Azure Firewall Manager vs Palo Alto Networks Panorama comparison

Microsoft and Palo Alto Networks are both solutions in the Firewall Security Management category. Microsoft is ranked #10 with an average rating of 9.3, while Palo Alto Networks is ranked #4 with an average rating of 8.5. Microsoft holds a 2.8% mindshare in Firewall Security Management, compared to Palo Alto Networks’s 7.8% mindshare. Additionally, 85% of Microsoft users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 97% of Palo Alto Networks users who would recommend it.

Azure Firewall Manager

Read 9 Azure Firewall Manager reviews

1,084 Views
618 Comparison Views

85% willing to recommend

Palo Alto Networks Panorama

Read 93 Palo Alto Networks Panorama reviews

4,195 Views
3,692 Comparison Views

97% willing to recommend

Azure Firewall Manager

Palo Alto Networks Panorama

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 4, 2024

Palo Alto Networks Panorama and Azure Firewall Manager are competing in the network security management space. Panorama is often considered superior due to its robust security features and advanced threat prevention capabilities.

Features: Palo Alto Networks Panorama offers advanced threat prevention, centralized security management, and user-friendly interfaces that make it a strong option for large-scale operations. It provides comprehensive dashboards and a single pane of glass management approach. Azure Firewall Manager focuses on straightforward policy management, seamless integration with Azure services, and native support for cloud environments, making it ideal for organizations within the Azure ecosystem.

Room for Improvement: Palo Alto Networks Panorama could enhance automation capabilities and improve its cloud integration features. It may also benefit from a more intuitive initial configuration process. Azure Firewall Manager might expand its range of security features beyond basic functionality and improve support for non-Azure environments. There is also room for improving threat prevention capabilities and management interface enhancements.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Palo Alto Networks Panorama offers flexible deployment options and excellent support, making it suitable for tailored security solutions. Azure Firewall Manager simplifies deployment within Azure environments with built-in support and offers ease of integration, particularly for businesses already using Microsoft services.

Pricing and ROI: Palo Alto Networks Panorama might require a higher initial investment, but it offers long-term ROI with its advanced security measures. Azure Firewall Manager presents a more competitive pricing model for Azure users and integrates cost-effectively into Azure subscriptions, offering potential cost savings for businesses heavily utilizing Azure infrastructure.

To learn more, read our detailed Azure Firewall Manager vs. Palo Alto Networks Panorama Report (Updated: March 2026).

Buyer's Guide

Azure Firewall Manager vs. Palo Alto Networks Panorama

March 2026

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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)

Palo Alto Networks Panorama

Ranking in Firewall Security Management

4th

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

6.6

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2026, in the Firewall Security Management category, the mindshare of Azure Firewall Manager is 2.8%, up from 1.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Palo Alto Networks Panorama is 7.8%, down from 8.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Firewall Security Management Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
Palo Alto Networks Panorama	7.8%
Azure Firewall Manager	2.8%
Other	89.4%

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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Richard Dombo

Application Support Administrator at Meridian Port Services

Monitoring and managing multiple firewalls has become more efficient through centralized oversight and reliable logging

I would say that while Palo Alto Networks Panorama reporting capability is functional, it is not really intuitive. The presentation is not really as advanced as what an advanced solution would have provided. I would like to improve the dashboards on Palo Alto Networks Panorama, especially because I work in an environment where my managers are not really that technical. They do a great job leading us, but they do not have a technical background. If the dashboard could be improved to suit more executive use cases when it comes to reporting, that would be excellent. It is basic as far as I am concerned, and from an executive standpoint, it is not really that good. I would rate Palo Alto Networks Panorama as a product nine or 9.5 out of ten because there is always room for improvement, especially on the dashboard. I think if they could improve the dashboard, I would give them ten out of ten because from a technical standpoint, the dashboard is good, but at an executive level, it is not really that good. I usually struggle when doing presentations to my bosses because the dashboard and reporting from Palo Alto Networks Panorama are not as polished as they could be.

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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

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

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

"It has helped us in multiple ways; for example, we don't require different spaces to manage it, we can do a lot of automation integrations into the code, we could integrate it into the DevOps pipeline, and it has helped us with our time-to-market for a very specific product when we are actually deploying or upgrading."

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

"I would definitely recommend the solution to my clients, especially if one is using Azure Cloud."

"The most valuable feature is the web firewall, as it is easy to install and does not require any plugins for your browser."

"The tool's support is good."

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

More Azure Firewall Manager pros

"The most valuable feature is the Threat Intelligence."

"It is really useful for big deployments."

"Technical support is helpful and knowledgeable."

"The most valuable features of this solution are that it works better than a normal firewall, easy to explorer all of its features, and it has the Log Collector mode. This mode allows us to store our logs for two years in the solution itself."

"Technical support is pretty good, they have good engineers on their side, they are very helpful and they follow up, and we are very satisfied with their level of support."

"The ability to manage a large number of firewalls from a single point is most valuable."

"I found it easy to learn how to pull information from the logs."

"The most valuable feature is that the management unit is centralized, so you can manage different regions from one place."

More Palo Alto Networks Panorama pros

Cons

"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."

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

"With Azure Firewall, the problem is that the NAT-ing still has to be improved."

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

"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."

"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 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."

More Azure Firewall Manager cons

"The initial setup requires expertise and can be a bit complex."

"An area for improvement would be the connectivity, which sometimes means logs can be slow to display."

"Palo Alto Networks Panorama has some bugs that could be fixed."

"We have had some issues in the past because integrating a new device is not intuitive."

"The product does need a bit of configuration. It's not quite ready to go out of the box."

"It could be easier to manage. In the future, it should be much easier because it's not very easy to manage. So in the next release, I think it should be much easier to manage, especially in the first configuration. It could also be more stable."

"The solution's utilization of network ports makes things as complex as possible."

"My pain point is the automation process is not well-documented. There are some things that they could improve on there."

More Palo Alto Networks Panorama 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."

"Initially, Palo Alto looks expensive, but if you dig deeper then you will find that it is very comparable, or even cheaper than other solutions."

"Cost-wise, it's very expensive."

"With the URL filtering, we probably went down from around four hours in response time to about five minutes."

"Palo Alto Networks Panorama has so many licenses. For example, it has threat protection and group protection licenses. One license depends on another. I find it more expensive than Cisco."

"The licensing is not cheap. There are always hidden costs. You have support costs, or maybe you need to buy more optics on how the solution fits into the rest of your environment. It is possible some of the rest of your environment will need to change too."

"Palo Alto Networks Panorama is a more expensive solution than competitors. They should lower the price to stay competitive."

"The solution is priced well and there is a license for this solution that we pay annually for."

"It has freed up staff time, which is where we are seeing ROI."

More Palo Alto Networks Panorama pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

15%

Computer Software Company

12%

Construction Company

10%

Educational Organization

Financial Services Firm

11%

Comms Service Provider

11%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Computer Software Company

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	33
Midsize Enterprise	15
Large Enterprise	46

Questions from the Community

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...

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What needs improvement with Azure Firewall Manager?

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What is your primary use case for Azure Firewall Manager?

My customers are using Azure Firewall Manager, so I'm learning from both documentation and practical knowledge. I usually recommend Azure Firewall Manager for projects such as an animal hospital pr...

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Palo Alto Networks Panorama?

We did not purchase Palo Alto Networks Panorama through the Azure Marketplace. We purchased it directly through Palo Alto.

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What needs improvement with Palo Alto Networks Panorama?

From a monitoring perspective, if we could improve on data retention and keep it for quite a long time, such as 90 days of data retention, that would be good for us to manage our CPU usage, as we c...

See all answers

What is your primary use case for Palo Alto Networks Panorama?

My main use case for Palo Alto Networks Panorama is to manage our firewalls. We have around 450 firewalls, and we manage them through Panorama. Configuration entry is the primary focus of our use.

See all answers

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Compared 13% of the time

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Compared 13% of the time

FireMon Security Manager vs Palo Alto Networks Panorama

Compared 11% of the time

Tufin Orchestration Suite vs Palo Alto Networks Panorama

Compared 9% of the time

Cisco Security Cloud Control vs Palo Alto Networks Panorama

Compared 4% of the time

More Palo Alto Networks Panorama Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Azure Firewall Manager

April 2026

Download Azure Firewall Manager product report

Buyer's Guide

Palo Alto Networks Panorama

March 2026

Download Palo Alto Networks Panorama product report

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

Panorama network security management provides static rules and dynamic security updates in an ever-changing threat landscape. Reduce administrator workload and improve your overall security posture with a single rule base for firewall, threat prevention, URL filtering, application awareness, user identification, file blocking and data filtering.

Palo Alto Networks

Sample Customers

Information Not Available

University of Arkansas, JBG SMITH, Temple University, Telkom Indonesia

Buyer's Guide

Azure Firewall Manager vs. Palo Alto Networks Panorama

March 2026

Free Report: Azure Firewall Manager vs. Palo Alto Networks Panorama

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