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Azure Firewall Manager vs Cisco Defense Orchestrator comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 4, 2024

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
12th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
6
Ranking in other categories
Microsoft Security Suite (26th)
Cisco Defense Orchestrator
Ranking in Firewall Security Management
14th
Average Rating
8.2
Number of Reviews
15
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2025, in the Firewall Security Management category, the mindshare of Azure Firewall Manager is 1.8%, down from 2.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Cisco Defense Orchestrator is 1.1%, up from 1.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Firewall Security Management
 

Featured Reviews

Rashedul Khan - PeerSpot reviewer
Security management has improved with centralized threat detection and automation
I have been using Azure actively in my company, engaging with various technologies such as Azure SQL Server, virtual machines, and other cloud-dependent development scenarios. To secure the environment, we sometimes utilize Azure Firewall Manager. We needed to manage different individual firewalls…
Vivek Balaji - PeerSpot reviewer
Useful guides, excellent support, integration could improve
Cisco Defense Orchestrator has useful guides for the steps that need to follow by users Cisco Defense Orchestrator can improve by providing more support for third-party security components. I have been using Cisco Defense Orchestrator for approximately eight months. The Cisco Defense…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The solution has improved our organization with its firewall."
"The tool's support is good."
"The solution is very easy to set up."
"Azure Firewall Manager centralizes network security management with a hub and spoke architecture."
"It is easy to install and does not require any plugins for your browser."
"Azure Firewall Manager centralizes network security management with a hub and spoke architecture."
"The most valuable feature of Azure Firewall Manager is the testing and configuration."
"Cisco Defense Orchestrator has useful guides for the steps that need to follow by users."
"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 ability to see the uptimes on the different VPNs that we have configured for site-to-site."
"If our server is blocked, this solution shows us why it is blocked and allows us to update the network routing."
"The most valuable feature is being able to do centralized upgrades on the ASAs. We can select all of those ASAs, and say, "Upgrade these ASAs at this scheduled time." It will copy down the ASA image, ASDM image, and then do the upgrade and failovers, and then put it all back into service as required at a scheduled time. It automates that process for us."
"The most valuable feature is that you can push one policy or one rule out to several devices at a time."
"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 have quite a few Active Stone by pairs. If they fail over... I'll see that there's a change on it and I'll have a look. The only change on it is that now this one is the standby, it took over the active role. I can go into that firewall and find out what happened... and troubleshoot based on that. That's pretty cool too."
 

Cons

"The price is okay. This said, the solution is certainly expensive in comparison with other cloud services."
"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 solution can improve the integration with open-source tools."
"The configuration and settings require substantial time for learning, particularly for new users. Improvements in ease of configuration would benefit users significantly."
"The configuration and settings require substantial time for learning, particularly for new users."
"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."
"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."
"It should have more features to manage FirePOWER appliances."
"The dashboard needs to be more customizable to provide better reporting for our network."
"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."
"Cisco Defense Orchestrator should be made more user-friendly overall."
"CDO doesn't have a report, an official report that I can check daily. It has another module called FTD, but it doesn't have that specifically for ASA. In the reporting, there are a lot of things that aren't there. There is also room for improvement in the daily monitoring."
"It would be a better product if it incorporated device control for third-party products easily."
"Cisco Defense Orchestrator can improve by providing more support for third-party security components."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution is certainly expensive in comparison with other cloud services."
"The price of the solution is reasonable but it is reasonable for the features."
"It's around £500 per unit for a three-year license."
"If you compare to what is available on the market, they are in the same range with respect to pricing."
"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."
"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."
"It is covered under the CIsco Enterprise License Agreement (ELA). So, it is licensed and ours."
"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."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
19%
Computer Software Company
18%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Government
8%
Computer Software Company
52%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Legal Firm
3%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

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.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Azure Firewall Manager?
The pricing for Azure Firewall Manager seems okay compared to its good features. Although extra expenses are incurred for additional services, these are not directly related to the firewall, and th...
What needs improvement with Azure Firewall Manager?
The configuration and settings require substantial time for learning, particularly for new users. Improvements in ease of configuration would benefit users significantly.
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Also Known As

No data available
CDO
 

Interactive Demo

Demo not available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Insurance Company of British Columbia, Shawmut
Find out what your peers are saying about Azure Firewall Manager vs. Cisco Defense Orchestrator and other solutions. Updated: January 2025.
838,713 professionals have used our research since 2012.