We compared Palo Alto Networks VM-Series and Azure Firewall based on our user's reviews in several parameters.
The Palo Alto Networks VM-Series is praised for its strong security measures, effective threat prevention, and reliable customer support, offering scalability and flexible pricing. On the other hand, Azure Firewall is commended for its seamless integration with Azure services, robust security capabilities, and excellent customer service from Microsoft, but could benefit from enhancements in logging and reporting capabilities, rule customization, and user interface improvements.
Features: According to user feedback, the most valuable features of Palo Alto Networks VM-Series are its strong security measures, comprehensive firewall capabilities, effective threat prevention, and seamless integration with existing infrastructure. In contrast, Azure Firewall is praised for its robust security capabilities, seamless integration with other Azure services, comprehensive monitoring and logging functionality, user-friendly interface, and excellent support from Microsoft.
Pricing and ROI: The setup cost for Palo Alto Networks VM-Series is considered to be affordable and straightforward, with flexible licensing options. In comparison, Azure Firewall also offers a reasonable pricing and straightforward setup cost, with a hassle-free licensing process., The Palo Alto Networks VM-Series offers increased network security, threat prevention, and visibility, along with scalability and flexibility. Users have praised its comprehensive features and responsive support. On the other hand, Azure Firewall enhances ROI by offering cost-effectiveness, improved security measures, and reliable performance.
Room for Improvement: Palo Alto Networks VM-Series could improve its user interface, documentation, performance, integration with third-party apps, supported platforms, and reporting capabilities. Azure Firewall could benefit from advanced logging and reporting, better customization options, and an improved user interface.
Deployment and customer support: The user reviews for Palo Alto Networks VM-Series show a varying duration for establishing a new tech solution, with some users spending three months on deployment and an additional week on setup. On the other hand, the reviews for Azure Firewall also mention a varying duration, with some users spending three months on deployment and an additional week on setup. However, for users who required a week for both deployment and setup, it can be assumed that these terms refer to the same period and should not be considered separately., The customer service for the Palo Alto Networks VM-Series product has been highly rated and reliable, with customers speaking highly of the professional, prompt, and knowledgeable assistance provided. On the other hand, Azure Firewall also receives positive responses for its excellent customer service, with users appreciating the prompt and helpful assistance provided by the Azure team. Both products ensure users feel supported and valued.
The summary above is based on 27 interviews we conducted recently with Palo Alto Networks VM-Series and Azure Firewall users. To access the review's full transcripts, download our report.
"It performs very well."
"Mainly the FortiGate reporting system is very good. It guides us through all the expectations of security. Fortinet provides us all that we need for security. Also, Fortinet FortiGate is a next-generation firewall. It is much more advanced than others."
"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."
"The features that we have found most valuable are the SSL VPN and the User Portal."
"FortiGate is on the cheaper end, and it offers good value."
"The solution can scale well."
"Easy to use support and licensing portal as well as activation process."
"Fortinet FortiGate appears to be scalable."
"Azure Firewall is a cloud-native solution that removes the pain of load balancers."
"I can easily configure it."
"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."
"The solution has many useful features. For example, the solution allows users to create virtual IP addresses."
"The firewall policy control, URL content control, and antivirus are all the most valuable aspects. Threat prevention is as well quite good."
"The solution is stable."
"The SIEM that Azure Firewall provides us is very robust."
"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."
"A solid operating system with all the necessary data center security features."
"It offers a single pane of glass for all the different types of installations."
"With the improved visibility we now have, the traffic is being properly monitored, which means that we are better able to manage it. These are improvements that we saw very quickly."
"It scales linearly with load and no issues."
"In terms of security breaches, the product aids in categorizing and monitoring traffic, allowing for the identification of potentially malicisous or incorrectly formatted applications."
"The VM series has an advantage over the physical version because we are able to change the sources that the machine has, such as the amount of available RAM."
"It allows us to see all our traffic to properly secure it and only allow what is needed through the firewall."
"Embedding it into my application development lifecycle prevents data loss and business disruption, allowing the adoption to operate at the speed of my AWS Cloud."
"They can do more tests before they release new versions because I would like to be more assured. We had some experiences where they release something new and great, but some of the old features are disabled or they don't work well, which impacts the product satisfaction. The manufacturer should be able to prove that everything works or not only that it might work. This is applicable to most of the other services, software, and hardware companies. They all should work on this. We cannot trust every new release, such as a beta release, on the first day. We wait for some comments on the forums and from other companies that we know. We always wait a few weeks before we use the updated version. They should also extend the VPN client application, especially for Linux versions. Currently, it has an application for Linux devices, but it doesn't work the way we want to connect to the VPN. They use only the old connection, not the new one. They have VPN client applications for Windows and Mac, but they can add more useful features to better manage the devices and monitor the current health of each device. Such features would be helpful for our company."
"Palo Alto has a feature called WildFire Analysis that is unavailable in FortiGate. WildFire is better than a sandbox because it can address zero-day threats and vulnerabilities. It can immediately identify zero-day threats from the cloud."
"The feature which gives us a lot of pain is ASIC architecture."
"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."
"I could not configure sFlow from the FortiGate graphical user interface. I realized that the sFlow configuration is available only from the CLI, and discovered that sFlow is not supported on virtual interfaces, such as VDOM links, IPsec, or GRE."
"Fortinet could improve the windows opener or the virtual IP solutions for opening windows. The virtual IP settings need improvement as firewalls are trending in new development directions."
"It is very expensive, and their support is not very good. I hope that their technical support will be better in the future."
"It's my understanding that more of the current generation features could be brought in. There could be more integration with EDRs, for example."
"The solution should incorporate features similar to competitors like split tunneling."
"The product could be made more customizable."
"For larger enterprises, they need to adjust the scalability."
"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."
"They can improve the pricing of Azure Firewall."
"There are a number of things that need to be simplified, but it's mostly costs. It needs to be simplified because it's pretty expensive."
"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."
"There should be better monitoring and logging. Currently, it is put in Sentinel. It should be more seamless and from the interface."
"AWS doesn't integrate well with third-party firewalls."
"It would be helpful if we had a direct number for the support manager or the supporting engineer. That would be better than having to email every time because there would be less wait."
"We have ran into issues with Palo Alto’s limitations for resolving large IP lists from DNS lookups, as well as the antivirus interfering with App-ID."
"All areas need improvement: manufacturing, education, financial, etc."
"It can definitely improve on the performance."
"Just sometimes it can be a bit sluggish navigating through pages. That is just purely because of Java."
"The solution needs to have more easily searchable details or documentation about it online, so it's easier to Google if you have queries."
"It would be good if the common features work consistently in physical and virtual environments. There was an integration issue in the virtual deployment where it didn't report the interface counters, and we had to upgrade to the latest version, whereas the same thing has been working in the physical deployment for ages now. It seems that it was because of Azure. We were using VMware before, and we didn't have any such issues. We do see such small issues where we expect things to work, but they don't because of some incompatibilities. There also seems to be a limitation on how to do high availability in a virtualized environment. All features should be consistently available in physical and virtual environments. It is not always easy to integrate Palo Alto in the network management system. We would like to be able to compare two network management systems. They can maybe allow monitoring an interface through the GUI to create a reference or do a baseline check about whether your network monitoring system is actually giving you the correct traffic figures. You need traffic figures to be able to recognize the trends and plan the capacity."
Azure Firewall is ranked 21st in Firewalls with 33 reviews while Palo Alto Networks VM-Series is ranked 10th in Firewalls with 53 reviews. Azure Firewall is rated 7.2, while Palo Alto Networks VM-Series 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 VM-Series writes "Many features are optimized for troubleshooting real-time scenarios, saving a lot of time". Azure Firewall is most compared with Fortinet FortiGate-VM, Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls, Microsoft Defender for Cloud, Check Point NGFW and Cisco Secure Firewall, whereas Palo Alto Networks VM-Series is most compared with Fortinet FortiGate-VM, Cisco Secure Firewall, Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls, Juniper SRX Series Firewall and Huawei NGFW. See our Azure Firewall vs. Palo Alto Networks VM-Series report.
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