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.
"The simplicity of the product is great. It's very easy to use, which is a compliment we get all the time in terms of feedback."
"Offers good security and filtering."
"Their reliability and their policy of pre-shipping replacements when a unit has failed."
"The stability of the solution is excellent, as it is with other Fortinet products."
"The interface is very good."
"The solution is stable."
"It's very fast and easy to configure."
"It is quite easy to handle."
"The Layer four features are okay and meet my business needs."
"The solution has many useful features. For example, the solution allows users to create virtual IP addresses."
"Performance and stability are the key features of this product."
"All its features are good. That's why we recommend it."
"I can easily configure it."
"Azure's cost-effectiveness is its major advantage."
"The firewall policy control, URL content control, and antivirus are all the most valuable aspects. Threat prevention is as well quite good."
"Microsoft's technical support is very good. They're quite knowledgable and responsive."
"Mechanically, all firewalls work in a similar fashion, but what makes Palo Alto different is that it also has some of the threat hunt capabilities. It is a little bit better than other vendors."
"It has the typical features of a next-generation firewall. It can do application control, antivirus, content filtering, etc."
"The most important feature is the firewall. We can make rules to filter the application layer of traffic. It's a very helpful feature."
"Palo Alto NGFW provides a unified platform that natively integrates all security capabilities, which is very useful. This prevents us from having to go to a lot of different systems, and in some cases, many different systems in many different regions, because we are a global company with 60 remote offices around the world in 30 different countries. Its centralized platform is really what we look for in all services, whether it be security or otherwise."
"We have found the application control to be the most valuable feature. Also, Layer 7, because all other products are working up to the maximum capacity. But Palo Alto is benefiting us, especially in application control management. We are able to differentiate between Oracle traffic and SQL traffic."
"It has a solid network security with some robust tools. We can block unexpected attacks, especially zero-day attacks. Since they use the Pan-OS engine, they can collect attacks from all over the world and analyze them. They can then protect against zero-day attacks and unexpected attacks."
"It's very important that Palo Alto NG Firewalls embed machine learning into the core of the firewall to provide inline, real-time attack prevention. That increases our security posture... The firewall is able to capture it and flag it and it is easy to mitigate as soon as we see something like that happening, to secure the environment more, in real time."
"They have a good system operator in the firewalls and it provides many tools that they can use to protect their networks."
"The firewall engine is not so strong as of now, in my opinion... My second concern is that, while they have Zero-day vulnerability and anti-malware features, the threat engine needs to be strengthened, its efficiency can be increased."
"Fortinet FortiGate needs to improve to be on par with its competitors, such as Palo Alto and Sophos. They are the market leaders. Fortinet FortiGate needs to improve its capabilities. However, we are happy with Fortinet FortiGate."
"Fortinet FortiGate is a firewall solution and once it's deployed, you can rest assured that your system is secure."
"The cloud features and integration could be improved."
"I would like Fortinet to add more automation to FortiGate."
"Fortinet FortiGate is not very easy to use. The navigation could be improved to make it easier to use."
"I'm not sure if it's something that they already have or are developing something, however, we need some dedicated features for container security."
"For the migration, everyone has a firewall in use and I am selling Fortinet. Typically, I am replacing another firewall. Previously, there was a tool available to convert configurations from one firewall, such as Palo Alto, to Fortinet, but this tool is no longer free. If it could be made free again, it would be very beneficial."
"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."
"Azure should be able to work better as a balancer also, instead of just being a firewall. It should have a wider mandate."
"We find it's different implementing it region-to-region. It might help if it was universal across all regions."
"This solution is not mature when it comes to handling perimeter traffic like internet browsing."
"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."
"Azure Firewall has limited visibility for IDPS, no TLS inspection, no app ID, no user ID, no content ID, no device ID. There is no antivirus or anti-spyware. Azure Firewall doesn't scan traffic for malware unless it triggers an IDPS signature. There is no sandbox or machine learning functionality, meaning we are not protected from Zero-day threats. There is no DNS security and limited web categories."
"The product could be made more customizable."
"The solution is not straightforward."
"This is a difficult product to manage, so the administrator needs to have a good knowledge of it, otherwise, they will not be able to handle it properly."
"The tech support was once great, but now it is poor. The tech support has gone south. It is really difficult. I had a Priority 1 case last a week in their queue, and after multiple complaints, I finally got somebody to take the case. These are things that are unacceptable in the business world. They could train their employees better."
"The reporting and visibility are phenomenal, but you don't get that information out of the box. They can email reports regularly, and the functionality is all there. However, a lot of it is based on an older model for email, where customers have in-house email servers. The small and medium-sized business customers I deal with are moving toward Office 365 or some other cloud-based mail and not maintaining their own internal mail servers."
"PA-220 Next-Generation Firewall would be perfect if it has spam filtering."
"We have a lot of the older firewall models, i.e., the PA-220. It seems that with newer operating systems the PA-220 is becoming slower than when I first bought it. It is not really an issue for users who are passing traffic through the firewall, but more from the management access of it."
"The only downside of Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls, in my opinion, is the relatively higher price compared to Cisco FortiGate. This is especially noticeable when deploying basic configurations and considering the cost of licenses."
"The customer-facing side needs to be improved in terms of the engagement and involvement of support staff."
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 162 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.
See our list of best Firewalls vendors.
We monitor all Firewalls reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.