We performed a comparison between Azure Firewall and Fortinet Fortigate VM based on our users’ reviews in five categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Comparison Results: Based on the parameters we compared, Azure Firewall seems to be the more favorable choice. It is priced more fairly than Fortinet Fortigate VM; it includes more features; its survive and support ratings were much better than Fortinet’s; and PeerSpot users found Azure Firewall to have a greater ROI.
"Virtual Domains (VDOMs) are a feature that we found valuable."
"Advanced routing (RIP, OSPF, BGP, PBR). It gives you a seamless and simple integration into a large network."
"The simplicity of the configuration and the stability of the product are most valuable. The VPN concentrator is very useful."
"Our project needs to link two sides through the internet. One of these was in Cairo and the other in another city. We used FortiGate as the integrating solution between the two locations, i.e. the Fortinet 30E & 100E."
"This version is stable. I don't have any issues with this solution, in our environment, it works well."
"Easy to use support and licensing portal as well as activation process."
"I like that you are able to manage FortiGate from the FortiManager to create a more centralized environment."
"The most valuable features are the policies, filtering, and configuration."
"The feature that I have found the most valuable is the control over the network permissions and the network."
"The SIEM that Azure Firewall provides us is very robust."
"It's helped us improve our security posture."
"Network filtering is valuable. The scalability capability from the cloud-native service helps us a lot because it simplifies our day-to-day maintenance activity."
"I like its order management feature. It doesn't have the kind of threat intelligence that Palo Alto has, but the order management makes it much simpler to know the difference."
"Among the most valuable features are the DDoS protection that protects your virtual machines, the threat intelligence, and traffic filtering."
"Microsoft's technical support is very good. They're quite knowledgable and responsive."
"The solution should be capable of self-scaling, which is one of the features we like about it."
"The most valuable features are the web proxy for protection and web gateway for deployment."
"The most valuable feature is the WAN optimization."
"While the stability maybe isn't quite to the level of Cisco, it is a very cost-effective solution. It's cheap compared to Cisco."
"The solution offers good documentation."
"One top feature is the ability to use the appliance as a WLAN controller for up to 10 access points with the new 5.6 firmware."
"The most valuable features we have found to be the VPN, ease of use, and overall simplicity."
"The standard features, including the filtering, are quite good. All the basic features are pretty useful for us."
"The ROI is good since I get free support."
"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."
"There is one big configuration file with no separations for the unique VDOMs. Maybe they could separate individual VDOM configuration files with the root VDOM configuration file referencing the individual VDOM config files."
"The main aspect of FortiGate that could be improved is load balancing. Our management team does not want to buy another appliance for only load balancing."
"The price of FortiGate should be reduced because there are some other leading products that are cheaper."
"Lacks sufficient security options."
"There are some complex administration tasks in their administration portal. That needs to be improved."
"A sandbox would be good in order to be able to inspect the emails containing spam and be able to validate the emails that contain malware, prior to delivering to the customer."
"The pricing could always be better."
"The solution should incorporate features similar to competitors like split tunneling."
"The threat intelligence aspect of this particular firewall is not at par with other providers."
"The development area and QA area could be improved. With those improvements, we can improve projects and take even less time to implement them."
"We find it's different implementing it region-to-region. It might help if it was universal across all regions."
"This solution is not mature when it comes to handling perimeter traffic like internet browsing."
"For large organizations, a third-party firewall would be an added advantage, because it would have more advanced features, things that are not in Azure Firewall."
"The tool needs to improve the onboarding and transition process for on-prem users."
"There should be better monitoring and logging. Currently, it is put in Sentinel. It should be more seamless and from the interface."
"The product does not have a good graphical interface."
"The product may not be as robust as Palo Alto. However, unless you are a big bank, you probably won't need it to be."
"Some issues with connecting to the VPN from home after firmware updates."
"It should have the SD-WAN feature. This would increase the number of features that are available in the box."
"In terms of improvement, there have been some problems with the bandwidth of the security layer."
"The one thing that could be improved is the integration with the exchange. The gateway level controls can be enhanced a bit more. For example, it's still little here and there. You do get malicious attacks and suspicious emails like spam. It's not like Sophos where we got a lot of spam email, and yet, it's still relatively vulnerable. It can be upgraded, maybe with a fifth-generation firmware that it is ready for unknown threats."
"The interface of the solution could be improved."
"The performance could be better. Some features need to have quality control when the switch is working. The dedicated bandwidth for some users is not reliable."
Azure Firewall is ranked 21st in Firewalls with 33 reviews while Fortinet FortiGate-VM is ranked 9th in Firewalls with 113 reviews. Azure Firewall is rated 7.2, while Fortinet FortiGate-VM is rated 8.4. 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 Fortinet FortiGate-VM writes "An easy-to-manage and configure tool that provides ample documentation to help with the setup phase". Azure Firewall is most compared with Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls, Microsoft Defender for Cloud, Palo Alto Networks VM-Series, Check Point NGFW and Cisco Secure Firewall, whereas Fortinet FortiGate-VM is most compared with Palo Alto Networks VM-Series, Fortinet FortiOS, OPNsense, Cisco Secure Firewall and Netgate pfSense. See our Azure Firewall vs. Fortinet FortiGate-VM report.
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