We performed a comparison between Azure Firewall and Fortinet Fortigate VM 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, Azure Firewall seems to be the more favorable choice. It is priced more fairly than Fortinet Fortigate VM; it includes more features; its survive and support ratings were much better than Fortinet’s; and PeerSpot users found Azure Firewall to have a greater ROI.
"The user interface is relatively easy. The devices are easy to deploy and figure out when you have experience with other security appliances."
"Unified Threat Management (UTM) features."
"The most valuable features are the enterprise modeling and the simple interface."
"The features that I have found most valuable are the SD-WAN and their IP4 policy."
"You can create multiple Virtual Domains (VDOMs), which are treated as separate firewall instances."
"The email protection and VPN features are the most valuable."
"The simplicity of the configuration and the stability of the product are most valuable. The VPN concentrator is very useful."
"Fortinet FortiGate is a stable solution."
"The solution is stable."
"The solution has many useful features. For example, the solution allows users to create virtual IP addresses."
"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."
"We secure the entry point to the virtual data center with the firewall."
"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."
"Azure's cost-effectiveness is its major advantage."
"Performance and stability are the key features of this product."
"The initial setup was quite straightforward."
"I really like that it's internationally deployable."
"The most valuable features of Fortinet FortiGate-VM are the servers, analyzer, and track protection."
"The initial setup is very user-friendly."
"It's very easy to set up, even for more junior developers."
"The technical support is very good."
"The most valuables features are the ease of use and deployment."
"The most valuable feature is that its IPsec works perfectly."
"There are some problems that support cannot give you a logical reason as to why it happened. For example, I had a case where I was dealing with a WhatsApp application that was giving issues. Technical support gave more than one reason it could be giving issues, but none of them solved the problem. Eventually I solved the problem, but it was far from the solutions that support had given."
"The stability of Fortinet FortiGate could improve."
"The cloud features can be improved."
"The setup is pretty complex and not easy to implement."
"Fortinet FortiGate is a stable solution. However, my issue is the performance only. When I use all the profiles, this affects the performance. From the beginning, I should have had a better sizing of the box."
"Technical support for this solution can be improved."
"Fortinet doesn't provide multiple virtual firewalls which would facilitate end users and customers."
"It is stable, but its stability can be improved."
"It's a little heavy compared to a FortiGate or other firewalls."
"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."
"The solution lacks artificial intelligence and machine learning. It might be in the roadmap. However, currently, it's not available."
"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."
"It would be much easier if the on-premises, firewall rules, had some kind of export-import possibility in place, which is not the case right now."
"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."
"We find it's different implementing it region-to-region. It might help if it was universal across all regions."
"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."
"The user interface (UI) and the performance of interface both need improvement."
"Some issues with connecting to the VPN from home after firmware updates."
"FortiGate's application load balancing has to be improved. They need to improve a lot on the load balancing and RAF side. They are far behind Citrix in that regard."
"I don't have any specific improvements to suggest, but perhaps the pricing could be enhanced. Regarding updates, more frequent updates would be appreciated. FortiGate-VM is currently focused on providing very good firmware updates, automation, and top-notch features. It stands as a great product for now. Based on our needs and the vulnerabilities we've encountered due to various downloads, I suggest integrating with Kaspersky Gateway. This integration would involve scanning and inspecting both official emails and spam emails. Our customer has successfully worked with Kaspersky Gateway, and overall, the integration has been effective."
"It would be useful to have integration with different reporting tools. This is something we are sorely missing. It would be a plus to have reporting integrations. It would be good to have more integration with the identity suites, such as Office 365 and Azure Active Directory, of different providers that we use. Integrations are already available, but it would be nice to have some more advanced options."
"In the first two releases of FortiOS 5.6, we had some trouble with the SSL VPN service. Sometimes it stopped working, and the IPS daemon too."
"The solution should provide more useful GUI features."
"Compatibility and integration with other products or vendors such as Cisco SD-WAN products need improvement."
Azure Firewall is ranked 21st in Firewalls with 33 reviews while Fortinet FortiGate-VM is ranked 9th in Firewalls with 113 reviews. Azure Firewall is rated 7.2, while Fortinet FortiGate-VM is rated 8.4. 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 Fortinet FortiGate-VM writes "An easy-to-manage and configure tool that provides ample documentation to help with the setup phase". Azure Firewall is most compared with Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls, Microsoft Defender for Cloud, Palo Alto Networks VM-Series, Check Point NGFW and Cisco Secure Firewall, whereas Fortinet FortiGate-VM is most compared with Palo Alto Networks VM-Series, Fortinet FortiOS, OPNsense, Cisco Secure Firewall and Netgate pfSense. See our Azure Firewall vs. Fortinet FortiGate-VM report.
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