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: September 2025).

Azure Network Watcher vs. Zabbix

September 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

48th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

6.0

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

7.1

Number of Reviews

107

Ranking in other categories

Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability (9th), Server Monitoring (1st), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (1st), Cloud Monitoring Software (1st)

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2025, in the Network Monitoring Software category, the mindshare of Azure Network Watcher is 0.4%, down from 0.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Zabbix is 11.7%, up from 11.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Network Monitoring Software Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Zabbix	11.7%
Azure Network Watcher	0.4%
Other	87.9%

Network Monitoring Software

Featured Reviews

Bijoyendra Roychowdhury

Program Manager at Capgemini

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.

Read full review

B Ahmed

Manager, Information Technology Zara & Inditex at Cenomi

Enables seamless global client monitoring with reliable remote connectivity

I use the solution to provide a perfect environment for remote connectivity with my clients. Many tools that I require for system maintenance are included. I can easily monitor all of my clients throughout the world I did not give much thought to it, however, improvements could be made to Zabbix.…

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

"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."

"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."

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

"I like the visibility."

"It provides good visibility."

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

"The solution is good for monitoring device behavior."

More Azure Network Watcher pros

"The basic setup is very easy."

"The best thing about Zabbix is the integration and the APIs that are included are very fast"

"Zabbix has a roadmap and they are continuously and frequently adding new features."

"Its overall flexibility is most valuable. When our customers have some custom applications that are not necessarily covered by the community or a standard monitoring tool, we use Zabbix to build our own modules with our own templates. This feature has been useful in using Zabbix for infrastructure and IT monitoring. It has also been useful for industrial equipment monitoring. Zabbix is very lightweight. It is efficient in terms of performance because it doesn't use a lot of resources."

"The features I found most valuable are the user interface and a wide range of network devices that are easy to configure."

"Zabbix is very easy to implement."

"The integration capabilities and APIs are the best part."

"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."

More Zabbix pros

Cons

"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."

"Azure Network Watcher needs to have better documentation and it needs to capture information accurately."

"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."

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

"User experience could be improved."

"The initial setup and initial learning curve could be improved to be easier."

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

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

More Azure Network Watcher cons

"Implementation is always tailored to the customer and the kind of information we need from the client to carry it out can make them very uncomfortable. Sometimes the clients are not ready to share it."

"Even though it’s such a powerful monitoring system, it would be more helpful if it had a flexible UI."

"There are some features of Zabbix that are not good for reporting. The DX Spectrum solution has better reporting."

"Zabbix is powerful, but it is difficult to understand initially. There are many things that can be improved, but we might not be using Zabbix to its fullest extent. The software has more features than we need."

"There are a lot of areas for improvement, specifically in the dashboards and reports functionalities."

"Improvement is needed as per customer requirements."

"Zabbix claims that there is an auto-discovery process but my team member was facing difficulty and was told that it's not really automatic, and there are some manual steps."

"The reports are not great and should be improved."

More Zabbix cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

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

"Azure Network Watcher is a little bit expensive."

"The price of the solution is reasonable."

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

"Its licensing is fair. It seems to be much cheaper than others."

"It is worth every cent to pay or even study to do your own installation."

"There is a license required for this solution and we pay annually for our license."

"Zabbix is a free solution but the support contact costs money."

"This is an open-source solution that can be used free of charge."

"It's free software released under the GNU/GPL license."

"Zabbix is free but if you use it in production then you have to pay for it."

"This solution is completely open-source, so it is quite affordable."

More Zabbix pricing and cost advice

See which vendors are best for you

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

15%

Computer Software Company

12%

Government

11%

Healthcare Company

Computer Software Company

15%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Comms Service Provider

Manufacturing Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	6
Large Enterprise	6

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	53
Midsize Enterprise	23
Large Enterprise	34

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Azure Network Watcher?

I like the visibility.

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...

What needs improvement with Azure Network Watcher?

What do you like most about Zabbix?

The template system in Zabbix is very beneficial as it saves time in configuration.

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Zabbix?

If you want to save costs, you can use Zabbix.

What needs improvement with Zabbix?

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 con...

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Product Reports

Download Azure Network Watcher product report

Azure Network Watcher

September 2025

Download Zabbix product report

August 2025

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

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