We performed a comparison between Azure Firewall and pfSense based on our users’ reviews in five categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Comparison Results: pfSense comes out on top in this comparison. It is high performing and, according to reviews, it is a more comprehensive solution than Azure Firewall. pfSense also received higher marks in the support category.
"UTM/NGFW features and FortiCloud for logs and backups are awesome."
"The multi-tenancy feature is most valuable. It integrates very well with FortiManager and FortiAnalyzer."
"The most valuable feature is the ease of use."
"I really like the captive portal feature for our guest network. It has nice VLAN features in terms of separating our network. The anti-virus is also good."
"Some of the valuable features are the firewall, IPS, web filter, and gateway capabilities. Additionally, it is easy to use and flexible."
"It's super reliable. I don't think I've ever had a reliability issue with it."
"Good anti-malware and web filtering features."
"It's very good and very stable for businesses. It works very well."
"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 most valuable feature is the integration into the overall cloud platform."
"Azure's cost-effectiveness is its major advantage."
"In terms of the reporting, it's beautiful. It integrates with Azure monitoring and with Azure policies. That piece is a big help. You can set governing policies and you can use the application firewall, as well as the Azure Firewall, to enforce those policies."
"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 feature that I have found the most valuable is the control over the network permissions and the network."
"It's auto-scalable, which is a great feature."
"Great security and connectivity."
"There is good documentation with a fantastic community and enterprise support."
"We generally use it because it's cheap. When we need something more robust we use Barracuda and Sony Wireless Routers. For certain clients, we use pfSense because it's compatible with the VoIP platform."
"It has a good web cache. I used to use a DHCP server and DNS server. For my company, I use pfSense as a load balancing application."
"I like the connectivity to the open VPN. It's very smooth."
"The solution has good customization abilities and plenty of features."
"pfSense allows us to spread the hours of connection and do the filtering on the pfSense site."
"I have found the firewall portion for the blocking most valuable."
"Easy to deploy and easy to use."
"The support from Fortinet FortiGate could improve. They are not easily accessible when we need them. They could improve their response time."
"The updates Fortinet provides are sometimes unstable."
"Sometimes you do need to know some CLI commands, so it's a bit harder for technicians or new people that don't know it."
"The reporting in Fortinet FortiGate could improve. Customers are having to purchase additional reporting components. When I have used the Sophos solution it is a complete solution, in Fortinet FortiGate you have to use additional tools to have the features needed."
"We had some issues in the beginning while setting it up, but after doing the firmware update, it is working fine."
"It needs more available central management."
"I would like some automated custom reporting."
"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."
"Azure should be able to work better as a balancer also, instead of just being a firewall. It should have a wider mandate."
"There is room for further integration of AI into the system."
"It needs a lot of improvement, especially on intruder detection. They are working hard on that."
"The reporting, logging, and monitoring features, as well as the flexibility of the policies, need to be improved."
"We find it's different implementing it region-to-region. It might help if it was universal across all regions."
"The solution doesn't offer the same capabilities of Fortinet. It should offer intrusion prevention and advance filtering. These are two very useful features offered on Fortinet that Azure lacks."
"They can improve the pricing of Azure Firewall."
"The development area and QA area could be improved. With those improvements, we can improve projects and take even less time to implement them."
"The main problem with pfSense is that it lacks adequate ransomware protection."
"I believe improving integration with various antivirus vendors could be beneficial."
"It is not centrally managed, where you log into the website and can see all your services there. We would like to be able to see is all the configurations from a central interface on all our pfSenses."
"Also, simplifying the rules for the GeoIP. Making it simpler to understand would be an improvement."
"The solution could use better reporting. They need to offer more of it in general. Right now, the graphics aren't the best. If you need to provide a report to a manager, for example, it doesn't look great. They need to make it easier to understand and give users the ability to customize them."
"It would be great to add more to security."
"The solution could be more user-friendly, and the graphical interface needs some work so that someone without an IT background can use the application. I would like the ability to manage the on-premise appliance from the cloud. When I'm not in the office, it would be great to connect to the pfSense server and administer the network remotely."
"We are at the moment looking to use it as a proxy service so that we can limit what websites people go and view and that sort of thing. That's an area I've struggled with a little bit at the moment and it could be a bit easier to set up."
Azure Firewall is ranked 21st in Firewalls with 33 reviews while Netgate pfSense is ranked 1st in Firewalls with 128 reviews. Azure Firewall is rated 7.2, while Netgate pfSense 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 Netgate pfSense writes "User-friendly, easy to manage the firewall, rule-wise and interface-wise". Azure Firewall is most compared with Fortinet FortiGate-VM, Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls, Microsoft Defender for Cloud, Palo Alto Networks VM-Series and Azure Front Door, whereas Netgate pfSense is most compared with OPNsense, Sophos XG, KerioControl, Sophos UTM and Cisco Secure Firewall. See our Azure Firewall vs. Netgate pfSense report.
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