We performed a comparison between Azure Firewall and Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls based on our users’ reviews in five categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Comparison Results: Based on the parameters we compared, while Azure Firewall is certainly a solid option, Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls is equally good. Users of both products have been happy with the ROI results. What differentiates the two products is the stark difference in pricing, which may ultimately sway an organization’s purchasing decision.
"It has improved our organization with control data."
"The most valuable features of Fortinet FortiGate are the ease of use and there are several operating systems that can include the hardware capacities. In the newer releases, the resources were more useful because they were included in the operating system."
"Virtual Domains (VDOMs) are a feature that we found valuable."
"It is user friendly, and has all the features you need."
"The main benefit is the grouping of our security monitoring."
"You can create multiple Virtual Domains (VDOMs), which are treated as separate firewall instances."
"The wireless control is helpful."
"Whenever we raise a complaint with FortiGate, their response and resolution times are minimal."
"I like its order management feature. It doesn't have the kind of threat intelligence that Palo Alto has, but the order management makes it much simpler to know the difference."
"The solution is very stable. When comparing it to other environments, it's actually quite impressive."
"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."
"The SIEM that Azure Firewall provides us is very robust."
"Network filtering is valuable. The scalability capability from the cloud-native service helps us a lot because it simplifies our day-to-day maintenance activity."
"I think that one of the best features is definitely the premium version, along with the IDPs in terms of the intrusion detection and prevention system."
"Azure's cost-effectiveness is its major advantage."
"The strengths of Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls are application visibility and application awareness. Their strong point is identifying applications for traffic. So all of the policies that are configured are related to the application and not to a port."
"The first time I came across these firewalls, what surprised me the most was their web user interface. It is complete and gives you a lot of information. You can do 80% of the things related to your network and firewall through the web UI. In some of the other devices, the UI is not as complete. App-ID is also very valuable in customer networks. When you're seeing a lot of traffic in your network, you can see in your web UI which users have the applications that are consuming the most bandwidth. You have a broad context, which is very good."
"The payload is a very valuable feature."
"The most valuable feature is WildFire, which blocks sophisticated attacks and distinguishes it from other traditional firewall functions."
"It's one of the best products I've worked with. It's typically a market leader on Gartner. It's a very respected brand."
"You can easily integrate it with Active Directory, and you can use the GlobalProtect VPN for internal and external purposes. The URL Filtering is also clear and the application filtering is a plus. The application filtering is much better when you compare it to FortiGate or other firewall vendors."
"In general, I appreciate the regular firewall function of Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls."
"The most important feature is the firewall. We can make rules to filter the application layer of traffic. It's a very helpful feature."
"The UI could be improved."
"The feature which gives us a lot of pain is ASIC architecture."
"One of the features that I would like to have is to do with endpoint production, it should be integrated. For example, the firewall gets notified of any kind of forensic event that needs to be done, such as if there is a ransomware attack and how it originated, all those records have to be available from the firewall, which is not."
"The cloud management and automation capability could be improved."
"The visibility of the network can be better. The GUI can be improved for better visibility of the network flow. Other solutions have better GUI in terms of network visibility."
"I would like to see improvements with the antivirus and IPS as they are not working properly all the time."
"There could be more integration between the logging and analytical platforms to make it more seamless and integrated."
"The graphical user interface of Fortinet's FortiGate product does not function well with text-based interfaces."
"The development area and QA area could be improved. With those improvements, we can improve projects and take even less time to implement them."
"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."
"The threat intelligence part could be better. I don't see why our customers have to get an additional solution with Azure Firewall. It would be great if they made it on par with Palo Alto."
"An Azure firewall is not a real firewall."
"The tool needs to improve the onboarding and transition process for on-prem users."
"Azure Firewall definitely needs a broader feature base. It should be able to go all the way up to layer 7 when looking at applications and things like that."
"The interface could be improved, it's not very user friendly."
"It needs a lot of improvement, especially on intruder detection. They are working hard on that."
"Unfortunately, Palo Alto Networks products aren't cheap, but you have to pay the price for good security technology. I don't know the exact price, but it's about $10,000 to $15,000 without a subscription. Cisco is priced similarly. FortiGate is inexpensive in Poland, so a lot of customers prefer that."
"The solution doesn't support routing in virtual firewall creation, and we want that to be enabled."
"When it comes to their support, we have to select every single component that we want to include in a particular bundle. That is a very tedious process. T"
"Overall it is good. It is reliable and easy to understand. However, the monitoring feature could be improved."
"Generating reports is not so easy."
"The areas that need to improve are network protection and user identification."
"In the future, I would like to see more OTP features."
"In terms of what could be improved, comparatively the price is very high. That would be the one thing."
More Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls Pricing and Cost Advice →
Azure Firewall is ranked 21st in Firewalls with 33 reviews while Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls is ranked 6th in Firewalls with 164 reviews. Azure Firewall is rated 7.2, while Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls is rated 8.6. 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 Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls writes "We get reports back from WildFire on a minute-by-minute basis". Azure Firewall is most compared with Fortinet FortiGate-VM, Microsoft Defender for Cloud, Palo Alto Networks VM-Series, Check Point NGFW and Cisco Secure Firewall, whereas Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls is most compared with Check Point NGFW, Meraki MX, Sophos XG, Netgate pfSense and Cisco Secure Firewall. See our Azure Firewall vs. Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls report.
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