Azure Firewall vs Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls comparison

Microsoft and Palo Alto Networks are both solutions in the Firewalls category. Microsoft is ranked #20 with an average rating of 8.3, while Palo Alto Networks is ranked #7 with an average rating of 8.8. Microsoft holds a 2.4% mindshare in Firewalls, compared to Palo Alto Networks’s 3.3% mindshare. Additionally, 82% of Microsoft users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 96% of Palo Alto Networks users who would recommend it.

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 29, 2024

Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls and Azure Firewall are both popular network security solutions. Users prefer the comprehensive features of Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls, but Azure Firewall is favored for its seamless cloud integration and flexibility.

Features: Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls offer advanced threat detection, application awareness, and deep packet inspection. Azure Firewall provides seamless integration with Azure services, scalability, and centralized management. Palo Alto provides detailed security analytics, while Azure focuses on easier cloud service integration.

Room for Improvement: Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls could benefit from a simpler configuration process and lower resource consumption. Azure Firewall users suggest enhanced logging and reporting features and better analytic capabilities.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Deployment of Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls is often more complex and time-intensive, whereas Azure Firewall typically offers quicker deployment within the Azure ecosystem. Customer feedback indicates Palo Alto has a more responsive support team compared to Azure's support.

Pricing and ROI: Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls have higher initial setup costs but are justified due to their rich feature set and strong ROI. Azure Firewall offers cost-effective upfront pricing, ideal for cloud-first strategies, with ROI benefits for those utilizing Azure services.

To learn more, read our detailed Azure Firewall vs. Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls Report (Updated: October 2024).

Buyer's Guide

Azure Firewall vs. Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls

October 2024

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Categories and Ranking

Fortinet FortiGate

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2024, in the Firewalls category, the mindshare of Fortinet FortiGate is 19.8%, up from 17.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Azure Firewall is 2.4%, down from 3.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls is 3.3%, up from 3.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Firewalls

Q&A Highlights

Netanya Carmi

Content Manager at PeerSpot (formerly IT Central Station)

Aug 22, 2021

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 integration into the overall cloud platform, autoscaling, and the ability for users to create virtual IP addresses. The cost of the solution is also competitive. Palo Alto Networks NG Firewall is easy to configure and easy to upgrade, offering very good content control. It offers a parallel processing data plan, which makes the overall processes more efficient. Palo Alto offers blocking of undesirable URLs and also offers some threat hunt capabilities, which makes it better than other vendors. However, pricing can be high and support response can be a bit slow. Also, it only offers a cloud-based solution. For Azure Firewall you have to specify each IP address used. We also found Azure to be challenging to implement from region to region, as it does not currently offer a universal approach across regions. Conclusions Although Azure Firewall is very user-friendly and offers good support, it can be very limiting if your operation is more global. We found that even though it costs more, Palo Alto Network NG Firewall was a better fit, as it offers a cloud-based solution and has threat protection capabilities that make it a better overall investment for our business needs.

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Featured Reviews

DineshKumar28

Senior Manager at Cognizant

Sep 25, 2024

Effective threat prevention with responsive customer support

We are using Fortinet FortiGate as a firewall Fortinet FortiGate has been invaluable. It has helped save costs due to its various features, reliable performance, very good UI, low latency, and stability. The Threat Intel engine in Fortinet FortiGate is highly rated for its effectiveness in…

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Charan Kumar

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

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…

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Simon Webster

Security Architect at University Corporation for Atmospheric Research

Aug 16, 2022

We get reports back from WildFire on a minute-by-minute basis

The biggest thing that needs to be improved with them is their training. I took a training class for the 8.0 build, then I took it again for the 9.0 and 10 builds. They add new features every time that they do a new major release, but the training doesn't keep up. It is the same basic training that probably was with the 3.0 build, and they just change the screenshots. I would love to see them do some more work since they have all these bells and whistles, but we don't know how to use those features on a large scale. I know this little section here about the firewall, but I know there is a huge amount that still could be done with it. I am not touching enough of it because I just don't know how. It seems like the more I learn about it, the more I learn that there is to learn

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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 UTM feature is quite good. FortiAP is easy to deploy because both Fortigate and FortiAP are under the same brand. Otherwise, you need to do more work on the configuration."

"The threat prevention is the solution's most valuable aspect."

"Fortinet FortiGate's ease of management is the most valuable feature."

"The VPN is the most valuable feature."

"The most useful functionality of Fortinet FortiGate is the user interface, multiple engines, and their cloud with the latest integrations. Additionally, the Security Fabric tool is very good."

"The web tutor and automatic rules by schedule are good features."

"The security on offer is very good."

"It's quite comfortable to handle the FortiGate firewall."

More Fortinet FortiGate pros

"Performance and stability are the key features of this product."

"The solution is very stable. When comparing it to other environments, it's actually quite impressive."

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

"I can easily configure it."

"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."

"In terms of the reporting, it's beautiful. It integrates with Azure monitoring and with Azure policies. That piece is a big help. You can set governing policies and you can use the application firewall, as well as the Azure Firewall, to enforce those policies."

"The solution has FQDN integration."

"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

"Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls' single-path architecture offers a valuable feature, ensuring stable performance for our customers."

"The interface and dashboards are good."

"One of the key features for us is product stability. We are a bank, so we require 24/7 service."

"I have found it to be reliable and very easy to use. I haven't really encountered many problems with it because its documentation is clear and readily available on their website."

"The packet level inspection is the most valuable feature. The traffic restriction features allow us to restrict the sub-features of any platform."

"It's very important that Palo Alto NG Firewalls embed machine learning into the core of the firewall to provide inline, real-time attack prevention. That increases our security posture... The firewall is able to capture it and flag it and it is easy to mitigate as soon as we see something like that happening, to secure the environment more, in real time."

"With App-ID, we can identify exact traffic. Even if someone tries to fool the firewall with a different port number, or with the correct port number, Palo Alto is able to identify what kind of traffic it is."

"There are plenty of features available in this solution, such as attack blocker and spam blocker. Additionally, it is very robust and in-depth."

More Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls pros

Cons

"There are some problems that support cannot give you a logical reason as to why it happened. For example, I had a case where I was dealing with a WhatsApp application that was giving issues. Technical support gave more than one reason it could be giving issues, but none of them solved the problem. Eventually I solved the problem, but it was far from the solutions that support had given."

"The initial setup is complex."

"Improvement is needed in the Web Filter quotas to restrict users with allocated quotas."

"It can be a little bit more user-friendly in terms of policy definition and implementation. It seems a little bit complicated, and it could be simplified."

"Lacks sufficient security options."

"Its reporting and pricing need improvement."

"Cisco Meraki products are rising very quickly in the cloud and the connected era. Meraki products offer much better ROI, upgradability, and manageability."

"Palo Alto has a feature called WildFire Analysis that is unavailable in FortiGate. WildFire is better than a sandbox because it can address zero-day threats and vulnerabilities. It can immediately identify zero-day threats from the cloud."

More Fortinet FortiGate cons

"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."

"The product could be made more customizable."

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

"An Azure firewall is not a real firewall."

"There are a number of things that need to be simplified, but it's mostly costs. It needs to be simplified because it's pretty expensive."

"It needs a lot of improvement, especially on intruder detection. They are working hard on that."

"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."

"It would be nice to be able to create groupings for servers and offer groups of IP addresses."

More Azure Firewall cons

"I would like to see some Machine Learning because I have observed new types of attacks that are able to bypass existing security rules."

"The setup was complex. We have perimeter firewalls and multiple voice devices handling calls. Directing traffic through gateway perimeter firewalls becomes quite complex in such a scenario. The implementation took around two months and required three to four people for deployment."

"Palo Alto should improve their support. It's sometimes difficult to get the right technician or engineer to fix the problem as soon as possible."

"When there was change from IPv4 to IPv6, some of the firewalls still didn't support IPv6. In North America, we have seen most customers are using IPv6, as they are getting the IPv6 IPs from their ISPs. Sometimes, when they go through the firewall, it denies the traffic."

"With new features and applications you get bugs."

"We're working with the entry-level appliances, so I don't know what the higher-end ones are like, however, on the entry-level models I would say commit speeds need to be improved."

"It's too expensive."

"Customers don't want to buy extra things for extra capabilities"

More Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The licensing costs are very low."

"Its pricing is fine. It is on a yearly basis. Other than the licensing fee, there is no extra fee."

"It is cost-effective, and provides a good value for your money. The pricing, and license renewal, is very reasonable for us."

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

"The price range is quite acceptable and normal."

"Fortinet Secure SD-WAN delivered the lowest total cost of ownership (TCO) per Mbps among all other vendors."

"The license is too expensive to renew. The license renewal process is also complex."

"The license of Fortinet FortiGate should be reduced."

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 pricing should be competitive. If you compare Azure's pricing to that of security solutions from AWS or GCP, theirs is much more competitive. Azure Firewall should also have similar competitive prices so that it is accessible to small- and medium-sized organizations."

"Azure Firewall is expensive."

"Azure Firewalls operate on a pay-as-you-go model, similar to cloud services."

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

"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."

"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."

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

More Azure Firewall pricing and cost advice

"It could be less expensive."

"Palo Alto is not a cheap solution but it is competitive when it comes to subscriptions."

"That solution's pricing and/or licensing are very convoluted."

"This is an expensive product, which is why some of our customers don't adopt it."

"Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls are overpriced."

"We are on an annual license for this solution. I am happy with the price and when comparing it to other solutions it is priced competitively."

"The pricing is straightforward with no hidden costs."

"Compared to other products, the pricing is flexible and reasonable."

More Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Educational Organization

22%

Computer Software Company

15%

Manufacturing Company

Comms Service Provider

Computer Software Company

17%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Government

Manufacturing Company

Computer Software Company

16%

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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Which is better - Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls or Sophos XG?

Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls have both great features and performance. I like that Palo Alto has regular threat si...

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What do you like most about Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls?

We utilize advanced threat prevention features like web filtering and SSL decryption, which haven't caused any issues.

See all answers

Comparisons

Sophos XG vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 22% of the time

Netgate pfSense vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 13% of the time

Cisco Secure Firewall vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 12% of the time

WatchGuard Firebox vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 5% of the time

Meraki MX vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 5% of the time

More Fortinet FortiGate Competitors

Fortinet FortiGate-VM vs Azure Firewall

Compared 20% of the time

Microsoft Defender for Cloud vs Azure Firewall

Compared 9% 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

Azure Front Door vs Azure Firewall

Compared 4% of the time

More Azure Firewall Competitors

Check Point NGFW vs Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls

Compared 15% of the time

Meraki MX vs Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls

Compared 10% of the time

Netgate pfSense vs Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls

Compared 9% of the time

Sophos XG vs Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls

Compared 9% of the time

Cisco Secure Firewall vs Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls

Compared 6% of the time

More Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Fortinet FortiGate

November 2024

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Buyer's Guide

Azure Firewall

November 2024

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Buyer's Guide

Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls

November 2024

Download Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls product report

Also Known As

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

No data available

Palo Alto NGFW, Palo Alto Networks Next-Generation Firewall

Learn More

Fortinet

Microsoft

Palo Alto Networks

Overview

Fortinet FortiGate enhances network security, prevents unauthorized access, and offers robust firewall protection. Valued features include advanced threat protection, reliable performance, and a user-friendly interface. It improves efficiency, streamlines processes, and boosts collaboration, providing valuable insights for informed decision-making and growth.

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.”

Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls offer comprehensive security, including application control, traffic shaping, threat prevention, and load balancing, designed to secure internal networks, perimeter protection, VPN services, and cloud environments.

Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls are a key choice for managing and protecting data centers, securing remote access, network segmentation, malware prevention, and ensuring high availability and performance for business-critical applications. Known for stability and strong security, these firewalls use application-aware identifiers and IPS/IDS subscriptions to offer advanced threat protection. The unified platform facilitates seamless integration, while GlobalProtect and centralized management via Panorama enhance ease of use. However, there are areas for improvement, including pricing strategies, training, user support, and integration with third-party applications.

What are the essential features?

Stability: Reliable performance in different environments.
Application Control: Identifies applications to manage traffic.
Advanced Threat Protection: Includes DNS security, WildFire, and machine learning.
GlobalProtect: Secure remote access for users.
Centralized Management: Managed via the Panorama platform.

What benefits or ROI should users expect?

Security: Protects against threats with robust features.
User-Friendly: Simplified interface and easy configuration.
High Availability: Ensures performance for critical applications.
Integration: Seamless with existing systems and applications.
Support: Reliable technical support and resources.

In industries like finance, healthcare, and retail, Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls secure sensitive data and meet regulatory requirements. These firewalls help manage large-scale networks in these sectors, providing essential security features and maintaining high-performance standards. They are implemented to ensure compliance, protect patient information, secure financial transactions, and safeguard customer data.

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

SkiStar AB, Ada County, Global IT Services PSF, Southern Cross Hospitals, Verge Health, University of Portsmouth, Austrian Airlines, The Heinz Endowments

Buyer's Guide

Azure Firewall vs. Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls

October 2024

Free Report: Azure Firewall vs. Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls

Find out what your peers are saying about Azure Firewall vs. Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls and other solutions. Updated: October 2024.

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