Azure Firewall Manager vs Cisco Security Cloud Control comparison

Microsoft and Cisco are both solutions in the Firewall Security Management category. Microsoft is ranked #10 with an average rating of 9.3, while Cisco is ranked #13 with an average rating of 8.0. Microsoft holds a 2.5% mindshare in Firewall Security Management, compared to Cisco’s 2.5% mindshare. Additionally, 85% of Microsoft users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of Cisco users who would recommend it.

Azure Firewall Manager

Read 9 Azure Firewall Manager reviews

852 Views
503 Comparison Views

85% willing to recommend

Cisco Security Cloud Control

Read 15 Cisco Security Cloud Control reviews

806 Views
806 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Azure Firewall Manager

Cisco Security Cloud Control

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 2, 2025

Cisco Security Cloud Control and Azure Firewall Manager are leading security solutions in the market. Despite both offering robust features, Azure Firewall Manager appears to have the upper hand due to its comprehensive feature set, which many users find worth the higher cost.

Features: Cisco offers centralized management, efficient deployment across multiple devices, and cloud security with encrypted data. Azure boasts strong threat detection, centralized security management via a hub and spoke architecture, and seamless Azure Entra ID integration for enhanced authentication.

Room for Improvement: Cisco could improve its configuration clarity, expand third-party support, and enhance monitoring capabilities. Azure Firewall Manager would benefit from better NAT capabilities, simplified deployment processes, and reductions in hidden costs.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Cisco supports varied deployment models, catering to hybrid environments and providing responsive customer service. Azure focuses on public cloud environments, offers scalable deployments, but could improve support interaction and technical guidance.

Pricing and ROI: Cisco is seen as cost-effective, especially within its ecosystem, though some find it expensive relative to functionality integration. Azure's pricing is higher due to additional service reliance, but users justify it with powerful features like seamless scaling.

To learn more, read our detailed Azure Firewall Manager vs. Cisco Security Cloud Control Report (Updated: December 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Azure Firewall Manager vs. Cisco Security Cloud Control

December 2025

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Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:

Categories and Ranking

Azure Firewall Manager

Ranking in Firewall Security Management

10th

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

4.8

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Microsoft Security Suite (26th)

Cisco Security Cloud Control

Ranking in Firewall Security Management

13th

Average Rating

8.2

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Firewall Security Management category, the mindshare of Azure Firewall Manager is 2.5%, up from 1.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Cisco Security Cloud Control is 2.5%, up from 1.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Firewall Security Management Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Azure Firewall Manager	2.5%
Cisco Security Cloud Control	2.5%
Other	95.0%

Firewall Security Management

Featured Reviews

Sikkander Batcha

DevOps Engineer at CloudIQ

Has managed traffic effectively but lacks visibility and advanced control features

Azure Firewall is typically behind other vendor firewalls because we don't see what kind of traffic is traveling through it. That is one drawback. The main drawback is that we need log support from Azure Firewall, which can be quite costly. There is no login feature in Azure Firewall because only the IAM feature is available in the Azure site; we manage it only through the Azure portal, not through any other portal. Other vendors, such as Palo Alto, provide GUI or CLI interfaces to manage their firewalls, whereas we only manage Azure Firewall through the Azure portal. In the future, I would like to see additional features in Azure Firewall Manager to make it more competitive, such as technologies like App-ID and User-ID that Palo Alto has. Azure Firewall currently only allows traffic based on layer four and sometimes layer seven, so they need to improve in those areas compared to other vendors.

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Francisco Delos Santos

Security Engineer at Metrobank

Automation reduces intervention and speeds up threat prevention

Our primary use case for Cisco Defense Orchestrator is the automation of playbooks. We primarily use it for this purpose to streamline processes The most valuable feature is the automation, as it reduces user intervention and allows us to focus on other tasks. Since the system is automated,…

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Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:

Pros

"Azure Firewall Manager centralizes network security management with a hub and spoke architecture."

"The best feature of Azure Firewall Manager is that it is easy to maintain and configure."

"From a traffic management perspective, it's a good firewall because it's automatically scalable based on the traffic availability."

"The most valuable feature of Azure Firewall Manager is the testing and configuration."

"The tool's support is good."

"The solution has improved our organization with its firewall."

"It is easy to install and does not require any plugins for your browser."

More Azure Firewall Manager pros

"For this product, they are very uncharacteristically interested in resolving whatever issue the customer reports. They're really attentive, and they address whatever we bring up as quickly as they can. That's been a very positive aspect of the product."

"The most valuable feature is the automation, as it reduces user intervention and allows us to focus on other tasks."

"I like the upgrade feature. That is pretty valuable to me because I have dual ASAs and when I go through CDO it does it for me pretty well. It's all done in the back-end and I don't really have to be involved. I just initiate, pick the image, and I pick when I want it done and it just does it, whether I have a single ASA or have a dual ASA."

"The most valuable feature is that you can push one policy or one rule out to several devices at a time."

"If our server is blocked, this solution shows us why it is blocked and allows us to update the network routing."

"Cisco Defense Orchestrator has useful guides for the steps that need to follow by users."

"If we have a firewall go down, I can hop into CDO, pull the latest configuration off and apply it. That's really good. It helps save time."

"We use a lot of image upgrades. We take some 20 devices and then we update everything at once, including the policies. We apply policies for groups. For certain groups, like anti-viruses, we send out policies and apply them to every single device. It's really easy and simple."

More Cisco Security Cloud Control pros

Cons

"The cost is a significant concern because we are in a region where the dollar is not our default currency, and converting to dollars makes it very expensive."

"Azure charges for many aspects including scaling, automated scaling deployment, and traffic management, which leads to higher costs."

"The tool's security features need to improve. It needs also to include a monitoring system for logs. It is also complicated to find a query on the Azure firewall."

"We could do only one-way NAT-ing, where the traffic comes from outside to internal, to Azure, which is fine. However, when we actually do NAT-ed traffic to hit the firewall, that way is not working."

"The solution can improve the integration with open-source tools."

"There should be a simple one-click deployment for a firewall, rather than a set of setup instructions that include steps such as the DNS configuration, et cetera."

"The configuration and settings require substantial time for learning, particularly for new users. Improvements in ease of configuration would benefit users significantly."

More Azure Firewall Manager cons

"It would be a better product if it incorporated device control for third-party products easily."

"The main thing that would useful for us would the logging and monitoring. I have to check it out, to get the beta, because I don't have access to them... I wanted CDO to be a central place so where I could do everything but right now I don't think that's possible. I really don't want to go back and forth between this and FMC. Maybe the logging portion, when I look at it, will give me some similarities."

"If I make a change locally to the firewall, CDO gives an alarm or an error message and says there's a change in compliance: "The firewall has this configuration but the last time it was compiled it had that configuration." That view of new changes versus the old could be better... I had to log in manually, locally on the firewall, to check which version, which configuration was actually running. I couldn't see it in CDO."

"They can centralize all products and provide a correlation about an incident and the response. They can also provide an on-premises solution. Currently, Cisco Defense Orchestrator is just for cloud deployments, not for on-premises deployments. Customers have to manage it on the cloud. We are based in Vietnam, and most of the customers here prefer to have on-premises deployments. Customers, especially from banking and government sectors, do not prefer to do anything on the cloud. Some of the small enterprises use the cloud."

"The dashboard needs to be more customizable to provide better reporting for our network."

"They need to work on the user interface. It needs to be improved to make it more user-friendly."

"I'd like CDO to be the one-stop-shop where we could do all the configurations easily. It would be nice, for ASA upgrades, if we could do them from a central repository and not have to reach out to Cisco. That would be a definite plus."

"Cisco Defense Orchestrator should be made more user-friendly overall."

More Cisco Security Cloud Control cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price of the solution is reasonable but it is reasonable for the features."

"The solution is certainly expensive in comparison with other cloud services."

"It is about a $100 per year for an ASA 5506 firewall, and from there it keeps going up if you have a bigger box. For example, the 5516 is $200 to $300 per year."

"If you compare to what is available on the market, they are in the same range with respect to pricing."

"It's around £500 per unit for a three-year license."

"It is covered under the CIsco Enterprise License Agreement (ELA). So, it is licensed and ours."

"After our free trial was done we got a subscription for three years and it was under $3,000 or so. It's part of the EA we already paid for, so I don't know what it would be if it was a la carte."

"I work with a lot of clients, and the price or value of the Cisco Defense Orchestrator can vary from one client to another. If you have a lot of Cisco solutions, the price of the Cisco Defense Orchestrator is justified. Whereas if you have some security components from other vendors, such as Check Point or Palo Alto. This solution would be a pretty expensive proposition considering that they don't integrate with them well."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

21%

Computer Software Company

18%

Retailer

Educational Organization

Computer Software Company

34%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Financial Services Firm

Performing Arts

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	4
Midsize Enterprise	2
Large Enterprise	2

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	6
Midsize Enterprise	3
Large Enterprise	6

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Azure Firewall Manager?

The most valuable feature of Azure Firewall Manager is the testing and configuration.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Azure Firewall Manager?

The pricing for Azure Firewall Manager is expensive. In our project, we have used both Palo Alto Firewall and Azure Firewall. Azure charges for many aspects including scaling, automated scaling dep...

See all answers

What needs improvement with Azure Firewall Manager?

See all answers

What needs improvement with Cisco Defense Orchestrator?

Cisco Defense Orchestrator should be made more user-friendly overall. Currently, to use it effectively, one must be specific with the rule set that needs to be set up. Additionally, I suggest impro...

See all answers

What is your primary use case for Cisco Defense Orchestrator?

Our primary use case for Cisco Defense Orchestrator is the automation of playbooks. We primarily use it for this purpose to streamline processes.

See all answers

What advice do you have for others considering Cisco Defense Orchestrator?

Those who want to use Cisco Defense Orchestrator should build their own use case and see if it fits their environment. The most significant benefit for us is the response time because it automates ...

See all answers

Comparisons

FortiGate Cloud-Native Firewall (FortiGate CNF) vs Azure Firewall Manager

Compared 21% of the time

Azure Firewall vs Azure Firewall Manager

Compared 17% of the time

AlgoSec vs Azure Firewall Manager

Compared 13% of the time

Palo Alto Networks Panorama vs Azure Firewall Manager

Compared 12% of the time

FireMon Security Manager vs Azure Firewall Manager

Compared 9% of the time

More Azure Firewall Manager Competitors

Tufin Orchestration Suite vs Cisco Security Cloud Control

Compared 21% of the time

Palo Alto Networks Panorama vs Cisco Security Cloud Control

Compared 15% of the time

AlgoSec vs Cisco Security Cloud Control

Compared 13% of the time

FortiGate Cloud-Native Firewall (FortiGate CNF) vs Cisco Security Cloud Control

Compared 12% of the time

Skybox Security Suite vs Cisco Security Cloud Control

Compared 10% of the time

More Cisco Security Cloud Control Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Azure Firewall Manager

January 2026

Download Azure Firewall Manager product report

Buyer's Guide

Cisco Security Cloud Control

January 2026

Download Cisco Security Cloud Control product report

Also Known As

No data available

Cisco Defense Orchestrator, CDO

Interactive Demo

Demo not available

Microsoft

Cisco

Overview

Azure Firewall Manager is a security management service that provides central security policy and route management for cloud-based security perimeters.

To learn more about our solution, ask questions, and share feedback, join our Microsoft Security, Compliance and Identity Community.

Microsoft

Cisco Security Cloud Control offers centralized management, real-time visibility, and AI-driven automation for on-premises and cloud environments, simplifying scalability and deployment.

With a unified approach, Cisco Security Cloud Control enhances security posture by providing cross-platform insights across Cisco's ecosystem. It accelerates threat detection and optimizes policy enforcement through a blend of AI automation and natural language querying capabilities. The intuitive platform serves multiple devices, enabling comprehensive management of Secure Firewall, Secure Access, and other services with guidance from the Cisco AI Assistant. It also includes an AI Operations feature that identifies critical issues and provides real-time insights, enhancing response times while a policy analyzer improves security hygiene by detecting and closing security gaps. Its automation minimizes manual tasks, secures cloud-stored configurations, and supports two-factor authentication. However, it could benefit from improvements in navigation clarity, bulk change handling, and expanded third-party integrations.

What are the key features of Cisco Security Cloud Control?

Centralized Device Control: Streamlines management with bulk policy upgrades and automation.
AI-Driven Automation: Reduces manual tasks and enhances threat detection.
Network Visibility: Provides insights with valuable reporting and intrusion prevention.
Intuitive Configuration: Enables easy policy adjustments and restoration of secure connections.

What benefits can users anticipate?

Increased Efficiency: Reduces operational overhead with centralized management.
Improved Security: Enhances protection through automated policy enforcement and AI insights.
Time Savings: Simplifies management of multiple devices in cloud and on-premises environments.
Scalability: Supports growth with ease of deployment and policy consistency.

Industries implementing Cisco Security Cloud Control leverage its capabilities for tasks ranging from firewall management to intrusion prevention. Enterprises use it to streamline policy management, automate configurations, and integrate Cisco devices with cloud strategies, benefiting from simplified security orchestration and network segmentation.

Cisco

Sample Customers

Information Not Available

Insurance Company of British Columbia, Shawmut

Buyer's Guide

Azure Firewall Manager vs. Cisco Security Cloud Control

December 2025

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