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 management console is pretty simple, so anyone who understands networking can initially deploy the solution."
"The pricing is great and very reasonable."
"Unified Threat Management (UTM) features."
"FortiGate is very simple to manage and easy to use."
"Offers good security and filtering."
"The most valuable feature of Fortinet FortiGate is load balancing. It can provide central management and VPNA. Additionally, it has enhanced our security environment."
"The most valuable features of Fortinet FortiGate are the ability to work in proxy mode, which other solutions, such as Palo Alto cannot. There are some features that are better that come at no extra license or subscriptions cost, such as basic SD-WAN. The DLT is useful, other solutions have the same feature too, such as Palo Alto."
"The most valuable feature of FortiGate is FortiView which provides proactive monitoring."
"Azure Firewall's feature that I have found most valuable is its scalability."
"We secure the entry point to the virtual data center with the firewall."
"It's auto-scalable, which is a great feature."
"The solution has many useful features. For example, the solution allows users to create virtual IP addresses."
"It's helped us improve our security posture."
"Azure's cost-effectiveness is its major advantage."
"The SIEM that Azure Firewall provides us is very robust."
"One of the best features is that it natively integrates with Azure Services and tools. When you have a third-party offering, that is not the case. But Azure Firewall provides a comprehensive and seamless security solution for your Azure resources."
"It is highly scalable because it has a mesh architecture that allows consistent policies."
"The reporting is good."
"The user interface is the most valuable aspect of the solution."
"The most valuable features are the IPS and Antivirus."
"The solution can scale well."
"The product is easy to implement."
"There is an interesting possibility of building a tunnel to a firewall from access points. We use this feature for small branch offices with one to two employees with access to central RDP servers."
"The web GUI is easy to use."
"The support we receive when we need to upgrade is not satisfactory and has room for improvement."
"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."
"Compared to some other products, the DLP is not at par for the moment."
"The support costs and licensing are sometimes so expensive."
"We would like to see an upgrade to the VPN feature, we are using the VPN from outside of our office and there is a limitation to 10 connections, more connections would be suitable."
"Fortinet FortiGate could improve by adding FortiAnalyzer to its solution, we should not have to use another solution. FortiAnalyzer can provide more detailed information."
"In the future, I would like to see improvements made to cloud-based management."
"FortiOS is not simple."
"The reporting, logging, and monitoring features, as well as the flexibility of the policies, need to be improved."
"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."
"Currently, it only supports IP addresses, so you have to be specific about the IPs that are in your environment."
"The product could be made more customizable."
"We find it's different implementing it region-to-region. It might help if it was universal across all regions."
"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 should have a free trial version for new users so that they can evaluate it before deploying it."
"This solution is not mature when it comes to handling perimeter traffic like internet browsing."
"The technical support is not very responsive and is an area that needs to be improved."
"There were challenges during setup, and many of them were self-inflicted."
"It would be better if it could provide you with options before completely blocking anything through the web filter. If you are doing a deep SSL inspection on the site if it says it's expired, it doesn't give you the option to continue at your own risk. I can't say that it's bad, but SSL internally isn't really a requirement. However, its security features can help. Right now, we have people going out and spending on purchasing the SSL certificates for internal sites."
"In terms of improvement, there have been some problems with the bandwidth of the security layer."
"They should keep us up to date about the latest version. That's the biggest thing. Currently, we have to go looking for the latest version. We should get notified about what's going on with the versions. I would like to see easier dual-factor authentication."
"The product does not have a good graphical interface."
"Not a ten because I think that Cisco is better."
"There should be more options to use lower-end models in a high availability configuration."
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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