Azure Network Watcher vs SolarWinds NPM comparison

Why PeerSpot?

Microsoft and SolarWinds are both solutions in the Network Monitoring Software category. Microsoft is ranked #46 with an average rating of 8.0, while SolarWinds is ranked #3 with an average rating of 8.4. Microsoft holds a 0.5% mindshare in NMS, compared to SolarWinds’s 3.7% mindshare. Additionally, 92% of Microsoft users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 92% of SolarWinds users who would recommend it.

Azure Network Watcher

Read 13 Azure Network Watcher reviews

2,673 Views
2,620 Comparison Views

92% willing to recommend

SolarWinds NPM

Read 161 SolarWinds NPM reviews

26,624 Views
20,500 Comparison Views

92% willing to recommend

Azure Network Watcher

SolarWinds NPM

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 10, 2024

SolarWinds NPM and Azure Network Watcher compete in the network management and diagnostics category. SolarWinds NPM has the advantage with its comprehensive feature set and customization capabilities, while Azure Network Watcher excels in cloud-native integration and visibility.

Features: SolarWinds NPM offers comprehensive network management with modular pricing, proactive updates, and strong SNMP monitoring. It provides high customization and extensive vendor support. Azure Network Watcher focuses on diagnostics with packet capture, connection monitoring, and cloud-native security features. Its integration within the Azure ecosystem enhances user visibility.

Room for Improvement: SolarWinds NPM requires enhancements in network discovery, alert configuration, and customer support responsiveness. Reducing resource consumption and strengthening dependency management are also needed. Azure Network Watcher could improve initial setup and documentation clarity, and add built-in diagnostics for a better user experience.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: SolarWinds NPM is primarily used in on-premises or hybrid environments, with customer service often requiring external support. Azure Network Watcher is designed for public cloud environments and integrates well within its ecosystem. SolarWinds technical support is knowledgeable but slow, whereas Azure benefits from Azure's robust support infrastructure.

Pricing and ROI: SolarWinds NPM's complex licensing and module costs make it expensive, yet the extensive feature set provides a quick return on investment through reduced downtime. Azure Network Watcher's pricing is reasonable for large enterprises but costly for smaller ones. It is cost-effective within large cloud infrastructures.

To learn more, read our detailed Azure Network Watcher vs. SolarWinds NPM Report (Updated: September 2026).

Buyer's Guide

Azure Network Watcher vs. SolarWinds NPM

September 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

SolarWinds NPM

Ranking in Network Monitoring Software

3rd

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

6.8

Number of Reviews

161

Ranking in other categories

IT Infrastructure Monitoring (7th), Cloud Monitoring Software (9th)

Mindshare comparison

As of October 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 SolarWinds NPM is 3.7%, down from 4.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Network Monitoring Software Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
SolarWinds NPM	3.7%
Azure Network Watcher	0.5%
Other	95.8%

Network Monitoring Software

Featured Reviews

PrashantSarmalkar

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.

Read full review

Vivek Jaiswal

Manager IT at a manufacturing company with 1,001-5,000 employees

Central monitoring has improved outage alerts and now needs smarter detection and modern dashboards

Regarding the automated network topology and mapping feature in SolarWinds NPM, I am not satisfied with it. For static monitoring, it is acceptable. However, if it is possible, I would need a feature in SolarWinds in the future for some kind of malfunctioning detection, such as malware attacks or that type of environment. We did not have any facility to detect that in SolarWinds. I think it would be better to incorporate those types of features. Regarding customization options in SolarWinds, the ability to customize the dashboard has room for improvement. The dashboard is quite old, and we need some improvement in it. Nowadays, we have multiple tools with AI-based monitoring and web-based dashboards. SolarWinds also has a web-based dashboard, but I think there is scope for improvement in the UI. There may be other areas I would like to improve in SolarWinds NPM.

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

"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."

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

"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."

"I like the visibility."

"This is a stable system providing stable performance."

"My advice to others looking into using Azure Network Watcher is to go for it, as you'll have the tool by default when you're subscribed to Azure VNet."

"The solution is stable, there are no bugs or glitches and it doesn't crash or freeze, it's reliable."

More Azure Network Watcher pros

"This is a valuable and powerful product that will provide users with more than they expect, all in one place."

"The ability to customize the views and dashboards is nice, and SolarWinds also allows us to access the data via the API, which is probably the feature I liked the most."

"What I like about SolarWinds is the application health monitoring system, which is a very good system that I recommend to big companies in the pharmaceutical or the banking industries with large networks and very critical servers."

"The initial setup is easy."

"The most important feature is reporting. The reports that are generated are useful and they save a lot of time with respect to monitoring."

"The most valuable feature is the ability to use a few custom properties to manage multiple nodes and alerts; thus, saving hardware resource usage."

"From web interfaces to custom monitors and alarms, this product has a high level of flexibility that can be molded to suit your business needs, regardless of the size of your organization."

"The most valuable feature is the vital states of the devices as it provides overall CPU and device health information."

More SolarWinds NPM pros

Cons

"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."

"Lacks sufficient security features."

"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 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."

"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 is good, however, the Fortinet GUI is more intuitive and I like it more than anything else."

"User experience could be improved."

More Azure Network Watcher cons

"The dashboards for this solution could be improved."

"NPM comes with a tool called Network Atlas. Currently, it can only link switches to switches and only if all the corresponding ports are monitored."

"Failover functionality does not exist without the purchase of the "Fail Over Engine (FoE)" license."

"The improvement would be that SolarWinds NPM thoroughly checks its patches before releasing them to the market. Better testing, alpha testing, and then releasing it to the market."

"A need for improvement is in the technical support provided by SolarWinds. Customers have given feedback about the delayed response times from the technical team, especially during application-level issues."

"The evaluation time for the product is too short especially for large corporations."

"It is difficult for stakeholders to translate technical requirements, which results in difficulties selecting a platform or implementing a solution."

"The solution is expensive and may not be very affordable for startups or smaller companies."

More SolarWinds NPM cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."

"The price of the solution is reasonable."

"Excluding the costs of running VMs and physical blade servers, our licensing costs run around US$200,000/year for over 60 polling engines."

"Licenses depend on the number of devices, but all license levels come with technical support."

"Quite highly priced"

"The standard licensing fees are what we're paying. It's about $20,000 a year for all our licensing."

"There's standard licensing, and then it depends on the size of the customer."

"The solution's pricing is low compared to a lot of other tools in the market."

"The pricing is very expensive for SolarWinds. That's a huge disadvantage for it."

"I think that the cost has risen, but the functionality and versatility is way above other products."

More SolarWinds NPM pricing and cost advice

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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

23%

Construction Company

12%

Outsourcing Company

Comms Service Provider

Outsourcing Company

12%

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

Construction 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	60
Midsize Enterprise	33
Large Enterprise	87

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.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Azure Network Watcher?

See all answers

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...

See all answers

What is the best network monitoring software for large enterprises?

It actually depends on the exact purpose or kind of devices (network devices, servers, something else). Some tools are better for only network devices while others are better for a cloud monitoring...

See all answers

What is the best network monitoring software for large enterprises?

From my point of view, SolarWind is the best tool.

See all answers

What is the best network monitoring software for large enterprises?

We are partners with SolarWinds and we sell a lot of Network management to large enterprises also because of scalability, products like Network Performance Monitor & Netflow Traffic Analyzer ar...

See all answers

Comparisons

Nmap vs Azure Network Watcher

Compared 12% of the time

Kentik vs Azure Network Watcher

Compared 9% of the time

Ixia Network Taps vs Azure Network Watcher

Compared 7% of the time

PRTG Network Monitor vs Azure Network Watcher

Compared 7% of the time

Auvik Network Management (ANM) vs Azure Network Watcher

Compared 2% of the time

More Azure Network Watcher Competitors

Nagios XI vs SolarWinds NPM

Compared 3% of the time

DX Spectrum vs SolarWinds NPM

Compared 3% of the time

Zabbix vs SolarWinds NPM

Compared 3% of the time

ManageEngine OpManager vs SolarWinds NPM

Compared 3% of the time

PRTG Network Monitor vs SolarWinds NPM

Compared 2% of the time

More SolarWinds NPM Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Azure Network Watcher

October 2026

Download Azure Network Watcher product report

Buyer's Guide

SolarWinds NPM

September 2026

Download SolarWinds NPM product report

Also Known As

No data available

Solarwinds Network Performance Monitor, SolarWinds Network Bandwidth Analyzer

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

SolarWinds NPM is a network performance monitoring tool offering a user-friendly interface with customizable dashboards. It provides real-time tracking of device health, latency, and bandwidth utilization, supporting diverse integration and scalability needs.

SolarWinds NPM's robust features include real-time monitoring of network performance and efficient tracking of device health, latency, and bandwidth utilization. The tool is appreciated for its ease of deployment, scalability, and support for integration with other tools. Features like SNMP monitoring, NetPath, and comprehensive reporting enhance its diagnostic capabilities and network visibility. However, users identify areas for improvement such as real-time analytics, advanced customization options, and enhanced scalability for larger enterprises. Better customer support, improved integrations, and security measures are also desired.

What are the key features of SolarWinds NPM?

User-Friendly Interface: Simplifies navigation and operation.
Customizable Dashboards: Allows personalized data views.
Real-Time Monitoring: Provides instant updates on network performance.
Strong Alerting Capabilities: Offers immediate notifications for issues.
Scalability: Supports growth with ease.
Integration: Works smoothly with other tools for comprehensive monitoring.
SNMP Monitoring: Tracks device stats effectively.
NetPath: Helps visualize network paths and performance.

What benefits and ROI can users expect?

Improved Network Visibility: Enables proactive issue resolution.
Enhanced Diagnostics: Facilitates quicker troubleshooting.
Real-Time Performance Data: Supports informed decision-making.
Ease of Deployment: Reduces setup time and complexity.
Infrastructure Monitoring: Ensures network stability and reliability.
Custom Integration: Adapts to existing IT environments.

In enterprise environments, SolarWinds NPM is deployed to monitor network health and device status, sending alerts for any issues. It provides visibility into network performance, tracking bandwidth utilization and server metrics efficiently. Its applications span from monitoring routers, switches, and firewalls to supporting infrastructure monitoring across industries.

SolarWinds

Sample Customers

Information Not Available

Microsoft, Federal Express, Hewlett-Packard, and MasterCard

Buyer's Guide

Azure Network Watcher vs. SolarWinds NPM

September 2026

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