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Azure Firewall vs Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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
Ranking in Microsoft Security Suite
10th
Average Rating
7.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
40
Ranking in other categories
Firewalls (14th)
Microsoft Defender Vulnerab...
Ranking in Microsoft Security Suite
22nd
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
12
Ranking in other categories
Vulnerability Management (14th), Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) (17th), Risk-Based Vulnerability Management (5th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Microsoft Security Suite category, the mindshare of Azure Firewall is 4.4%, down from 5.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management is 0.6%, up from 0.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Microsoft Security Suite
 

Featured Reviews

AnvarSadique - PeerSpot reviewer
Easy setup and effective traffic routing enhance security
In terms of improvements, I think the price could be a concern as Azure ( /products/microsoft-azure-reviews ) services are often more expensive compared to other firewalls. However, the functional aspects of Azure Firewall met our needs. While I found the interface not particularly user-friendly, this is a common issue across vendors.
TakayukiUmehara - PeerSpot reviewer
Ease of management and integration supports operations, but has high resource consumption
A valuable feature is the ease of management and integration with Microsoft products. I appreciate that I can click on a server in the Defender Console, notice a risk, and retrieve all necessary information. Speed is a key feature as it is very quick to administer and allows for manual configuration from the portal.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The product's value to my company stems from its ability to secure my organization."
"The solution can autoscale."
"Azure Firewall's feature that I have found most valuable is its scalability."
"The solution has FQDN integration."
"We secure the entry point to the virtual data center with the firewall."
"I like that you can deploy the policies separately from the firewall."
"Azure Firewall is integrated well with Microsoft ecosystem."
"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."
"A valuable feature is the ease of management and integration with Microsoft products."
"The integration with SIEM is the best, specifically the native integration with Microsoft SIEM."
"The most valuable aspect is the kind of assessment results I get, and the recommendations provided in Microsoft products really help in taking care of the resources."
"The integration with Sentinel has been one of the most valuable features for my organization."
"A valuable feature is the ease of management and integration with Microsoft products."
"One valuable feature is the Microsoft Security Scorecard."
"The product's stability is very high...The scalability of the product is amazing."
"Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management is versatile and assesses vulnerabilities, providing detailed information on CVEs, their categories, and exploit statuses."
 

Cons

"An Azure firewall is not a real firewall."
"Azure Firewall definitely needs a broader feature base. It should be able to go all the way up to layer 7 when looking at applications and things like that."
"Azure should be able to work better as a balancer also, instead of just being a firewall. It should have a wider mandate."
"They can improve the pricing of Azure Firewall."
"The threat intelligence aspect of this particular firewall is not at par with other providers."
"The interface could be improved, it's not very user friendly."
"The development area and QA area could be improved. With those improvements, we can improve projects and take even less time to implement them."
"Currently, it only supports IP addresses, so you have to be specific about the IPs that are in your environment."
"Probably my only criticism would be the cost. It is expensive."
"It is challenging to extract and customize reports from the system."
"It is expensive."
"The automated remediations can be more specific."
"We have experienced some logging issues, including a few hours of downtime initially. Despite this, I would rate the overall stability as an eight."
"The product is not stable; it is very resource-intensive, consuming a lot of memory and CPU, which makes it slow."
"The worst aspect is the refresh rate of the dashboard."
"The general support could be improved."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"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."
"The total cost of ownership is much less than Palo Alto, Cisco, or any other brand."
"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."
"The licensing module is good."
"Azure Firewall is quite an expensive product."
"Azure Firewall is more expensive. If Microsoft can make Azure Firewall cheaper, I can see that all clients will think of using it. One client used FortiGate because it is much cheaper. Some clients ask me for Cisco, but in the cloud estimate, I found its cost is the same as Azure Firewall."
"The tool is a bit costly."
"I rate the product's price a three on a scale of one to ten, where one is a low price, and ten is a high price."
"The licensing model follows a per-user per-month structure."
"The licensing costs are reasonable."
"The product’s pricing is medium."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
16%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Government
10%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Computer Software Company
13%
Government
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
 

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...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management?
I would rate the price as a three for us due to the partnership discounts. For non-partners, however, the cost could be seen as higher, between seven to ten.
What needs improvement with Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management?
For our current usage, we do not have any complaints, but a potential improvement could be the introduction of a more advanced AI agent, possibly a large language model with better performance than...
 

Overview

Find out what your peers are saying about Azure Firewall vs. Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management and other solutions. Updated: March 2025.
846,617 professionals have used our research since 2012.