Ni nanowires were grown in highly-ordered anodic alumina templates using pulsed electrodeposition. This technique yields completely metal-filled alumina membranes. The magnetic behavior of 100 nm period arrays of Ni nanowires with a length of 1 μm and differ-ent diameters has been characterized using SQUID magnetometry and magnetic force micros-copy. Reducing the diameter from initially 50 to 25 nm while keeping the interwire distance constant leads to increasing coercive fields from 600 Oe to 1200 Oe and to increasing rema-nence from 30% to 100% of the hysteresis. The deposition of Ni₆₅Fe₃₅ gave a further im-provement of the coercive fields up to 1350 Oe.