We performed a comparison between Azure Firewall and pfSense based on our users’ reviews in five categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Comparison Results: pfSense comes out on top in this comparison. It is high performing and, according to reviews, it is a more comprehensive solution than Azure Firewall. pfSense also received higher marks in the support category.
"It has improved our organization with control data."
"The multi-tenancy feature is most valuable. It integrates very well with FortiManager and FortiAnalyzer."
"The technical support is great."
"The most valuable feature is the web filter."
"I'm pretty happy with its reliability. It is also very scalable."
"Security, SD-WAN, and Streetscape are valuable features."
"Offers good security and filtering."
"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."
"The solution is very stable. When comparing it to other environments, it's actually quite impressive."
"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."
"The Layer four features are okay and meet my business needs."
"The most valuable feature is the integration into the overall cloud platform."
"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."
"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 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."
"Microsoft's technical support is very good. They're quite knowledgable and responsive."
"Some of the terminologies were more familiar to me than it was when I first encountered Cisco."
"pfSense is a nice product, and I find that there's a lot of information out there. There are some good tutorials on YouTube and other websites with helpful information."
"The most valuable feature, for instance, is the ease of migrating configurations between different Netgate devices housed in the same box."
"Super easy to manage. Anyone who has been working with firewalls can handle it."
"It's a good solution for end-users. It's pretty easy to work with."
"The most valuable features are the VPN and the capture photo."
"The firewall sensor is highly effective, and it's easy to deploy. You can deploy pfSense with limited hardware resources. It's not necessary to have an appliance with much RAM to make it work. It's cost-effective and performs well."
"It is a stable solution. It is also easy to install and can be deployed and maintained by one team member."
"The room for improvement is about the global delivery time period. Usually I need to wait for almost one month to deliver it overseas. So if you can shorten the deliver time it'd be great."
"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."
"The platform's interface could improve."
"The central management for the FortiGate Fortinet Firewall needs improvement. They have the manager to do the essential management for both SD-WAN and for the security policy. They should also improve the SD-WAN function."
"Fortinet should focus on enhancing the capabilities of FortiGate by consolidating its various products, such as FortiGate Cloud, FortiManager, and FortiAnalyzer."
"There are some cloud-based features that could be much more flexible than they currently are."
"I have to say that the initial setup was complex. The deployment took a few days to get set up. Initially, we were using an IPVanish. We switched to this tool since we thought it would be easier. But it turns out it wasn't easier to set up and run."
"It can be a little bit more user-friendly in terms of policy definition and implementation. It seems a little bit complicated, and it could be simplified."
"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."
"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."
"The interface could be improved, it's not very user friendly."
"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."
"It would be nice to be able to create groupings for servers and offer groups of IP addresses."
"It needs a lot of improvement, especially on intruder detection. They are working hard on that."
"There is room for further integration of AI into the system."
"The development area and QA area could be improved. With those improvements, we can improve projects and take even less time to implement them."
"It would be great to add more to security."
"The solution’s interface must be improved."
"We would like to see ready-made profiles to cover most users' needs."
"I would like to see different graphs available in the reporting."
"I have been using WireGuard VPN because it is a lot faster and more secure than an open VPN. However, in the latest version of pfSense, they have removed this feature, which is one of the main features that I need. They should include this feature."
"There is more demand for UTMs than a simple firewall. pfSense should support real-time features for handling the latest viruses and threats. It should support real-time checks and real-time status of threats. Some other vendors, such as Fortinet, already offer this type of capability. Such capability will be good for bringing pfSense at the same level as other solutions."
"The VPN feature of the solution could improve by adding better functionality and providing easier configure ability."
"It could use a little bit of improvement in the reporting."
Azure Firewall is ranked 21st in Firewalls with 33 reviews while Netgate pfSense is ranked 1st in Firewalls with 128 reviews. Azure Firewall is rated 7.2, while Netgate pfSense 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 Netgate pfSense writes "User-friendly, easy to manage the firewall, rule-wise and interface-wise". Azure Firewall is most compared with Fortinet FortiGate-VM, Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls, Microsoft Defender for Cloud, Palo Alto Networks VM-Series and Azure Front Door, whereas Netgate pfSense is most compared with OPNsense, Sophos XG, KerioControl, Sophos UTM and Cisco Secure Firewall. See our Azure Firewall vs. Netgate pfSense report.
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