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.
"Fortinet FortiGate is scalable for our users. Right now, we have almost 70 users. We do not have any plan to increase our usage of FortiGate. For maintaining the firewall solution, one staff member is enough."
"The most valuable feature is the FortiManager for centralized management."
"The most valuable features of Fortinet FortiGate are the ease of use and the UI. It has always provided me with what I needed. I have no need for additional costs that other solutions have, such as Sophos."
"The payment function for applications is good."
"Good load balancing feature."
"FortiGate is on the cheaper end, and it offers good value."
"The ease of setting the solution up is a valuable aspect for us."
"The most valuable features of the solution are SD-WAN, filtering testing applications, web filtering, and the new VPN."
"The solution is very stable. When comparing it to other environments, it's actually quite impressive."
"Azure's cost-effectiveness is its major advantage."
"Great security and connectivity."
"The most valuable feature is the integration into the overall cloud platform."
"All its features are good. That's why we recommend it."
"The Layer four features are okay and meet my business needs."
"Azure Firewall's feature that I have found most valuable is its scalability."
"Performance and stability are the key features of this product."
"The Unified Threat Management (UTM) module, which consists of the basic firewall and IPS services, is what the majority of our customers use in Palo Alto Firewall."
"I like the sandbox feature, and it's very good. It kills each malware deployment in the sense of signatures within five minutes. So, we can secure our network and infrastructure very well within the stipulated time. The WildFire functionality is very good because a few files are also getting blocked. It's critical as malware attacks are also getting ignored, and the logging is very well maintained in this firewall. The most valuable solutions in this field are application-based firewalls. That is the main criteria of the firewall and functionality. We can get all the logs related to this and each and every packet. I like that the firewall is working as an application. The application-based entity we have deployed is well maintained and working very well. We were able to find lots of vulnerabilities when we deployed it, but we could not disclose all. But there were vulnerabilities we could block by updating the firewall and taking actions on clientside machines. So, we got to know that we have lots of vulnerabilities inside the organization too, and we took lots of steps and resolved the number of vulnerabilities. Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls is an all-in-one solution. It provides every entity log, which is a very good functionality of this firewall. It gives every packet and aspect that the firewall is performing through its logs, and it does it very well. This firewall's unified platform helped eliminate multiple network security tools. If anyone uses P2P sites, cryptocurrency websites, or any illegal sites, we can block it easily. It gives us a proper alert for these kinds of sites, and it properly secures our network. Monitoring is the best thing we are doing here, and we can block this kind of vulnerability as soon as it comes to us."
"The best features of this solution are URL filtering and traffic visibility."
"It's quite nice. It's very user-friendly, powerful, and there are barely any bugs."
"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 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."
"Good functionality and features."
"The scalability is very good."
"MTBF: Hardware failure is more common when compared to SonicWall or Cisco ASA."
"One issue that I have had is that sometimes I need to monitor the traffic, so I need to filter it according to the user and which user is using it the most. I experience a bottleneck most of the time, particularly at the peak time when the number of contracts and users are at maximum."
"Technical support for this solution can be improved."
"I would suggest that Fortinet add sandboxing to their solution."
"Vulnerability scanning could be improved."
"The process of configuring firewall rules appears excessively complex."
"The command line is complicated, and the interface could be better."
"Bandwidth usage in reporting could be improved for Fortinet FortiGate."
"It needs a lot of improvement, especially on intruder detection. They are working hard on that."
"The solution lacks artificial intelligence and machine learning. It might be in the roadmap. However, currently, it's not available."
"An Azure firewall is not a real firewall."
"We find it's different implementing it region-to-region. It might help if it was universal across all regions."
"The product could be made more customizable."
"It has fewer features than you can get from other firewalls, like anti-spam and anti-phishing. Those kinds of things are not included. It only includes IDS and IDB."
"There is room for further integration of AI into the system."
"There should be better monitoring and logging. Currently, it is put in Sentinel. It should be more seamless and from the interface."
"The cost of the device is very high."
"The solution could be simplified."
"I believe it would be beneficial if the solution could integrate with Google Chrome, especially for students who use Chromebooks. However, as far as I know, the solution currently does not support Google Chrome."
"Surfacing actionable intelligence right away could be better. You have to dig far to get some of the information. If the solution could surface the two or three things out of the 10,000 a day that we really need to deal with, it would be helpful."
"I would like to see better third-party orchestration so that it is easier for the team to work with different products."
"When you delete and add a new rule, because of the one hundred rule limit, if the new rule has an ID that is greater than one hundred, even though you have fewer than that, it will not work."
"Maybe they could add some tools and more competing services, like servers, but that would increase the cost of the solution."
"The initial configuration is complicated to set up."
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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