Buyer’s Guide - October 2026

The 10 best Azure monitoring tools

Q: Can Azure Monitor monitor on-premises servers?

Yes, through Azure Arc and the Azure Monitor Agent, but it is built Azure-first. Teams with a heavy on-premises footprint typically add a third-party tool for fuller coverage and easier cross-environment correlation.

Q: What is the difference between Azure Monitor and Application Insights?

Azure Monitor is the umbrella platform for metrics, logs and alerts across Azure resources. Application Insights is its APM component: request rates, dependency calls, exceptions and distributed tracing for instrumented applications. Application Insights can operate somewhat standalone for application-level monitoring, but infrastructure monitoring needs the wider Azure Monitor stack.

Q: How can I reduce Azure Monitor log ingestion costs?

Log ingestion is billed per GB, with a free monthly allowance on the Analytics tier and a cheaper Basic Logs tier. Costs grow with volume and retention, so sampling, filtering at the source and choosing the right tier per table all help. Per-node-priced alternatives such as Netdata avoid per-GB ingest metering for infrastructure monitoring.

Every Azure resource feeds Azure Monitor automatically, so the real question is what it misses: per-second resolution, hybrid estates, and a log bill you can predict. We ranked ten tools on Azure service coverage, metric freshness, hybrid reach and cost shape, with the honest trade-offs for each.

Start with Netdata Jump to rankings

The 10 best Azure monitoring tools product interface

Why this list exists

Azure monitoring is an unusual category because Microsoft ships a capable native tool. Every Azure resource sends platform metrics and logs to Azure Monitor at creation time, with Application Insights for APM and Log Analytics for KQL querying. That makes the buying decision less “which tool covers Azure” and more “what does the native default fail to give me”.

The mistake buyers make is treating this as either/or. Azure Monitor is the right default for pure-Azure estates with simple topologies. But its platform metrics arrive at 1-minute grain, its log ingestion is billed per GB in ways that surprise log-heavy teams, its experience is fragmented across Monitor, Log Analytics workspaces and Application Insights, and it is weak outside Azure. Hybrid, multi-cloud, cost-sensitive or real-time-focused teams almost always supplement or replace it.

How to choose an Azure monitoring tool

Three dimensions decide the outcome for most teams:

Resolution. Transient Azure issues, a CPU spike that throttles a VM for twenty seconds, a connection storm on Azure SQL, are invisible at 1-minute platform metrics or 5-minute API polling. Sub-minute agent collection on the VMs themselves is what makes them visible.
Collection model. Third-party tools either poll the Azure Monitor APIs through an app registration (inheriting Azure’s metric grain) or run agents on your VMs and AKS nodes (collecting at the agent’s own interval). The two models are complementary: platform telemetry through the API, guest-level detail through agents.
Cost shape. Per-GB log ingest, per-host, per-sensor, per-monitor and per-node models fail in different ways at scale. Know which axis your estate grows on before you sign.

One editorial rule on this page: we do not quote competitor list prices, because list price is not what you pay and volume tiers, commitments and add-ons change the math. We describe each pricing model’s shape and what makes the bill grow, and we link every vendor’s official pricing page so you can get a current quote.

We assembled the shortlist from vendor documentation, practitioner threads on r/AZURE and r/devops about leaving or supplementing Azure Monitor, and independent comparison write-ups, then verified every coverage claim against each vendor’s own Azure docs rather than marketing pages. Tools that only mention Azure in a logo wall did not make the list.

Azure service coverage and metric resolution carry the most weight, because they are where Azure Monitor’s defaults fall short and where switching tools actually pays off. Cost predictability is weighted heavily too: per-GB log billing is the single most common complaint in practitioner discussions of Azure monitoring, and a tool that fixes visibility but recreates the same billing surprise has not solved the problem.

Tester credit

Compiled by the Netdata team - Updated October 14, 2026

Sources verified

Scoring criteria

Azure service coverage 25%
Depth across VMs, AKS, Azure SQL, App Service, storage, networking and PaaS, verified against vendor docs.
Metric resolution and real-time visibility 20%
Per-second agents versus 1-minute platform metrics versus 5-minute API polling.
Hybrid and multi-cloud reach 15%
Azure alongside on-premises and other clouds in one view.
Cost predictability 15%
Pricing shape and what makes the bill grow at scale.
AIOps and anomaly detection 10%
Built-in anomaly detection and root-cause correlation, not bolt-ons.
Setup and operational effort 10%
Time to first useful dashboard: auto-discovery versus app registrations and self-managed backends.
Alerting and diagnostics depth 5%
Quality of shipped alerts and drill-down from symptom to cause.

Vendor 01 / 10 · #netdata

Netdata

Per-second observability for Azure VMs, AKS and services, from open-source agents on your own infrastructure, with an Azure Monitor collector that auto-discovers resources across subscriptions.

Best for

Teams that need per-second visibility into Azure VMs, containers and applications, without per-GB ingest metering for infrastructure monitoring
Organizations that want telemetry stored on their own infrastructure, for data sovereignty and to avoid Azure egress charges
Hybrid estates where Azure VMs sit next to on-premises servers and other clouds under one dashboard

Pricing

Per-node pricing: Netdata Cloud Business starts at $4.5/node/month on annual plans, and the per-node price decreases as node count grows
Not billed: metrics volume, Logs Monitoring (querying logs in place), users, data retention, containers
Agents are open source under GPLv3+ and remain free; the Community plan is free for personal, non-commercial use with up to 5 active connected nodes
Logs Management is in Free Preview; 14-day trial for Netdata Cloud Business

Pros

Per-second metric collection on Azure VMs (Windows and Linux), roughly an order of magnitude finer than Azure Monitor’s 1-minute platform metrics
Azure Monitor collector auto-discovers resources across subscriptions via Azure Resource Graph, with 38 built-in service profiles and 1300+ metrics from the Azure Monitor Metrics API
Authentication through Microsoft Entra ID with service principal, managed identity or default credentials
Unsupervised ML anomaly detection trains on each node locally, so raw telemetry never leaves the host
Metrics, logs and OpenTelemetry traces on the same agent; traces are stored and indexed on your own agents and explored in the Netdata Cloud Traces tab
Single-line install per VM; the default multi-tier dbengine retains up to about 2 years of metrics on-node

What to watch

No default alerts ship for the Azure Monitor collector integration; thresholds for Azure platform metrics are configured by the operator
First-party Azure service health, Azure Advisor recommendations and Service Health signals are Azure Monitor’s native territory; Netdata does not replicate them
No native Azure cost and spend monitoring; that remains the job of Azure Cost Management or a FinOps tool

Verdict

Netdata leads this list on the dimensions Azure buyers struggle with most: resolution, cost predictability and data control. Agents on your VMs and AKS nodes collect per-second, so the transient spikes that 1-minute platform metrics average away are actually visible, and the Azure Monitor collector pulls 1300+ platform metrics across 38 service profiles into the same dashboards. The per-node bill does not grow with metrics volume or headcount, and telemetry stays on your infrastructure. The honest caveats: Azure PaaS platform metrics arrive at whatever grain Azure’s API publishes (typically 1-minute; per-second applies to guest OS and application metrics on VMs), Azure platform-metric alerting is yours to configure, and first-party Azure service health signals still belong to Azure Monitor. For deep Azure diagnostics at real-time resolution, with Azure Monitor kept for control-plane signals, it is the strongest pairing on this page.

Start with Netdata -> See Azure monitoring ->

Vendor 02 / 10 · #azure-monitor

Azure Monitor

Microsoft’s native observability service: automatic metrics, logs and traces from every Azure resource, with Application Insights for APM and Log Analytics for KQL.

Best for

Teams whose entire stack lives inside Azure and want zero-configuration platform metrics
Organizations committed to Azure-native operations, Policy and security tooling
Cost-constrained teams starting out on the free log allowance and built-in insights

Pricing

Pay-as-you-go, billed by Azure: log ingestion per GB on the Analytics tier (a free monthly log allowance per billing account; a cheaper Basic Logs tier exists), plus per-GB retention beyond included allowances
Platform metrics collection is included; web tests, alerts and data export are billed separately
The bill grows with log volume, retention length and query/export usage, the classic surprise for log-heavy estates

Pros

Zero-configuration collection of platform metrics and logs from every Azure resource at creation time
Application Insights is mature APM for .NET, Java, Node.js and Python, with distributed tracing and Live Metrics
Log Analytics with KQL is genuinely powerful for log querying once learned
VM insights and Container insights cover VMs and AKS out of the box; Container Insights can ingest Prometheus and OpenTelemetry data
Ties directly into Azure Policy, Action Groups, Logic Apps and the Azure control plane

Cons

Weak outside Azure: on-premises coverage needs Azure Arc and the Azure Monitor Agent, and cross-environment correlation is manual
The experience is fragmented across Monitor, Log Analytics workspaces, Application Insights and Workbooks, and cross-resource queries get complex fast
Log ingestion costs are hard to predict at scale and are the most common complaint in practitioner threads
Alerting produces noise before signal, and useful Workbooks dashboards take sustained engineering effort

Verdict

Azure Monitor is the reference standard every other tool here is measured against, and for pure-Azure estates it is the correct default: coverage of every first-party service from day one, real APM through Application Insights, and deep integration with the Azure control plane. Its weaknesses are structural rather than fixable: 1-minute platform metric grain, a fragmented console, per-GB log billing that creeps, and thin hybrid reach. Most production environments end up supplementing it rather than replacing it, typically with a per-second agent platform for VM and container internals. Keep it for service health and control-plane signals; decide deliberately whether it is also your diagnostic layer.

Read full Netdata vs Azure Monitor -> Azure Monitor pricing ->

Vendor 03 / 10 · #datadog

Datadog

The default third-party answer for Azure: a SaaS platform pulling azure.* metrics and logs via app registration, next to infrastructure, APM and security telemetry from the rest of the estate.

Best for

Teams that want one SaaS platform for Azure plus AWS/GCP and on-premises without running a backend
Organizations needing deep APM, RUM and security alongside Azure infrastructure monitoring
Teams with limited observability engineering capacity who prefer a managed platform

Pricing

Per-host infrastructure pricing plus per-GB log ingestion and indexing, with APM, RUM, Database Monitoring and security each priced as separate add-ons
Annual, monthly and custom billing; some legacy host-based plans still exist
The bill grows with host count, log volume, custom metrics and enabled add-ons, the most common cost complaint in practitioner discussions

Pros

Native Azure integration ingests azure.* metrics across a very broad set of services, including App Service, Functions, SQL and networking
Watchdog AI for automated anomaly detection and root-cause correlation across Azure and non-Azure telemetry
Very broad integration catalog plus mature APM, RUM, synthetics and Database Monitoring
Strong practitioner mindshare: the default recommendation in r/AZURE threads about Azure Monitor alternatives

Cons

Costs scale steeply with hosts, log volume and add-ons; pricing complexity is a recurring theme in migration threads
Azure telemetry arrives through API polling and integrations rather than per-second agent collection on the platform side
SaaS-only: telemetry leaves your infrastructure, which matters for regulated Azure estates

Verdict

Datadog is the strongest all-in-one alternative to Azure Monitor for mixed estates, with the broadest third-party Azure integration coverage and APM depth that rivals Application Insights. It earns its rank on breadth and polish. The trade-off is the pricing model: per-host plus per-GB plus per-capability add-ons is precisely the kind of bill that grows faster than the estate, and pricing complexity is a recurring theme in practitioner migration threads. If budget predictability or data sovereignty is a hard requirement, weigh that against the convenience before standardizing.

Read full Netdata vs Datadog -> Datadog pricing ->

Vendor 04 / 10 · #dynatrace

Dynatrace

Enterprise observability whose Davis AI performs automatic root-cause analysis across Azure services, combining OneAgent instrumentation with an Azure Monitor integration.

Best for

Large enterprises running complex Azure environments that want AI-driven root cause and business-impact analysis
Organizations standardizing on one platform across Azure, other clouds and on-premises
Teams that value automation over dashboard building

Pricing

Dynatrace Platform Subscription: one annual platform-level commitment consumed at transparent rate-card prices, with unit prices decreasing as the commitment grows
Unlimited seats included; no per-user fees
The bill grows with consumption: host-hours, ingest volume and capability usage draw down the commitment

Pros

Monitors Azure via OneAgent and an Azure Monitor integration, with automatic discovery, baselining and AI-based problem detection
Azure Native Dynatrace Service in the Azure Marketplace streamlines procurement and deployment
Davis AI correlates metrics, events and logs across billions of dependencies, the strongest expert-system AIOps in the category
Supports Azure Lighthouse for multi-tenant access

Cons

Enterprise pricing with an annual commitment; the entry cost is high for small and mid-market Azure teams
OneAgent deployment and configuration add operational weight compared with agentless API polling
SaaS-first; self-hosted options are limited relative to open-source stacks

Verdict

Dynatrace is the pick when Azure root-cause analysis at enterprise scale is the problem: Davis AI does automated causal analysis across a huge dependency graph, and the Azure-native marketplace offering removes procurement friction. It ranks below Datadog here because its commitment-based pricing and OneAgent operational weight suit large enterprises more than the mid-market teams who make up most of this page’s audience. Teams that mainly need VM and infrastructure monitoring will pay for capability they never touch.

Read full Netdata vs Dynatrace -> Dynatrace pricing ->

Vendor 05 / 10 · #newrelic

New Relic

Full-stack observability with a wide Azure integration portfolio that polls Azure Monitor on a 5-minute cycle, priced by users and data ingest.

Best for

Engineering teams that want APM-first observability with Azure infrastructure alongside it
Organizations with varied language stacks migrating from on-premises APM tools
Teams that prefer ingest-based pricing over per-host and can manage log volume

Pricing

Priced on two axes: users plus data ingest (or compute plus ingest), with unlimited hosts, agents and containers included
A free tier with a monthly ingest allowance and synthetic monitor quota; pay-as-you-go beyond it
The bill grows with data ingest, especially logs, and the number of full-platform users

Pros

Broad Azure integration portfolio: VMs, Functions, Event Hubs, Cosmos DB, API Management and more, ingesting Azure Monitor metrics and logs
Unlimited hosts and containers make costs predictable for host-heavy Azure estates
Solid APM across many languages plus browser and synthetic monitoring in the same platform
A perpetual free tier makes evaluation low-friction

Cons

Azure integrations poll on a 5-minute default cycle with 1-minute resolution at best, coarse next to per-second agents
Azure-specific discovery and integration depth are generally regarded as behind Datadog’s
Ingest-based pricing becomes expensive for log-heavy Azure workloads if ingest is not actively managed

Verdict

New Relic is a credible full-stack option for Azure, particularly for teams whose center of gravity is application performance rather than infrastructure. The user-plus-ingest model with unlimited hosts is genuinely friendlier than per-host pricing for sprawling VM estates. What holds it back on this list is Azure specificity: 5-minute polling and shallower native discovery put it a step behind Datadog and the native tooling for Azure-first infrastructure monitoring.

Read full Netdata vs New Relic -> New Relic pricing ->

Vendor 06 / 10 · #grafana

Grafana (with Azure Monitor data source)

Open-source visualization and alerting whose Azure Monitor data source queries Azure metrics, Log Analytics (KQL) and Azure Resource Graph, with Grafana Cloud as the managed option.

Best for

Teams with engineering capacity that want maximum control over dashboards and data sources
AKS and cloud-native estates already running Prometheus
Hybrid setups where Azure is one of several data sources in one dashboard layer

Pricing

Grafana OSS is open source (AGPL) and self-hosted: you run and operate it, and the operational cost is real
Grafana Cloud: a free tier, then a monthly platform fee plus pay-as-you-go per host-hour, container-hour and active user, with custom annual commitments for large estates
The bill grows with active users and telemetry volume; the OSS route trades money for running Prometheus, Loki and Tempo yourself

Pros

Official Azure Monitor data source queries Azure metrics, Log Analytics with KQL, and Azure Resource Graph, across public, US Government and China clouds
Huge library of pre-built community dashboards, including Azure and AKS boards
Combines Azure Monitor, Prometheus and dozens of other sources in one visualization and alerting layer
Grafana Cloud removes the self-hosting burden for teams that want managed

Cons

Grafana is a presentation layer, not a data store: collection, log storage and trace storage all need separate infrastructure
Running the full OSS stack takes real operational effort, and the Azure Monitor plugin requires a recent Grafana release (12.3 or later per current docs)
No built-in collection or anomaly detection of its own for Azure; it visualizes what other systems gather

Verdict

Grafana is the control pick: for AKS-heavy teams already running Prometheus, the Azure Monitor data source unifies platform metrics, KQL logs and Resource Graph queries in one dashboard layer. But it monitors nothing by itself. Every line on a Grafana dashboard is collected, stored and retained by something else you operate or pay for, so the honest comparison is Grafana plus its backends against the integrated platforms above it on this list. Budget for that operational cost before committing to the OSS route.

Read full Netdata vs Grafana -> Grafana pricing ->

Vendor 07 / 10 · #logicmonitor

LogicMonitor

SaaS hybrid-infrastructure monitoring that pulls Azure resource metrics, logs and cost data through API-based collectors into one view with on-premises estates.

Best for

Enterprises running Azure alongside substantial on-premises infrastructure
Teams that want agentless Azure resource monitoring plus guest OS coverage without building it themselves
MSPs and organizations wanting predictable per-unit licensing across hybrid estates

Pricing

Platform packages priced per Hybrid Unit, a licensing unit covering on-premises, cloud IaaS/PaaS, wireless and OpenTelemetry resources
Three tiers (Essentials, Advanced, Signature with Edwin AI) bundling capabilities at an inclusive per-unit price
The bill grows with monitored resource count; units shift across environments without changing the licensing model

Pros

Monitors Azure via the Azure APIs: performance metrics, guest OS data, storage analytics, diagnostic logs, cost management, service health and containers
Hybrid Unit licensing flexes across on-premises, cloud and edge as the estate changes
Edwin AI adds event intelligence and AIOps on the higher tiers
Collectors are SaaS-managed, so there is no backend to run

Cons

Azure platform data arrives by API polling, so resolution is minutes, not seconds
Quote-based conversations remain common for larger estates despite published per-unit prices
APM depth is lighter than Datadog or Dynatrace for application-level Azure workloads

Verdict

LogicMonitor is the hybrid-estate specialist on this list: if Azure is one tenant in a large on-premises footprint, its agentless collectors and Hybrid Unit licensing are built for exactly that shape, and it is one of the few tools here that also ingests Azure cost data. It ranks mid-list because minutes-resolution polling cannot diagnose transient Azure VM issues, and its APM is thinner than the platforms above it. For infrastructure breadth across a mixed estate rather than deep Azure diagnostics, it is a solid shortlist candidate.

Read full Netdata vs LogicMonitor -> LogicMonitor pricing ->

Vendor 08 / 10 · #site24x7

Site24x7

All-in-one monitoring suite that discovers Azure resources via an authenticated app registration and monitors VMs, databases, App Services and more, with hourly billing for cloud resources.

Best for

Mid-market teams wanting Azure plus servers, networks, websites and applications in one affordable suite
Organizations with auto-scaling Azure VM fleets that benefit from hourly billing
Teams wanting synthetic and RUM monitoring alongside Azure infrastructure

Pricing

Per-monitor subscription packages with add-ons; entry plans are low-cost and billed monthly or yearly
Hourly billing option for cloud monitors including Azure VMs: you pay only while a resource is actively monitored
The bill grows with monitor count and add-on packs (logs, APM, synthetic checks)

Pros

Discovers and monitors a long list of Azure services (VMs, SQL databases, App Services, storage and more) via an Azure app registration
Hourly billing for Azure VMs and other cloud monitors suits elastic workloads
Bundles synthetic monitoring, RUM, log management and APM with Azure infrastructure monitoring
An Azure VM extension enables guest-level monitoring inside Azure VMs

Cons

Azure metrics are polled from Azure APIs, so resolution is minutes rather than seconds
The suite is broad but each area is shallower than a specialist tool; APM trails Datadog and Dynatrace
Documentation and UI consistency draw periodic criticism in practitioner forums

Verdict

Site24x7 covers this topic’s core services, VMs, Azure SQL and App Service, at mid-market cost, and its hourly billing for cloud monitors is a genuinely useful fit for auto-scaling Azure fleets that per-host models punish. The trade-off is depth: API-polled Azure metrics, adequate-but-thin APM, and a jack-of-all-trades feel across the suite. For teams whose requirements are breadth and affordability rather than diagnostic resolution, it deserves a trial.

Read full Netdata vs Site24x7 -> Site24x7 pricing ->

Vendor 09 / 10 · #prtg

Paessler PRTG

All-in-one on-premises network and infrastructure monitor with a native Azure VM sensor and a partner sensor suite that pulls Azure metrics over the REST API.

Best for

Mid-market teams already running PRTG that want to fold Azure VM status into their existing console
Organizations that prefer on-premises monitoring infrastructure
Network-centric IT teams extending to cloud VMs

Pricing

License tiers sized by sensor count; every monitored metric line is a sensor, so the bill grows with what you monitor
Perpetual-style licensing with annual maintenance; hosted and MSP editions exist
Azure coverage beyond the built-in VM sensor comes from partner sensor packs, which may carry separate licensing

Pros

Built-in Microsoft Azure Virtual Machine sensor tracks the status of all Azure VMs in an account, including CPU utilization and remaining CPU credits
The partner (AutomonX) suite adds Azure sensors over the Azure REST API, covering IaaS and PaaS services such as Event Hubs, SQL Database and App Service
Forecasting uses historical data and time-series methods to project Azure resource trends
Mature alerting and notification stack familiar to network teams

Cons

Azure coverage is sensor-by-sensor and comparatively shallow; deep Azure service monitoring depends on partner sensors
Sensor-based licensing makes broad Azure estates expensive quickly
On-premises core means you run and scale the monitoring infrastructure yourself

Verdict

PRTG earns its place as a pragmatic consolidation play: if your team already lives in PRTG for network and server monitoring, the native Azure VM sensor and partner packs bring Azure into the same console without a new platform. It is not an Azure observability tool in the modern sense: no APM, no Azure log pipeline, and coverage that depends on how many sensors you are willing to license and maintain. For existing PRTG shops, folding Azure into the same console is a sensible move; teams starting fresh for Azure should look higher up this list.

Read full Netdata vs PRTG -> PRTG pricing ->

Vendor 10 / 10 · #zabbix

Zabbix

Open-source, self-hosted monitoring with official Azure by HTTP templates that discover and monitor Azure VMs, databases and cost data via the Azure APIs.

Best for

Teams with existing Zabbix deployments that want Azure resources in the same console
Organizations with strict data-sovereignty or air-gapped requirements
Cost-conscious teams with the in-house skills to run open-source monitoring

Pricing

Open source and self-hosted: you run and operate it, and the real cost is infrastructure plus operations (server, database sizing, template maintenance)
Optional official technical support subscriptions from Zabbix
The bill is your team’s time: Zabbix server upkeep, upgrades and template work

Pros

Official Azure by HTTP templates cover Virtual Machines, VM Scale Sets, MySQL and PostgreSQL servers, Azure SQL Database and Managed Instance, Cosmos DB for MongoDB, Cost Management and Azure Backup
Works without external scripts and discovers VMs and database servers automatically
Authentication via an Azure service principal with reader role, using macros for app ID, tenant and subscription
Mature, battle-tested alerting and escalation engine

Cons

Azure coverage is template-based and narrower than commercial platforms; newer Azure services need custom templates
You operate the Zabbix server, database and upgrades yourself
Modern observability features (traces, log analytics, AIOps) are limited compared with dedicated platforms

Verdict

Zabbix is the sovereignty play: official Azure templates cover the topic’s core database and VM monitoring credibly, everything stays inside your network, and the software itself carries no licence fee; the cost is your own infrastructure and effort. That effort is the catch. Template maintenance for a fast-moving Azure service catalog is real work, and teams expecting APM, traces or built-in anomaly detection will not find them. For Zabbix-fluent teams with data-residency constraints, it is a defensible choice; for teams without those constraints, the operational effort is the main trade-off to weigh.

Read full Netdata vs Zabbix -> Zabbix downloads ->

Frequently asked questions

What are the best Azure monitoring tools?

The best Azure monitoring tools are Azure Monitor, the native default, plus nine third-party platforms: Netdata, Datadog, Dynatrace, New Relic, Grafana, LogicMonitor, Site24x7, PRTG and Zabbix. Azure Monitor’s stack pairs Application Insights for APM with Log Analytics for KQL querying. The right pick depends on whether your estate is Azure-only or hybrid, and on how much you care about metric resolution and cost predictability. For the cross-cloud view beyond Azure, see our best cloud monitoring tools guide.

Is Azure Monitor enough, or do I need a third-party tool?

Azure Monitor is the default and is sufficient for pure-Azure estates with simple topologies. It is weak outside Azure, cross-resource queries get complex quickly, log ingestion costs creep at volume, and the experience is fragmented across Monitor, Log Analytics and Application Insights. Most production environments end up supplementing it, and hybrid or multi-cloud estates need a platform that spans them.

How do third-party tools collect Azure data?

Three models. First, API polling of Azure Monitor metrics through an app registration or service principal: Datadog, New Relic, LogicMonitor, Site24x7, PRTG, Zabbix and Netdata’s Azure Monitor collector all work this way. Second, agents installed on Azure VMs for guest-level metrics: Netdata, Datadog and Dynatrace OneAgent. Third, visualization layers over Azure Monitor, which is Grafana’s role. API polling inherits Azure’s metric grain, typically 1-minute; agents collect at their own interval, down to per-second.

How much do Azure monitoring tools cost?

Anywhere from free (Zabbix and Grafana OSS, self-hosted) to a few dollars per node (Netdata Cloud Business starts at $4.5/node/month on annual plans) to per-GB log ingest (Azure Monitor, which includes a free monthly allowance). What varies is the axis the bill meters: Datadog is per-host plus per-GB plus per-capability add-ons; Dynatrace is an annual platform commitment consumed at rate-card prices; New Relic is users plus ingest; LogicMonitor is per Hybrid Unit; Site24x7 is per monitor with hourly billing for VMs; and PRTG is per sensor. We describe pricing shapes rather than quote list prices, because commitments and volume tiers change the math: in every model the bill grows with whichever axis it meters, so match the model to how your estate grows. Each card above links the vendor’s official pricing page, and Netdata’s per-node tiers are on our pricing page.

Can Azure Monitor monitor on-premises servers?

Which tools monitor AKS (Azure Kubernetes Service)?

AKS is covered by Azure Monitor Container Insights, Netdata, Grafana with Prometheus, Datadog and Dynatrace. Container Insights collects logs and metrics from AKS and can ingest Prometheus and OpenTelemetry data; Grafana plus Prometheus is the common open-source pairing for AKS; Netdata monitors AKS nodes and containers at per-second resolution from agents; and Datadog and Dynatrace both offer AKS integrations.

Does Netdata monitor Azure VMs and Azure SQL?

Yes. Agents on Windows and Linux Azure VMs collect per-second CPU, memory, disk and network metrics with auto-discovery. The Azure Monitor collector discovers resources across subscriptions via Azure Resource Graph, with 38 service profiles covering Azure SQL Database, PostgreSQL, MySQL, Cosmos DB, Redis and more, authenticating through Microsoft Entra ID (service principal, managed identity or default credentials). One caveat: no default alerts ship for the Azure collector integration, so configure thresholds yourself.

What is the difference between Azure Monitor and Application Insights?

How can I reduce Azure Monitor log ingestion costs?

The 10 best Azure monitoring tools

How to choose an Azure monitoring tool

How we evaluated Azure monitoring tools

Netdata

Azure Monitor

Datadog

Dynatrace

New Relic

Grafana (with Azure Monitor data source)

LogicMonitor

Site24x7

Paessler PRTG

Zabbix

Frequently asked questions

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