The advancement of heat transfer techniques is a challenge to the researcher in this era. Implementation of nanotechnology is one of the potential techniques which enhance the heat transfer rate in a significant amount. Subsequently, nanotechnology can reduce the requirement of pumping power. However, suspension of nanoparticle with liquid to produce a new working fluid called nanofluid which has better thermal and fluid dynamic properties in comparison to pure liquid is introduced as a typical nanotechnology technique in the heat transfer area. In this study, the thermal performance of two categories of nanofluids metal-based (Cu-water and Ag-water) and oxide based (Al2O3-water, CuO-water, BeO-water) with 1–5% volume fractions have been analysed for the laminar flow region of a circular tube which is fully developed under 2D control volume finite element method. The heat transfer was analysed for a range of Reynolds numbers from 100 to 1000 with a constant heat flux of 500 W/m2 applied on the tube wall. For evaluating the performance among nanofluids, the Figure of Merits (FOM), pumping power, Nusselt number enhancement ratio, and heat transfer coefficient ratio of the base fluid and nanofluids have been calculated and compared. The computational results show that in terms of Nusselt number and heat transfer coefficient, all nanofluids provide higher enhancement compared to pure water. Meanwhile, for this higher enhancement, nanofluids required significantly lower pumping power in comparison to pure water. However, the power has been saved 86.26% for Ag-water nanofluid, 72.84% for Cu-water, 42.36% for CuO-water, 40.99% for Al2O3-water, and 26.58% for BeO-water. Between the mentioned two categories of nanofluids, metal-based nanofluids provide the highest heat transfer enhancement and lowest pumping power requirement compared to oxide-based because of their higher thermal conductivity and other fluid and thermal properties. For clearing the enhancement of heat transfer rate over-pumping power, a dimensionless number FOM has been calculated whereas metal-based nanofluids provide the highest value of FOM (1.863 for Ag-water nanofluid) in comparison to oxide-based (1.266 for BeO-water). In the meantime, the comparison between nanofluids also reveals that among all the nanofluids, metal-based Ag-water nanofluids provide the highest heat transfer enhancement and oxide-based BeO-water provide the lowest heat transfer enhancement in terms of pumping power requirements. Lastly, the study concluded that suspension of metal-based nanoparticles with base fluid has better capability to save pumping power (86.26% for Ag-water nanofluid) by providing the highest enhancement of heat transfer rate whereas oxide-based nanoparticles show the lowest capability to save pumping power (26.58% for BeO-water) compared to the base fluid.