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Azure Firewall vs Microsoft Defender for Cloud comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary
 

Categories and Ranking

Azure Firewall
Ranking in Microsoft Security Suite
12th
Average Rating
7.4
Number of Reviews
36
Ranking in other categories
Firewalls (20th)
Microsoft Defender for Cloud
Ranking in Microsoft Security Suite
3rd
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
57
Ranking in other categories
Vulnerability Management (7th), Container Management (10th), Container Security (5th), Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP) (3rd), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (3rd), Cloud-Native Application Protection Platforms (CNAPP) (4th), Data Security Posture Management (DSPM) (3rd), Compliance Management (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2024, in the Microsoft Security Suite category, the mindshare of Azure Firewall is 4.8%, up from 4.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Defender for Cloud is 8.3%, down from 13.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Microsoft Security Suite
 

Featured Reviews

Charan Kumar - PeerSpot reviewer
Nov 1, 2023
Easy to use and configure but could be more robust
I use the solution as a firewall. We use it for segmentation and zero-trust security.  It's helped us improve our security posture.  It's integrated with Azure. You don't have an additional licensing cost and no additional maintenance. The configurations are also comparatively easy. The cost of…
Anurag Awasthi - PeerSpot reviewer
Oct 26, 2022
Offers excellent firewall management and visibility into threats in a stable, integrated security suite
The solution's robust security posture is the most valuable feature. We have a lot of firewalls, and we can manage them in the solution through the firewall manager. We can set up an Azure firewall and centralize the management policy. The solution provides excellent visibility into threats, and it's a cloud-based integrated solution, so we don't have to worry about any third-party products or services. Microsoft provides so many options, and that's great. Defender for Cloud generates reports we can use as an assessment, as it allows us to see the services in our environment and our points of highest risk. The solution's threat intelligence helps us prepare for threats before they hit and take proactive steps, which is very useful for analysis.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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."
"The feature that I have found the most valuable is the control over the network permissions and the network."
"Among the most valuable features are the DDoS protection that protects your virtual machines, the threat intelligence, and traffic filtering."
"The most valuable feature is threat intelligence. It is based on filtering and can identify multiple threats."
"Great security and connectivity."
"The solution is very stable. When comparing it to other environments, it's actually quite impressive."
"The solution can autoscale."
"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."
"The tool's most valuable feature is its support for cloud-native services like Kubernetes, containers, managed storage, and databases. Protecting these without Microsoft Defender for Cloud would be extremely challenging. For threat protection specifically, I find the signature-based detection and heuristic detection features very effective."
"Most importantly, it's an integrated solution. We not only have Defender for Cloud, but we also have Defender for Endpoint, Defender for Office 365, and Defender for Identity. It's an integrated, holistic solution."
"Some of the most valuable features of Microsoft Defender for Cloud include its effectiveness in threat detection through unsupervised machine learning, CTI, and advanced sandboxing."
"The dashboard is very good. It gives our clients a lot of information and allows them to have a complete overview of the system. Everything is visible in one glance."
"The main feature is the security posture assessment through the security score. I find that to be very helpful because it gives us guidance on what needs to be secured and recommendations on how to secure the workloads that have been onboarded."
"Defender is user-friendly and provides decent visibility into threats."
"The entire Defender Suite is tightly coupled, integrated, and collaborative."
"It helps you to identify the gaps in your solution and remediate them. It produces a compliance checklist against known standards such as ISO 27001, HIPAA, iTrust, etc."
 

Cons

"The tool needs to improve the onboarding and transition process for on-prem users."
"The solution should incorporate features similar to competitors like split tunneling."
"There should be better monitoring and logging. Currently, it is put in Sentinel. It should be more seamless and from the interface."
"I would appreciate it if Azure Firewall included built-in VPN capabilities."
"It would be much easier if the on-premises, firewall rules, had some kind of export-import possibility in place, which is not the case right now."
"The product could be made more customizable."
"It has fewer features than you can get from other firewalls, like anti-spam and anti-phishing. Those kinds of things are not included. It only includes IDS and IDB."
"The threat intelligence part could be better. I don't see why our customers have to get an additional solution with Azure Firewall. It would be great if they made it on par with Palo Alto."
"I would like to see better automation when it comes to pushing out security features to the recommendations, and better documentation on the step-by-step procedures for enabling certain features."
"I would suggest building a single product that addresses endpoint server protection, attack surface, and everything else in one solution. That is the main disadvantage with the product. If we are incorporating some features, we end up in a situation where this solution is for the server, and that one is for the client, or this is for identity, and that is for our application. They're not bundling it. Commercially, we can charge for different licenses, but on the implementation side, it's tough to help our end-customer understand which product they're getting."
"The product was a bit complex to set up earlier, however, it is a bit streamlined now."
"The documentation could be much clearer."
"Microsoft sources most of their threat intelligence internally, but I think they should open themselves up to bodies that provide feel intelligence to build a better engine. There may be threats out there that they don't report because their team is not doing anything on that and they don't have arrangements with another party that is involved in that research."
"Support needs to be highly responsive, especially in large enterprise environments."
"Sometimes it's very difficult to determine when I need Microsoft Defender for Cloud for a special resource group or a special kind of product."
"The remediation process could be improved."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Before choosing this solution, we evaluated others, and we found this to be the most cost-effective."
"The licensing module is good."
"Azure Firewall is quite an expensive product."
"Azure Firewalls operate on a pay-as-you-go model, similar to cloud services."
"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."
"Azure Firewall is expensive."
"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 total cost of ownership is much less than Palo Alto, Cisco, or any other brand."
"The product's pricing policy is generally favorable."
"There are two different plans. We're using the secure basic plan, but we have used the end security plan as well. There are additional costs, but it gives us more functionalities compared to the basic plan."
"It has global licensing. It comes with multiple licenses since there are around 50,000 people (in our organization) who look at it."
"The price of the solution is good for the features we receive and there is an additional cost for Microsoft premier support. However, some of my potential customers have found it to be expensive and have gone on to choose another solution."
"Security Center charges $15 per resource for any workload that you onboard into it. They charge per VM or per data-base server or per application. It's not like Microsoft 365 licensing, where there are levels like E3 and E5. Security Center is pretty straightforward."
"The pricing is very difficult because every type of Defender for Cloud has its own metrics and pricing. If you have Cloud for Key Vault, the pricing is different than it is for storage. Every type has its own pricing list and rules."
"Its pricing is a little bit high in terms of Azure Security Center, but the good thing is that we don't need to maintain and deploy it. So, while the pricing is high, it is native to Azure which is why we prefer using this tool."
"The tool is pretty expensive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
17%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Government
9%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Computer Software Company
16%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

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 Firewall is easy to use and provides excellent support. Valuable features include int...
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 overall cost is reasonable. Azure Firewall offers a solid threat awareness, can...
Which would you recommend - FortiGate VM or Azure Firewall?
Both of these solutions are excellent options that provide flexible scalability and solid security. Fortinet Fortigate VM integrates well and has excellent centralized reporting. It is very easy to...
How is Prisma Cloud vs Azure Security Center for security?
Azure Security Center is very easy to use, integrates well, and gives very good visibility on what is happening across your ecosystem. It also has great remote workforce capabilities and supports a...
What do you like most about Microsoft Defender for Cloud?
The entire Defender Suite is tightly coupled, integrated, and collaborative.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Microsoft Defender for Cloud?
The pricing is good. It is license-based, and we are not utilizing all of the features, like API and other functionalities, so the cost is not that high.
 

Also Known As

No data available
Microsoft Azure Security Center, Azure Security Center, Microsoft ASC, Azure Defender
 

Interactive Demo

Demo not available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Microsoft Defender for Cloud is trusted by companies such as ASOS, Vatenfall, SWC Technology Partners, and more.
Find out what your peers are saying about Azure Firewall vs. Microsoft Defender for Cloud and other solutions. Updated: October 2024.
815,854 professionals have used our research since 2012.