We performed a comparison between Azure Firewall and pfSense based on our users’ reviews in five categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Comparison Results: pfSense comes out on top in this comparison. It is high performing and, according to reviews, it is a more comprehensive solution than Azure Firewall. pfSense also received higher marks in the support category.
"FortiGate's web and URL filtering are unlike any other firewall I've used. The functionality of URL filtering in those solutions is problematic because everything is encrypted, and firewalls can't break that encryption protocol. Fortinet has an SSL proxy, so the encryption is done before the packet ever leaves the FortiGate. The URL filter is definitely one of the most helpful features."
"The features that I have found most valuable are that it is good to use, and most importantly, the pricing. The customer especially likes the discount when they trade up or something like that."
"The next-gen features, the unified threat management capabilities are something that just about everybody is interested in at this point."
"SSL-VPN is very useful for us and has been very reliable."
"The most valuable feature is the VDOM, which allows the customer to have multiple firewalls in a single campus."
"The ability to set up remote systems is the most valuable feature."
"There are lots of features and most of them are deployed for internet security. Users are protected if they accidentally go to some malicious sites."
"We use the FortiGate Sandbox to detect zero-day vulnerabilities, such as anomalies or malware, that are unknown and have not yet been discovered."
"The initial setup is straightforward; Azure Firewall does not have a complex implementation process. It is very simple; you just need to enable the service within Azure. It does not require any maintenance because it is managed by Microsoft, that is, it is a fully managed service."
"One of the best features is that it natively integrates with Azure Services and tools. When you have a third-party offering, that is not the case. But Azure Firewall provides a comprehensive and seamless security solution for your Azure resources."
"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."
"Azure's cost-effectiveness is its major advantage."
"It's helped us improve our security posture."
"The solution can autoscale."
"We secure the entry point to the virtual data center with the firewall."
"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 performance and functionality are good."
"What I found most valuable is the cost of the platform, the flexibility of the platform, and the fact that the ongoing fees are not there as they are with the competitor. Some people may think you're taking a risk with using Opensource. I think it just provides the end user, specifically for us small, medium business providers of services, the flexibility we need at the right cost to provide them a higher end, almost enterprise type service."
"pfSense is a nice product, and I find that there's a lot of information out there. There are some good tutorials on YouTube and other websites with helpful information."
"The initial setup was straightforward, therefore I wanted to continue using the product."
"The classic features such as content inspection, content protection, and the application-level firewall, are the most important."
"We generally use it because it's cheap. When we need something more robust we use Barracuda and Sony Wireless Routers. For certain clients, we use pfSense because it's compatible with the VoIP platform."
"The most valuable feature, for instance, is the ease of migrating configurations between different Netgate devices housed in the same box."
"A valuable feature is that the solution is open source."
"Fortinet FortiGate could improve by having more storage in the hardware for log data."
"It's my understanding that more of the current generation features could be brought in. There could be more integration with EDRs, for example."
"Price, of course, can always be more competitive or better."
"Its price could be better."
"FortiGate should have a better way of detecting and managing the system memory because otherwise if the memory is too low, a system restart is required."
"The integration with third-party tools may be something that they should work on."
"The Wi-Fi controller needs a lot of improvement."
"Some features of Fortinet FortiGate are actually fee enabled that are inconvenient for deploying in production. Other issues relate to isolation with Cisco products and your server."
"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."
"This solution is not mature when it comes to handling perimeter traffic like internet browsing."
"The solution doesn't offer the same capabilities of Fortinet. It should offer intrusion prevention and advance filtering. These are two very useful features offered on Fortinet that Azure lacks."
"An Azure firewall is not a real firewall."
"Azure should be able to work better as a balancer also, instead of just being a firewall. It should have a wider mandate."
"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."
"They can improve the pricing of Azure Firewall."
"The solution lacks artificial intelligence and machine learning. It might be in the roadmap. However, currently, it's not available."
"The GUI. There are TONS of plugins for pfSense, as such, if a user wants to add quite a bit of functionality, the GUI will feel a little congested."
"A malware blocker should be included. I do not know if it is included yet. However, until now, we have not experienced a large malware invasion."
"It is not centrally managed, where you log into the website and can see all your services there. We would like to be able to see is all the configurations from a central interface on all our pfSenses."
"I believe improving integration with various antivirus vendors could be beneficial."
"The Netgate forums and community don’t provide extensive discussions and topics related to every pfSense service."
"Network monitoring and device inventory could use some improvements. I'm using SpiceWorks for this because it never really worked in pfSense."
"Their support could be better in terms of the response time."
"If you want to take advantage of all of the solution's options, you need to have a bit of a technical background. It's not for a layperson."
Azure Firewall is ranked 21st in Firewalls with 33 reviews while Netgate pfSense is ranked 1st in Firewalls with 128 reviews. Azure Firewall is rated 7.2, while Netgate pfSense is rated 8.6. 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 Netgate pfSense writes "User-friendly, easy to manage the firewall, rule-wise and interface-wise". Azure Firewall is most compared with Fortinet FortiGate-VM, Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls, Microsoft Defender for Cloud, Palo Alto Networks VM-Series and Azure Front Door, whereas Netgate pfSense is most compared with OPNsense, Sophos XG, KerioControl, Sophos UTM and Cisco Secure Firewall. See our Azure Firewall vs. Netgate pfSense report.
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