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 #14 with an average rating of 8.0. Microsoft holds a 1.9% mindshare in Firewall Security Management, compared to Cisco’s 1.5% 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

788 Views
481 Comparison Views

85% willing to recommend

Cisco Security Cloud Control

Read 15 Cisco Security Cloud Control reviews

621 Views
621 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Azure Firewall Manager

Cisco Security Cloud Control

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Jul 27, 2025

Cisco Security Cloud Control and Azure Firewall Manager are leading security solutions in the cybersecurity industry. Cisco's centralized control over multiple devices gives it an advantage in environments with numerous Cisco products, while Azure offers seamless integration within the Azure ecosystem, beneficial for cloud-centric projects.

Features: Cisco Security Cloud Control offers centralized control with automated operations, centralized upgrades, and comprehensive security reports. Azure Firewall Manager provides hub-and-spoke architecture, consistent security policies, and Azure ecosystem tool integration with Azure Entra ID.

Room for Improvement: Cisco Security Cloud Control could enhance change views, real-time analytics, and third-party device support. Azure Firewall Manager is working on improving NAT capabilities, deployment processes, and open-source tool integration.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Cisco Security Cloud Control is deployable across public, private cloud, and on-premises, with strong technical support. Azure Firewall Manager, for public cloud, has responsive support but needs streamlined integration for new users.

Pricing and ROI: Cisco Security Cloud Control is costly, yet offers significant ROI through operational efficiencies. Azure Firewall Manager is reasonably priced but incurs extra service costs. Both display value through enhanced productivity and security efficiency.

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

Buyer's Guide

Azure Firewall Manager vs. Cisco Security Cloud Control

September 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 (28th)

Cisco Security Cloud Control

Ranking in Firewall Security Management

14th

Average Rating

8.2

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the Firewall Security Management category, the mindshare of Azure Firewall Manager is 1.9%, down from 2.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Cisco Security Cloud Control is 1.5%, up from 1.3% 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	1.9%
Cisco Security Cloud Control	1.5%
Other	96.6%

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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Vivek Balaji

Technical Director - Cyber Security at a comms service provider with 1-10 employees

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…

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

"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."

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

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

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

"The tool's support is good."

More Azure Firewall Manager pros

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

"The ability to do operations on multiple firewalls at once is valuable because it saves time and mental effort. The solution's ability to make bulk changes makes it very convenient to manage things at once on multiple targets."

"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."

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

"The bulk changes feature is definitely the most valuable."

"With Cisco Defense Orchestrator, we can manage the complete Cisco Security solution. It provides a simple and centralized way to manage all products."

"The ability to see the uptimes on the different VPNs that we have configured for site-to-site."

"There are a lot of templates that are already built-in. They give you quick-to-create and quick-to-apply policies that are typically a little more complicated for people."

More Cisco Security Cloud Control pros

Cons

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

"The configuration and settings require substantial time for learning, particularly for new users."

"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."

"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."

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

"For Azure Firewall Manager, the learning curve for new people is a bit challenging, but the integration should be more straightforward for configuring a centralized system."

"The price is okay. This said, the solution is certainly expensive in comparison with other cloud services."

More Azure Firewall Manager cons

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

"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."

"We had some MX devices that were blocking Windows Update from happening. We found out it was a Meraki issue, but it would have been nice if it had been flagged for us: "Hey, these updates are failing because the MX is blocking it." It wasn't a huge problem, but there was a loss of our time as well as the fact that the updates didn't get pushed out... It would have been nice if CDO had let us know that that was an issue."

"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."

"Cisco Defense Orchestrator can improve by providing more support for third-party security components."

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

"There could be some slight improvements to navigation. In some of the navigation you've got to go back to be able to get into where you need to be once you've made a change. If I make a change, I've then got to go back to submit and send the change."

"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."

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."

"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."

"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."

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

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

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

22%

Computer Software Company

18%

Government

Comms Service Provider

Computer Software Company

47%

Manufacturing Company

12%

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

Azure Firewall vs Azure Firewall Manager

Compared 27% of the time

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

Compared 25% 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

Fortinet FortiGate Cloud vs Azure Firewall Manager

Compared 8% of the time

More Azure Firewall Manager Competitors

Tufin Orchestration Suite vs Cisco Security Cloud Control

Compared 32% of the time

Palo Alto Networks Panorama vs Cisco Security Cloud Control

Compared 28% of the time

AlgoSec vs Cisco Security Cloud Control

Compared 22% of the time

Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center vs Cisco Security Cloud Control

Compared 18% of the time

More Cisco Security Cloud Control Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Azure Firewall Manager

October 2025

Download Azure Firewall Manager product report

Buyer's Guide

Cisco Security Cloud Control

October 2025

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

September 2025

Free Report: Azure Firewall Manager vs. Cisco Security Cloud Control

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