating of 8.

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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."

"We use the solution to monitor network services. It helps to capture any network issues."

"The solution is good for monitoring device behavior."

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

"The most valuable features I have found are typology, visualization, and capture."

"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."

"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."

"It provides good visibility."

More Azure Network Watcher pros

"It meets my organizational needs. It's pretty easy to use."

"Every new asset placed in the environment can be automatically detected, predicting human failures."

"The most valuable feature is network traffic monitoring."

"There is a problems page that shows us every warning or problem that occurs on our VMs globally. The map screen is also really useful because this is something that was missing. I don't know every other tool in the market. So, I don't know if this is a good point of only Zabbix, or other tools are also doing it, but from my point of view, this is the most useful page that I use, along with the problems page that efficiently lists the problem, recovery time, ending hours, starting hours, and so on."

"It has good graphs of what is going on within the operating system."

"We are now more pro-active before an issue appears to our customer because all the layers are now converged by Zabbix monitoring."

"The initial setup was pretty straightforward, we did not face any issues and it was up and running within a day."

"I recommend this solution."

More Zabbix pros

Cons

"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 solution could improve by limiting the need to clarify the logs. When the clarification is minimized, it is better for everyone involved."

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

"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."

"Technical support from Microsoft needs significant improvement compared to other product vendors."

"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."

More Azure Network Watcher cons

"The Java gateway for monitoring Java applications didn’t work for us."

"This is not a product that I recommend. Instead, I recommend using SolarWindows or ManageEngine for monitoring because there are more features on Zabbix with limited usability."

"Implementing Zabbix is difficult. I've deployed many solutions over the years, and Zabbix is the hardest to implement. You have to do some development to get it to work with IBM, Micro Focus, or HP products."

"The reporting is lacking because this is an open-source tool, and nowadays, management's expectation is that the reports should be of high quality and every information should be presented in a concise manner."

"Zabbix is not suitable for large networks with 1,000+ nodes, due to PHP performance and Web GUI limitations"

"In an upcoming release, there should be automated reports which we are currently doing manually."

"When using this solution in enterprise monitoring, you are able to see that there are some issues with equipment that could be causing a problem. Sometimes you want to make a root command that you do not want to be executed automatically. What we have tried to do is open an SSH session directly from the solution's interface but it is not possible."

"I want Zabbix to improve the UX/UI. Zabbix doesn't use a JavaScript chart for images, and I want them to improve this."

More Zabbix cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price of the solution is reasonable."

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

"Azure Network Watcher is a little bit expensive."

"Price-wise, I have no information on how much Azure Network Watcher costs."

"We purchased Zabbix for a good price, including support"

"I use the tool's free version."

"The solution is open source so is free."

"Zabbix is an open-source tool, and it's free to use."

"It's an open-source solution that can be used free of charge."

"Zabbix is open-source so if one wishes to implement it in-house, they must have qualified professionals to set up and optimize databases, Linux/Unix OS, PHP, Apache, and depending on what is monitored, a full-stack network and systems administrator may be needed."

"The product is an open source and free solution."

"The tool's licensing is good."

More Zabbix pricing and cost advice

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Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Network Monitoring Software solutions are best for your needs.

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Comparison Review

it_user174738

IT Developer at a tech services company with 51-200 employees

May 31, 2015

Nagios vs. Zabbix vs. PRTG vs. Spiceworks vs. Solarwinds Network Performance Monitor

I have researched a quite a few network monitoring tools which can be used for various monitoring purposes of not only the servers, but the intermediate routers as well. There are majorly three types of these softwares. Ones which are completely open-source, you can do almost anything you want…

Read full review

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

22%

Construction Company

13%

Outsourcing Company

Comms Service Provider

Financial Services Firm

11%

Comms Service Provider

10%

Computer Software Company

10%

Manufacturing 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	56
Midsize Enterprise	23
Large Enterprise	35

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 Zabbix?

I think Zabbix is economical, whereas SolarWinds is expensive. SolarWinds has a lot of secure features, but Zabbix is providing everything free of cost. Zabbix is economical, and you can install it...

What needs improvement with Zabbix?

I am using only Area Operations, but I don't prefer it. I installed Zabbix for the 3000 devices. Area Operations is not good.

What is your primary use case for Zabbix?

I am still working with VMware and Area Operations, but I installed Zabbix now. I think Zabbix is better than VMware Area Operations. It's really good. I'm working with both Zabbix and VMware now.

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Product Reports

Download Azure Network Watcher product report

Azure Network Watcher

August 2026

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July 2026

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

Zabbix is an open-source monitoring software that provides real-time monitoring and alerting for servers, networks, applications, and services.

It offers a wide range of features including data collection, visualization, and reporting.

With its user-friendly interface and customizable dashboards, Zabbix helps organizations ensure the availability and performance of their IT infrastructure.

Sample Customers

Information Not Available

1. IBM 2. Dell 3. Cisco 4. HP 5. Oracle 6. Microsoft 7. Amazon 8. Google 9. Facebook 10. Twitter 11. LinkedIn 12. Netflix 13. Adobe 14. VMware 15. Salesforce 16. SAP 17. Intel 18. AT&T 19. Verizon 20. T-Mobile 21. Vodafone 22. Ericsson 23. Nokia 24. Siemens 25. General Electric 26. Honeywell 27. Philips 28. Sony 29. Samsung 30. LG 31. Panasonic 32. Toshiba