We performed a comparison between Azure Firewall and WatchGuard Firebox based on real PeerSpot user reviews.
Find out in this report how the two Firewalls solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI."The notable features that I have found most valuable are that it includes the antivirus, and also IPS, and even SD-WAN."
"The wireless control is helpful."
"Fortinet FortiGate is a stable solution."
"FortiGate firewalls are user-friendly, and I like the security profiling features."
"It's quite comfortable to handle the FortiGate firewall."
"FortiGate improved our security. It's one of the best hardware firewalls."
"Fortinet FortiGate is stable. It's used across all the countries, this is the way most multinationals run their system."
"The solution is easy to configure and maintain remotely."
"Performance and stability are the key features of this product."
"The initial setup is straightforward; Azure Firewall does not have a complex implementation process. It is very simple; you just need to enable the service within Azure. It does not require any maintenance because it is managed by Microsoft, that is, it is a fully managed service."
"It's auto-scalable, which is a great feature."
"One of the best features is that it natively integrates with Azure Services and tools. When you have a third-party offering, that is not the case. But Azure Firewall provides a comprehensive and seamless security solution for your Azure resources."
"The solution has many useful features. For example, the solution allows users to create virtual IP addresses."
"The most valuable feature is the integration into the overall cloud platform."
"One of the notable advantages of Azure Firewall is its user-friendly interface, which closely resembles or shares similarities with other Azure components."
"Azure Firewall's feature that I have found most valuable is its scalability."
"The most valuable feature of WatchGuard Firebox is its ease of use."
"The most valuables feature of WatchGuard Firebox are the VPNs, and web filtering where we can stop users from going to malicious sites."
"WatchGuard Firebox is the most powerful firewall for Wi-Fi security."
"This product offers great protection using the default settings."
"Among the most valuable features is the ease of use — love the interface — of both the web interface and of the WatchGuard System Manager."
"After conducting several tests I found the antivirus is working very well. Additionally, they have a very interesting feature, DNS WatchGuard, which is checking DNS requests for phishing, among other things, and it has caught a lot of unwanted attempts and attacks."
"All of the features have been valuable. There's nothing on my M270 that I'm not using. If you have remote access, you can see how many users are coming from the outside world to be connected to the systems, through the virus systems that we have behind the firewall, in order to gain access to their files and do their work. We can also see how long they stay online and whether these connections are closed forcefully or for any other reasons, such as a glitch or some kind of misbehavior, to see if internet traffic is optimized and if that particular traffic is under company policies, concerning which websites were visited."
"Firebox's best feature is the access portal."
"The firmware needs improvement because there are bugs when a new release comes through. Sometimes, the configuration changes, and it's a bit harder to see where the fail is. The first time that you have the firmware, it tends to have some issues, and it's better to wait a bit to update the equipment."
"The cloud features and integration could be improved."
"You do need some IT knowledge in order to effectively work with the solution."
"Fortinet Fortigate could benefit by simplifying some of their processes."
"Vulnerability scanning could be improved."
"It would be a benefit if Fortinet would release a one-stop solution that is better integrated with other products and an automated emergency response system."
"There are just some services that aren't available. For example, the Ethernet or point-to-point protocols. They could add these services to their product offering - especially services for ISPs."
"The support team for Fortinet FortiGate needs to be more customer friendly."
"This solution is not mature when it comes to handling perimeter traffic like internet browsing."
"The interface could be improved, it's not very user friendly."
"Currently, it only supports IP addresses, so you have to be specific about the IPs that are in your environment."
"It is a cloud service, but the lending speed for each region is not always the same. For example, in China, the speed is slow. They need to think about how to make sure that the service pace or speed is always the same in all regions. It would be a great improvement if they can provide the same pace worldwide."
"You have to have a defined IP range within your network to associate it with your network. The problem is you have to plan ahead of time if you expect to use the firewall in the future so that you don't have to reconfigure your subnets or that specific IP range. Other than that, I don't any issues. I use it for basic configuration for a single application, so I really don't try to leverage it for multiple applications where I might find some complexity or challenges."
"Right now, with Azure Firewall, we cannot have a normal inbound traffic flow. For inbound, Microsoft suggests using application gateways, so the options are very limited. I cannot use this firewall as an intermediate firewall because of the limitations, and I cannot point routing to another firewall. So if I want to use back-to-back firewall architecture in my environment, I cannot use Azure Firewall for that type of configuration either."
"For large organizations, a third-party firewall would be an added advantage, because it would have more advanced features, things that are not in Azure Firewall."
"For larger enterprises, they need to adjust the scalability."
"The UI and web view aren't nice."
"Websense is an application that monitors and filters internet traffic. Websense was derived from WatchGuard. But when you go to WatchGuard to actually implement that particular feature, you have to use some type of additional feature and you have to pay for it, unfortunately. I think it should be free or free in the WatchGuard box itself, as an option. It would be nice if they didn't charge us for that."
"We would like to see granular notification settings and more advanced filtering in traffic monitoring."
"The product's technical support services need improvement."
"The few issues that we have had, such as not knowing where to go, they have been answered quickly."
"Last year, I had an issue with one of the Fireboxes going down. It was overheated, because my server room became overheated and this fried it."
"There's always room for improvement, especially if the threats are getting more sophisticated and the IT department cannot sufficiently meet this kind of sophistication with their own knowledge and experience. Knowing that this solution can get up to the level of addressing a lot of these threats is something that everybody wishes for. If we look at the dark web and the lawful web, they are two opposites, and if these two good and bad collide in the world of the internet, you want the best possible product—especially if you cannot get to that point of knowledge. I am just an individual and end user, with limited knowledge of usage. That's why I say there's always room for improvement, from their side and also from mine, because by knowing exactly what they can achieve and the knowledge that they can get on an everyday basis, and the portion that is understandable to me, it's an improvement for them as well."
"The solution's pricing could be improved."
Azure Firewall is ranked 21st in Firewalls with 33 reviews while WatchGuard Firebox is ranked 13th in Firewalls with 79 reviews. Azure Firewall is rated 7.2, while WatchGuard Firebox is rated 8.4. The top reviewer of Azure Firewall writes "Easy to use and configure but could be more robust". On the other hand, the top reviewer of WatchGuard Firebox writes "Offers a streamlined deployment, intuitive interface and robust security features". Azure Firewall is most compared with Fortinet FortiGate-VM, Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls, Microsoft Defender for Cloud, Palo Alto Networks VM-Series and Check Point NGFW, whereas WatchGuard Firebox is most compared with Netgate pfSense, Sophos XG, OPNsense, SonicWall TZ and Stormshield Network Security. See our Azure Firewall vs. WatchGuard Firebox report.
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