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. Fortinet Fortigate VM is more expensive; it includes fewer features; and its support team is less efficient. Users also have yet to see an ROI.
"We use the solution for application and server deployment."
"It's auto-scalable, which is a great feature."
"All its features are good. That's why we recommend it."
"The most valuable feature is the integration into the overall cloud platform."
"Azure's cost-effectiveness is its major advantage."
"The solution should be capable of self-scaling, which is one of the features we like about it."
"It is easy for me to protect certain ports or even the IP addresses, as well as do whitelisting, blacklisting, and the FQDN when we want virtual machines connected and to protect certain websites."
"Azure Firewall's feature that I have found most valuable is its scalability."
"I really like the captive portal feature for our guest network. It has nice VLAN features in terms of separating our network. The anti-virus is also good."
"It can expand easily."
"The SD-WAN is the most valuable feature."
"The security fabric is excellent."
"The features that prevent internet connections, the filtering are the most valuable because we did not have any internet protection before."
"We use the filtering feature the most. It has filtering and inbuilt securities. We can create customized rules to define which users can access a particular type of site. We can create policies inside the firewall."
"The most valuable features of Fortinet FortiGate are it is one of the most mature firewalls in the UTM bundle."
"This is an easy solution to deploy."
"Right now, with Azure Firewall, we cannot have a normal inbound traffic flow. For inbound, Microsoft suggests using application gateways, so the options are very limited. I cannot use this firewall as an intermediate firewall because of the limitations, and I cannot point routing to another firewall. So if I want to use back-to-back firewall architecture in my environment, I cannot use Azure Firewall for that type of configuration either."
"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."
"It's a little heavy compared to a FortiGate or other firewalls."
"Azure should be able to work better as a balancer also, instead of just being a firewall. It should have a wider mandate."
"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."
"Currently, it only supports IP addresses, so you have to be specific about the IPs that are in your environment."
"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."
"It could use better throughput on some of the smaller boxes for the branch offices."
"A couple of things I've seen that need improvement, especially in terms of a hard coding. The driver-level active moment really is out-of-the-box and we have to have contact the customer support and sometimes it is difficult to resolve."
"The cloud management and automation capability could be improved."
"The support is the main thing that needs to be improved."
"There are some complex administration tasks in their administration portal. That needs to be improved."
"We would like to see better pricing."
"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."
"From a reporting perspective, there's room for improvement. They're providing FortiAnalyzer through which one can get some enhancements, but the visibility and reporting still need slight improvement."
Azure Firewall is ranked 21st in Firewalls with 33 reviews while Fortinet FortiGate is ranked 2nd in Firewalls with 306 reviews. Azure Firewall is rated 7.2, while Fortinet FortiGate 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 writes "It's a reliable solution that's easy to install and cheaper than competitors ". Azure Firewall is most compared with Fortinet FortiGate-VM, Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls, Microsoft Defender for Cloud, Palo Alto Networks VM-Series and Check Point NGFW, whereas Fortinet FortiGate is most compared with Sophos XG, Cisco Secure Firewall, Netgate pfSense, Meraki MX and WatchGuard Firebox. See our Azure Firewall vs. Fortinet FortiGate report.
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