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.
"The signature database and zero-day detection are Fortinet FortiGate's most valuable features."
"The most valuable feature is the ease of use."
"The license management is very valuable. You can get a new license each year, or you can enroll every two to four years. You can get the logs, and you will get the information on the risk in your network and the entire organization. With this information, you can take action on your actives, computers, or devices. You can bring your own device as an SSE."
"FortiGate firewalls are user-friendly, and I like the security profiling features."
"One of the nice things about FortiGate is that it can be deployed on the cloud or on-premises. You can actually do both. That's the biggest reason why I stick with this solution as opposed to something like Cisco Meraki. Another nice thing is that I can log directly into a FortiGate or get to it through their FortiCloud access products. They're pretty reliable and consistent. One of the reasons why I started using the product was their single pane of management. I can deploy their line of firewalls in conjunction with their switching and access points, and I can manage the entire network from one interface. I don't have to log into one interface for the firewall, another one for the access points, and another one for the switches. These firewalls have access point controller functionality built right into the system, so I don't even have to purchase additional devices to manage them."
"The web filtering facility and application control are the most valuable features from the point of view of our clients. The VPN feature is also quite popular amongst our clients. Two-factor authentication is one of the good features in Fortinet. These features are important for the current scenario of security. Security has become a necessity nowadays. With cyber-attacks becoming more common, protecting an organization's data is one of the major tasks. It is also very stable and scalable, and it is very straightforward to configure. Their technical support is also good."
"The most important features with FortiGate are the web filter and application controls. We can control our internet usage and use the web filter for application purposes."
"The most valuable feature of Fortinet FortiGate is load balancing. It can provide central management and VPNA. Additionally, it has enhanced our security environment."
"We secure the entry point to the virtual data center with the firewall."
"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 Layer four features are okay and meet my business needs."
"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."
"The solution is stable."
"The most valuable feature is threat intelligence. It is based on filtering and can identify multiple threats."
"The feature that I have found the most valuable is the control over the network permissions and the network."
"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."
"It is an easy-to-scale product."
"We can monitor the traffic manually and detect threats. Additionally, we can block different IP addresses and URLs."
"Palo Alto Networks VM-Series is easy to maintain...From a security point of view, I find Palo Alto Networks VM-Series to be a better product compared to the other solutions in the market."
"The VM-Series reports how much bandwidth a particular IP is using. You don't need to regularly log into a website, like a Cisco command, to see what kind of ACL it's getting. There isn't an ACL use portal event. You can go there and see how much my ACL has been getting me."
"The most effective features of the solution for threat prevention are Layer 7 inspection, SSL decryption, IPS, and the web filtering profile."
"What I like about the VM-Series is that you can launch them in a very short time."
"They now know the details about their network traffic that they did not know before: Applications that they are using and some application they did not know they were using."
"The VM-Series scalability is fast and easy to implement, improving our security posture as our Azure network grows."
"There are just some services that aren't available. For example, the Ethernet or point-to-point protocols. They could add these services to their product offering - especially services for ISPs."
"The inability to scale the FortiAnalyzer to match our growth necessitates the purchase of new hardware."
"I think there could be more QoS features"
"The pricing could be a bit better, especially when you consider how they have the most basic offering priced."
"It should be more stable. There should be full integration within Fortinet products themselves as well as with other third-party products. Especially when you're not dealing with SIEM and the correlation of the security box, we want Fortinet to be able to share that information with as many other products as it can."
"The Wi-Fi controller needs a lot of improvement."
"It claims it does DLP, but the degree and level of controls are very basic."
"The feedback that I have received is that the performance could be better, and the user experience is not as good compared to a previous solution we used. It could be more user-friendly. Of course, it still works fine for our operations."
"Azure has new versions including a premium firewall. But I would like to see them not put the premium features on Azure Firewall Premium alone because it is quite expensive."
"The tool needs to improve the onboarding and transition process for on-prem users."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"For large organizations, a third-party firewall would be an added advantage, because it would have more advanced features, things that are not in Azure Firewall."
"This solution is not mature when it comes to handling perimeter traffic like internet browsing."
"The current licensing model can be a sore point as we're paying for features we're not fully utilizing."
"On the cloud side, they need to come up with more HA solutions to support the multi-region."
"The utilization monitoring and GUI have room for improvement."
"The user interface could use some improvement."
"There are some delays that I have observed when my company communicates with Palo Alto's support engineers."
"Recently, they introduced their Prisma Cloud solution. Compared to the previous technologies, like Panorama, which is used for centralized firewall management, or even the individual firewalls, it's a bit challenging to integrate the traditional firewall policies into Prisma Cloud."
"I would like to see a more thorough QA process. We have had some difficulties from bugs in releases."
"In the next release, I would like to see better integration of multi-factor authentication vendors."
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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