Azure Firewall vs Fortinet FortiOS comparison

Microsoft and Fortinet are both solutions in the Firewalls category. Microsoft is ranked #14 with an average rating of 8.2, while Fortinet is ranked #27 with an average rating of 8.0. Microsoft holds a 2.2% mindshare in Firewalls, compared to Fortinet’s 0.9% mindshare. Additionally, 82% of Microsoft users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 98% of Fortinet users who would recommend it.

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 16, 2024

Fortinet FortiOS and Azure Firewall are both leading security solutions in the firewall category. Based on user reviews, Azure Firewall has a stronger feature set, while Fortinet FortiOS is favored for its pricing and support.

Features: Fortinet FortiOS users value its comprehensive security capabilities, integration with other Fortinet products, and pricing structure. Azure Firewall users highlight its advanced threat protection, native integration with Azure services, and detailed threat intelligence.

Room for Improvement: Fortinet FortiOS users express a need for simpler configuration options, better documentation, and enhanced ease of use. Azure Firewall users seek more detailed analytics, improved support for hybrid environments, and more responsive customer service.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Fortinet FortiOS has positive feedback for straightforward deployment and responsive customer service. Azure Firewall, while receiving good deployment reviews, receives mixed feedback on customer service responsiveness.

Pricing and ROI: Fortinet FortiOS is seen as cost-effective, providing good ROI with lower setup costs. Azure Firewall's setup costs are higher, but users believe the extensive features justify the investment.

To learn more, read our detailed Azure Firewall vs. Fortinet FortiOS Report (Updated: January 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Azure Firewall vs. Fortinet FortiOS

January 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

Fortinet FortiGate

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2025, in the Firewalls category, the mindshare of Fortinet FortiGate is 20.7%, up from 17.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Azure Firewall is 2.2%, down from 3.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Fortinet FortiOS is 0.9%, up from 0.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Firewalls

Featured Reviews

EhabAli

Sr. Cybersecurity Solutions Architect at BMB

Efficient, user-friendly, and affordable

In the past, NSS Labs was utilized to test files and verify the numbers and datasheets. It would be beneficial to have an organization or testing lab that can verify the numbers in our datasheets since changes are frequently made, which can be inconvenient for review. For instance, when comparing different competitors such as Forcepoint, Palo Alto, and Check Point, the throughput or numbers in the datasheet may be lower than the actual numbers. Conversely, Fortinet typically reports very high numbers, but they cannot be replicated in the real world. Therefore, it would be advantageous for them to partner with a neutral testing organization such as NSS Labs to validate these numbers, thus providing more credibility and comfort to everyone regarding the accuracy of the datasheets. For the migration, everyone has a firewall in use and I am selling Fortinet. Typically, I am replacing another firewall. Previously, there was a tool available to convert configurations from one firewall, such as Palo Alto, to Fortinet, but this tool is no longer free. If it could be made free again, it would be very beneficial. This tool shows a lot of promise and is very good. Making it free would help many companies deliver their products in a more efficient and integrated way. It would also be more valuable to include the tool with the firewall package or license instead of having to pay extra for it. Paying extra puts more pressure on small companies to deliver the firewall and complete the configuration, especially if they have hundreds or thousands of policies. It's very painful to move through these policies line by line. The stability has room for improvement. When it comes to Secure SD-WAN, everything is fine. They are going the right way. SD-WAN is very promising. They can provide the SD-WAN solution separately, but they will not take this approach because even the smallest firewall can support the features, so there is no need to have a separate service or appliance. They are following the right steps, and there is nothing to be improved. Feature-wise, I'm really satisfied with the new release, and the features they have added. For now, it's fine.

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Charan Kumar

Director, Technology at a computer software company with 5,001-10,000 employees

Easy to use and configure but could be more robust

The cost of the solution has increased. The robustness of the software could be better. It should be able to cover host-to-host traffic or HTTP traffic. Configurations can be better. The workloads need to still have free access. The encryption and decryption process is not that seamless. It's a little heavy compared to a FortiGate or other firewalls.

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Harshama Silva

Senior Manager at ITX360 (Pvt) Ltd

We have improved network security with user-friendly controls and high threat intelligence

FortiOS is very user-friendly and easy to configure for L1, L2, and L3 personnel. Its web filtering, application control, and IPS features are very user-friendly, easy to manage, and deploy. The threat intelligence in FortiOS is very high, and the system is scalable without additional licensing costs. FortiOS allows us to expand the number of users and devices as our network needs grow.

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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 next-generation firewall is great."

"The most valuable features of Fortinet FortiGate are the ability to work in proxy mode, which other solutions, such as Palo Alto cannot. There are some features that are better that come at no extra license or subscriptions cost, such as basic SD-WAN. The DLT is useful, other solutions have the same feature too, such as Palo Alto."

"FortiGate Secure SD-WAN includes best-of-breed next-generation firewall (NGFW) security, SD-WAN, advanced routing, and WAN optimization capabilities, delivering a security-driven networking WAN edge transformation in a unified offering."

"The solution is easy to configure and maintain remotely."

"The most valuable features of Fortinet FortiGate are the different types of profiling. It has been the most effective for me. The WAF and the antivirus profile are the most effective in network protection."

"It is very flexible to use."

"What I like the most is the configuration and that it's simple, and straightforward to maintain."

"Whenever we raise a complaint with FortiGate, their response and resolution times are minimal."

More Fortinet FortiGate pros

"All its features are good. That's why we recommend it."

"The product's value to my company stems from its ability to secure my organization."

"The SIEM that Azure Firewall provides us is very robust."

"We secure the entry point to the virtual data center with the firewall."

"Azure's cost-effectiveness is its major advantage."

"Azure Firewall is a cloud-native solution that removes the pain of load balancers."

"It's auto-scalable, which is a great feature."

"It provided ease of maintenance. If a new firewall was needed, we only had to run the pipelines for this. So, the maintenance was very easy."

More Azure Firewall pros

"In terms of benefits, it’s a standard solution used by many, and our customers and partners widely utilize the VPN features. It’s elementary to work with and implement because it is familiar across different infrastructures."

"FortiGate as a product is very easy to configure."

"The most valuable feature of this solution would be the caching feature."

"A good network security system for medium-sized businesses with an excellent GUI interface that gives a graphic view of network status."

"All networks are security-driven, we get throughputs and security. We feel that the people at Fortinet are easy to deal with from a support standpoint. If they need to jump in and help us, they're very willing to do that. Their email filtering, their data loss prevention, their intrusion prevention, type of products in the newest OSs has been outstanding."

"This is a user friendly solution and offers comprehensive integrations."

"The most valuable features of Fortinet FortiOS are its constant updates and definitions."

"The interface is good."

More Fortinet FortiOS pros

Cons

"The scalability could be better."

"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."

"As far as wanting more scalability or things in the network diagram, it's going to cost you."

"The solution is very expensive."

"The configuration part was challenging, especially converting configurations from another OEM to FortiGate."

"They can do more tests before they release new versions because I would like to be more assured. We had some experiences where they release something new and great, but some of the old features are disabled or they don't work well, which impacts the product satisfaction. The manufacturer should be able to prove that everything works or not only that it might work. This is applicable to most of the other services, software, and hardware companies. They all should work on this. We cannot trust every new release, such as a beta release, on the first day. We wait for some comments on the forums and from other companies that we know. We always wait a few weeks before we use the updated version. They should also extend the VPN client application, especially for Linux versions. Currently, it has an application for Linux devices, but it doesn't work the way we want to connect to the VPN. They use only the old connection, not the new one. They have VPN client applications for Windows and Mac, but they can add more useful features to better manage the devices and monitor the current health of each device. Such features would be helpful for our company."

"The support costs and licensing are sometimes so expensive."

"Scalability is one of the disadvantages. When it comes to scalability, you have to actually change the box. If you want to upgrade it, you need to actually change the existing box and probably you take the system off to other sites."

More Fortinet FortiGate cons

"Azure Firewall has limited visibility for IDPS, no TLS inspection, no app ID, no user ID, no content ID, no device ID. There is no antivirus or anti-spyware. Azure Firewall doesn't scan traffic for malware unless it triggers an IDPS signature. There is no sandbox or machine learning functionality, meaning we are not protected from Zero-day threats. There is no DNS security and limited web categories."

"There should be better monitoring and logging. Currently, it is put in Sentinel. It should be more seamless and from the interface."

"We find it's different implementing it region-to-region. It might help if it was universal across all regions."

"Currently, it only supports IP addresses, so you have to be specific about the IPs that are in your environment."

"It is a cloud service, but the lending speed for each region is not always the same. For example, in China, the speed is slow. They need to think about how to make sure that the service pace or speed is always the same in all regions. It would be a great improvement if they can provide the same pace worldwide."

"Azure Firewall is an expensive solution. On a scale from one to ten, where one is not affordable, I would rate the price as a three."

"They can improve the pricing of Azure Firewall."

"Right now, with Azure Firewall, we cannot have a normal inbound traffic flow. For inbound, Microsoft suggests using application gateways, so the options are very limited. I cannot use this firewall as an intermediate firewall because of the limitations, and I cannot point routing to another firewall. So if I want to use back-to-back firewall architecture in my environment, I cannot use Azure Firewall for that type of configuration either."

More Azure Firewall cons

"Right now, it's very trendy to integrate everything into the cloud. This solution would be more effective if they did more integration in that regard."

"I want to see a better integration or a better integration with the endpoint protection or with EDR with the security life cycle."

"There is room for improvement in the reporting part. The reporting is only for logging data, and it's just a tabulation of the log in the report. I would like to be able to take down more information in the event of an incident."

"Right now, we have to contend with CLI. We'd like it to be easier. We need the features to be in a UI."

"The GUI could be improved to make it more usable, easier to administer, and easier to configure."

"The implementation could be simplified."

"Fortinet could integrate something like a YubiKey for 2FA with their SSL VPN clients."

"Their technical support needs improvement."

More Fortinet FortiOS cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price of Fortinet FortiGate is the lowest in the market."

"The initial setup is super straight forward and as far as the licensing goes for the small product that we have, the pricing was pretty competitive. It wasn't as simple and as cheap as a SonicWall but for the service we would get it was a good price."

"The price of Fortinet FortiGate is better than Cisco, Check Point, and Palo Alto. In terms of pricing, it's probably a better-priced firewall solution overall."

"The price for the Fortinet FortiGate is reasonable. Secure SD-WAN is free of charge. If you have their firewall, it's free of charge. It's very tempting."

"Pricing and licensing is a little bit complicated in FortiGate. They are always on the higher side. This is one issue that we always raise with the company that they should reduce the price according to Indian market requirements. There are no costs in addition to the standard licensing fees."

"The cost of Fortinet FortiGate is competitive and not expensive compared to other enterprise- grade solutions. On average, the license cost per year is around seventy percent of the firewall's purchase price."

"Its price is affordable and lesser than Cisco. Cisco is expensive. In terms of licensing, there is only one issue. If a customer's license has expired a month ago and they do the renewal after one month, Fortinet renews the license from the start of the previous month. The activation of the product is done from the previous month, not from the date of renewal. The customers usually shout and complain that because they are paying today, the renewal should start from today. The support contract renewals or licensing should be renewed from the date of renewal, but Fortinet starts from the day it had expired. It is a loss for customers. They might have had some problems because of which they did not take the license one month before. Fortinet should work on this. Cisco doesn't do this. Cisco always starts from the day they apply for the license."

"Easy to understand licensing requirements."

More Fortinet FortiGate pricing and cost advice

"It is expensive, especially with the premium functions. For one of the clients, it was very expensive. You have to use it more at an enterprise level, and there, it was not at an enterprise level. So, it was very costly, but security-wise, it was a very wise decision to use it that way."

"The solution is cheaper than other brands. My company has an enterprise contract and we finally got a good price with Azure."

"The licensing module is good."

"The pricing of Azure Firewall is pay-as-you-go. Fortinet also has a pay-as-you-go model, but Azure's pricing is higher and, with FortiGate, you also have the license."

"Azure Firewall is quite an expensive product."

"Before choosing this solution, we evaluated others, and we found this to be the most cost-effective."

"Azure Firewall comes with Azure native services. We did not buy any kind of license for it. Whether you have a free subscription or a pay-as-you-go model, you can deploy the Azure Firewall service... The amount that you use will determine how much you pay."

"It is pay-as-you-go. So, you pay based on the usage. If I remember it well, there is a basic fee, and there is a traffic fee. It is not per month. It is per hour or something like that. It is not so expensive."

More Azure Firewall pricing and cost advice

"Pricing for the tool can vary. Sometimes, aggressive pricing is offered at the start, but later, as subscriptions and expansions are needed, the costs can increase, and customers may have to pay whatever is required."

"The solution could have a better licensing model. It's a bit more expensive than other solutions. The annual subscription is very pricy in Fortinet. The cost could be reduced."

"The licensing for FortiOS is good, with a security license included when we update the main license."

"The scalability of Fortinet FortiOS is good. However, central management is intuitive for the end-users. We had a lot of questions about central management, and sometimes they didn't use it and did their firewall management directly on FortiGate instead of using Fortinet FortiOS."

"The pricing is competitive for the medium and high markets but for the small markets it can be expensive."

"The solution is quite affordable and I rate the cost a four out of ten."

"I am on a two-year contract and I pay annually for Fortinet FortiOS."

"We pay an annual license fee. It is rather expensive so I would like to perhaps see a drop in price in the future."

More Fortinet FortiOS pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Educational Organization

22%

Computer Software Company

14%

Comms Service Provider

Manufacturing Company

Computer Software Company

16%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Government

10%

Manufacturing Company

Computer Software Company

17%

Financial Services Firm

Manufacturing Company

Government

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

Which is the better NGFW: Fortinet Fortigate or Cisco Firepower?

When you compare these firewalls you can identify them with different features, advantages, practices and usage a...

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What is the biggest difference between Sophos XG and FortiGate?

From my experience regarding both the Sophos and FortiGate firewalls, I personally would rather use FortiGate. I know...

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What are the biggest technical differences between Sophos UTM and Fortinet FortiGate?

As a solution, Sophos UTM offers a lot of functionality, it scales well, and the stability and performance are quite ...

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What is a better choice, Azure Firewall or Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls?

Azure Firewall Vs. Palo Alto Network NG Firewalls Both solutions provide stellar stability and security. Azure Firew...

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How does Azure Firewall compare with Palo Alto Networks VM Series?

Both products are very stable and easily scalable. The setup of Azure Firewall is easy and very user-friendly and the...

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Which would you recommend - FortiGate VM or Azure Firewall?

Both of these solutions are excellent options that provide flexible scalability and solid security. Fortinet Fortigat...

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Features comparison between Palo Alto and Fortinet firewalls

In the best tradition of these questions, Feature-wise both are quite similar, but each has things it's better at, it...

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What do you like most about Fortinet FortiOS?

The SSL VPN is fee for use is most attractive.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Fortinet FortiOS?

I am aware that Fortinet products are somewhat pricey, similar to Cisco equivalents, however, they have justified the...

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Comparisons

Sophos XG vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 23% of the time

Netgate pfSense vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 13% of the time

Cisco Secure Firewall vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 11% of the time

WatchGuard Firebox vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 5% of the time

Palo Alto Networks WildFire vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 2% of the time

More Fortinet FortiGate Competitors

Fortinet FortiGate-VM vs Azure Firewall

Compared 20% of the time

Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls vs Azure Firewall

Compared 15% of the time

Microsoft Defender for Cloud vs Azure Firewall

Compared 7% of the time

Palo Alto Networks VM-Series vs Azure Firewall

Compared 6% of the time

Check Point NGFW vs Azure Firewall

Compared 5% of the time

More Azure Firewall Competitors

Fortinet FortiManager vs Fortinet FortiOS

Compared 12% of the time

Fortinet FortiWeb vs Fortinet FortiOS

Compared 7% of the time

Cisco Secure Firewall vs Fortinet FortiOS

Compared 7% of the time

Fortinet FortiGate-VM vs Fortinet FortiOS

Compared 5% of the time

Akamai Guardicore Segmentation vs Fortinet FortiOS

Compared 2% of the time

More Fortinet FortiOS Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Fortinet FortiGate

February 2025

Download Fortinet FortiGate product report

Buyer's Guide

Azure Firewall

February 2025

Download Azure Firewall product report

Buyer's Guide

Fortinet FortiOS

February 2025

Download Fortinet FortiOS product report

Also Known As

FortiGate 60b, FortiGate 60c, FortiGate 80c, FortiGate 50b, FortiGate 200b, FortiGate 110c, FortiGate, Fortinet Firewall

No data available

Overview

Fortinet FortiGate offers comprehensive network security and firewall protection across multiple locations. It effectively manages data traffic and secures environments with features like VPN, intrusion prevention, and UTM controls.

Organizations rely on Fortinet FortiGate for its robust integration with advanced security policies, ensuring significant protection for enterprises, cloud environments, and educational sectors. It facilitates network segmentation, application-level security, and authentication management, securing communication within and between locations such as branches and data centers. Its efficient SD-WAN and UTM features enable streamlined data management and enhanced threat protection capabilities. Users appreciate its centralized management, facilitating seamless operations across diverse environments.

What are the key features of Fortinet FortiGate?

VPN Capabilities: Ensure secure remote access for users and seamless site-to-site connections.
Intrusion Prevention System (IPS): Detect and prevent security threats and vulnerabilities.
Advanced Firewall: Offers robust firewalling with application control and web filtering.
SD-WAN: Optimizes application performance and enhances bandwidth management.
SSL VPN: Provides reliable and secure access for remote workers.

What benefits should users expect from Fortinet FortiGate?

High-performance Security: Delivers effective threat mitigation with high availability.
Centralized Management: Simplifies network operations with cloud-based management tools.
Detailed Analytics: Provides comprehensive insights into network activity and security threats.
Load Balancing: Ensures optimal resource distribution and traffic management.

Fortinet FortiGate is crucial in sectors like education, offering robust networks for secure data flow between campuses and facilitating remote learning. In enterprise environments, it allows efficient management of application traffic and security across multiple branches, while in the cloud, it seamlessly integrates with diverse platforms to enhance security infrastructure.

Fortinet

Azure Firewall is a user-friendly, intuitive, cloud-native firewall security solution that provides top-of-the-industry threat protection for all your Azure Virtual Network resources. Azure Firewall is constantly and thoroughly analyzing all traffic and data packets, making it a very valuable and secure fully stateful firewall as a service with built-in high availability and unrestricted cloud scalability. Azure Firewall allows users to create virtual IP addresses and provides for secure DDoS protection for the virtual machines on your network. It also provides fast and efficient east-west and north-south traffic security.

Azure Firewall is a managed, cloud-based network security service built to protect your Azure Virtual Network resources. It is a fully stateful firewall as a service with built-in high availability and unrestricted cloud scalability.

Azure Firewall has two significant offerings, Standard and Premium.

Azure Firewall Standard works directly with Microsoft Cyber Security and supplies excellent L3-L7 filtering and threat awareness. The proactive real-time threat awareness will quickly alert you and immediately deny all traffic to and from any known problematic or suspicious domains or IP addresses. Microsoft Cyber Security is updated continually to protect against all new and known potential threats at all times. To learn more about Azure Firewall Standard, click here.

Azure Firewall Premium provides everything the standard version does, and additionally adds extra levels of data encryption, network intrusion detection, extended URL filtering, and Web category filters. To learn more about the added features of Azure Firewall Premium, click here.

Key Benefits and Features of Azure Firewall:

High availability - You do not need load balancers with Azure Firewall; it's already built in and ready to go.
Self-scalability - Azure Firewall is intuitive and will auto-scale as needed based on traffic flow to be ready for peak traffic times.
Threat awareness - Using Microsoft Cyber Security to filter traffic, Azure Firewall will deny any known problematic threats to keep your network safe.
Additional IP addresses - You can securely add up to 250 public IP addresses with Azure Firewall
Improved web category filtering - You can set up specific protocols to allow or deny categories within websites that are deemed inappropriate for use within your network. You have the ability to organize categories based on a defined set of descriptions.

What our real users have to say:

Many PeerSpot users found Azure Firewall to be very user-friendly and easy to use. They liked that it offers seamless integration to the cloud and were especially pleased with the threat filtering options.

Regarding integration and threat intelligence, our users wrote:

“The most valuable feature is the integration into the overall cloud platform.”

“The most valuable feature is threat intelligence. It is based on filtering and can identify multiple threats.”

“I think that one of the best features is definitely the premium version, along with the IDPs in terms of the intrusion detection and prevention system.”

Microsoft

Fortinet FortiOS is a comprehensive security operating system that powers Fortinet's network security solutions. It provides advanced threat protection, network visibility, and centralized management for organizations of all sizes. With its robust features and intuitive interface, FortiOS enables businesses to secure their networks, applications, and data from cyber threats.

One of the key features of FortiOS is its advanced threat protection capabilities. It incorporates multiple security technologies, including firewall, antivirus, intrusion prevention system (IPS), and web filtering, to detect and block a wide range of threats. This ensures that organizations are protected against malware, ransomware, and other malicious activities. FortiOS also offers extensive network visibility, allowing organizations to monitor and analyze network traffic in real-time. This visibility enables businesses to identify potential security risks, detect anomalies, and take proactive measures to mitigate threats.

Additionally, FortiOS provides detailed reports and analytics, helping organizations gain insights into their network security posture. Centralized management is another crucial aspect of FortiOS. It allows businesses to manage and configure their security policies, devices, and users from a single console. This simplifies the management process and ensures consistent security across the entire network infrastructure.

Moreover, FortiOS supports integration with other Fortinet products, enabling seamless security orchestration and automation. FortiOS is designed to be scalable and flexible, making it suitable for organizations of all sizes. It offers a range of deployment options, including physical appliances, virtual machines, and cloud-based solutions. This flexibility allows businesses to choose the deployment model that best fits their requirements and easily scale their security infrastructure as their needs evolve.

Fortinet

Sample Customers

Amazon Web Services, Microsoft, IBM, Cisco, Dell, HP, Oracle, Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile, Sprint, Vodafone, Orange, BT Group, Telstra, Deutsche Telekom, Comcast, Time Warner Cable, CenturyLink, NTT Communications, Tata Communications, SoftBank, China Mobile, Singtel, Telus, Rogers Communications, Bell Canada, Telkom Indonesia, Telkom South Africa, Telmex, Telia Company, Telkom Kenya

Information Not Available

Black Gold Regional Schools, Amadeus Hospitality, Jefferson County, Chunghwa Telecom, City of Boroondara, Dimension Data

Buyer's Guide

Azure Firewall vs. Fortinet FortiOS

January 2025

Free Report: Azure Firewall vs. Fortinet FortiOS

Find out what your peers are saying about Azure Firewall vs. Fortinet FortiOS and other solutions. Updated: January 2025.

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