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Azure Firewall Manager vs Cisco Hybrid Mesh Firewall 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 Manager
Ranking in Firewall Security Management
11th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
5.4
Number of Reviews
9
Ranking in other categories
Microsoft Security Suite (25th)
Cisco Hybrid Mesh Firewall
Ranking in Firewall Security Management
9th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.7
Number of Reviews
6
Ranking in other categories
Firewalls (21st)
 

Featured Reviews

Sikkander  Batcha - PeerSpot reviewer
DevOps Engineer at CloudIQ
Has managed traffic effectively but lacks visibility and advanced control features
Azure Firewall is typically behind other vendor firewalls because we don't see what kind of traffic is traveling through it. That is one drawback. The main drawback is that we need log support from Azure Firewall, which can be quite costly. There is no login feature in Azure Firewall because only the IAM feature is available in the Azure site; we manage it only through the Azure portal, not through any other portal. Other vendors, such as Palo Alto, provide GUI or CLI interfaces to manage their firewalls, whereas we only manage Azure Firewall through the Azure portal. In the future, I would like to see additional features in Azure Firewall Manager to make it more competitive, such as technologies like App-ID and User-ID that Palo Alto has. Azure Firewall currently only allows traffic based on layer four and sometimes layer seven, so they need to improve in those areas compared to other vendors.
BC
Sales And Brand Strategist at CrossConnect
Smart switching has transformed data center security and now simplifies stateful segmentation
To improve Cisco Hybrid Mesh Firewall, I think right now awareness is the biggest area for improvement. Cisco should focus on raising awareness about what the firewall on the switch actually is and how policy has changed. That is a massive story that has not been emphasized enough regarding saving time and effort due to the combination of all these tools. From a feature perspective, I am discovering new features as we deploy, so I do not know if there is a good answer yet because we are at the forefront of this technology. I can tell you that whenever we ask for a feature while working with Cisco, within a day, we get the feature added. For instance, understanding flow data is crucial. Within the N9300, to be able to apply the policy as we are discussing, you need to understand your network flow and what communicates with what. We were able to collaborate with the Cisco BU to refine how we consume that data and migrate old policies to the new structure necessary with Cisco Hybrid Mesh Firewall and HyperShield.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The tool's support is good."
"The solution has improved our organization with its firewall."
"The best feature of Azure Firewall Manager is that it is easy to maintain and configure."
"I would definitely recommend the solution to my clients, especially if one is using Azure Cloud."
"The solution is very easy to set up."
"Azure Firewall Manager centralizes network security management with a hub and spoke architecture."
"From a traffic management perspective, it's a good firewall because it's automatically scalable based on the traffic availability."
"We are utilizing Azure Entra ID for group labeling, so Active Directory, or now it is Entra ID, securing our application for everyone who accesses it, and Azure Firewall Manager is definitely securing our projects and all its features are fine."
"Specific outcomes that show the positive impact of Cisco Hybrid Mesh Firewall include that, with a single management environment to perform many different network changes on, we find that we can aggregate different change requests through the change management program without having to split things up."
"A year and a half after working with them, it has paid off tenfold, and we would not have been where we are now if we had gone with the traditional Nexus platform."
"I believe there is a return on investment with Cisco Hybrid Mesh Firewall for every company that deploys it, as they typically see returns quickly, often within a few months, and the value measured is reasonable and comes back quickly."
"What I appreciate most about Cisco Hybrid Mesh Firewall is the visibility that I gain into the network."
"The most valuable feature is the integration with all of the other Cisco tools that we have, and its platform-first approach."
"Cisco Hybrid Mesh Firewall optimizes the experience in a hybrid or distributed enterprise setup, and it has improved considerably with centralized management enhancements, making the experience much better now."
 

Cons

"The cost is a significant concern because we are in a region where the dollar is not our default currency, and converting to dollars makes it very expensive."
"The tool's security features need to improve. It needs also to include a monitoring system for logs. It is also complicated to find a query on the Azure firewall."
"Azure charges for many aspects including scaling, automated scaling deployment, and traffic management, which leads to higher costs."
"The price is okay. This said, the solution is certainly expensive in comparison with other cloud services."
"For Azure Firewall Manager, the learning curve for new people is a bit challenging, but the integration should be more straightforward for configuring a centralized system."
"The solution can improve the integration with open-source tools."
"Microsoft was unable to fully solve the problem with email phishing and spamming."
"We could do only one-way NAT-ing, where the traffic comes from outside to internal, to Azure, which is fine. However, when we actually do NAT-ed traffic to hit the firewall, that way is not working."
"Cisco Hybrid Mesh Firewall could be improved by refining the documentation around the migration path from Cisco Defense Orchestrator or Farsight Manager because when we were early adopters, the migration path was quite unset and very vague and ambiguous."
"Regarding how Cisco Hybrid Mesh Firewall can be improved, I would say pricing and discount structures could be enhanced."
"For improving Cisco Hybrid Mesh Firewall, licensing is always a pain point and represents the worst aspect of the solution."
"The biggest issue we encountered was a gap between expectations for features relating to the design team versus the coding team."
"My experience with deploying Cisco Hybrid Mesh Firewall has been effective, with certain challenges and successes."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price of the solution is reasonable but it is reasonable for the features."
"The solution is certainly expensive in comparison with other cloud services."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Construction Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Computer Software Company
9%
Educational Organization
9%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business4
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise2
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Azure Firewall Manager?
The pricing for Azure Firewall Manager is expensive. In our project, we have used both Palo Alto Firewall and Azure Firewall. Azure charges for many aspects including scaling, automated scaling dep...
What needs improvement with Azure Firewall Manager?
Azure Firewall is typically behind other vendor firewalls because we don't see what kind of traffic is traveling through it. That is one drawback. The main drawback is that we need log support from...
What is your primary use case for Azure Firewall Manager?
My customers are using Azure Firewall Manager, so I'm learning from both documentation and practical knowledge. I usually recommend Azure Firewall Manager for projects such as an animal hospital pr...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Cisco Hybrid Mesh Firewall?
My experience with the pricing, setup cost, and licensing of Cisco Hybrid Mesh Firewall is that it was minimal compared to the cost difference between what traditional N9300 would have cost to empo...
What needs improvement with Cisco Hybrid Mesh Firewall?
Cisco Hybrid Mesh Firewall could be improved by refining the documentation around the migration path from Cisco Defense Orchestrator or Farsight Manager because when we were early adopters, the mig...
What is your primary use case for Cisco Hybrid Mesh Firewall?
My main use case for Cisco Hybrid Mesh Firewall is the consolidation of multiple tools into one management platform.A specific example of how I use Cisco Hybrid Mesh Firewall for consolidation is t...
 

Overview

Find out what your peers are saying about Azure Firewall Manager vs. Cisco Hybrid Mesh Firewall and other solutions. Updated: August 2026.
909,725 professionals have used our research since 2012.