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.
"This product is definitely scalable."
"The most valuable feature is the ease of configuration."
"The secure web gateway module and the application control module are valuable. HA operations are very easy."
"The FortiGate controls the user's activities and maximizes my bandwidth use overall."
"The GUI is good."
"The most valuable features are the enterprise modeling and the simple interface."
"The solution is stable."
"The next-generation firewall is great."
"Network filtering is valuable. The scalability capability from the cloud-native service helps us a lot because it simplifies our day-to-day maintenance activity."
"Microsoft's technical support is very good. They're quite knowledgable and responsive."
"The solution should be capable of self-scaling, which is one of the features we like about it."
"The feature that I have found the most valuable is the control over the network permissions and the network."
"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."
"I can easily configure it."
"The solution is stable."
"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."
"Regarding specific features, I appreciate the option for external selection, where you can choose either to use a default or create a self-description. This simplifies the process compared to other vendors that require creating a test extension profile and then applying it to the installation. With FortiGate, there is a streamlined approach. From the benefits perspective, clients mainly see cost reduction, especially with FortiGate VM Firewall, as it eliminates the need for additional hardware."
"It is very useful to make lists for rules and prepare firewall rules."
"The product is easy to implement."
"The support is good. We don't have any issues with the technical support."
"A top feature is the really good web interface and the classic Fortinet features, such as IPS, IDS, AV scanner, and spam filter."
"It is highly scalable because it has a mesh architecture that allows consistent policies."
"In spite of the solution being inexpensive, it has everything one would need."
"The most valuable feature is the UTM, which gives them an advantage over other firewalls."
"The solution could have licensing fees reduced in the future."
"I think there could be more QoS features"
"The Web-filter in this solution is not very good."
"It is stable, but its stability can be improved."
"I think that the infrastructure for the VPN could be improved. The way that it is bundled also made it difficult to use and sell as it is too expensive."
"The solution could be more evenly structured."
"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."
"Fortinet FortiGate is a firewall solution and once it's deployed, you can rest assured that your system is secure."
"Azure Firewall should have a free trial version for new users so that they can evaluate it before deploying it."
"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 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."
"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."
"It needs a lot of improvement, especially on intruder detection. They are working hard on that."
"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."
"The product has issues with integration. I would like to see better integration in future releases of the product."
"Now they do have the ability to pop up a command line, which is nice, however, the fact that you can't do everything within the GUI is probably a problem."
"The product needs to focus on cloud-nativeness and pricing."
"We haven't attempted to scale the solution just yet. If we want to scale this solution we may have to look at other models. With certain requirements, we probably wouldn't be able to scale it so well as it is right now."
"The price and licensing of the solution can be better."
"The interface of the solution could be improved."
"It is a very good product, and it is good at standing by itself. It can maybe have a little bit of integration with other products, but it is not that important for most use cases."
"In the next release, I would like to see integration capability with SIEM tools, such as QRadar, and LogRhythm."
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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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.
