Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

Azure Firewall Manager vs Microsoft Defender for Cloud 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 Microsoft Security Suite
27th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
6
Ranking in other categories
Firewall Security Management (12th)
Microsoft Defender for Cloud
Ranking in Microsoft Security Suite
4th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
76
Ranking in other categories
Vulnerability Management (7th), Container Management (9th), Container Security (4th), Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP) (2nd), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (4th), Cloud-Native Application Protection Platforms (CNAPP) (4th), Data Security Posture Management (DSPM) (3rd), Compliance Management (3rd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Microsoft Security Suite category, the mindshare of Azure Firewall Manager is 0.5%, up from 0.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Defender for Cloud is 6.4%, down from 11.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Microsoft Security Suite
 

Featured Reviews

Rashedul Khan - PeerSpot reviewer
Security management has improved with centralized threat detection and automation
I have been using Azure actively in my company, engaging with various technologies such as Azure SQL Server, virtual machines, and other cloud-dependent development scenarios. To secure the environment, we sometimes utilize Azure Firewall Manager. We needed to manage different individual firewalls…
Vibhor Goel - PeerSpot reviewer
A single tool for complete visibility and addressing security gaps
Currently, issues are structured in Microsoft Defender for Cloud at severity levels of high, critical, or warning, but these severity levels are not always right. For example, Microsoft might consider a port being open as critical, but that might not be the case for our company. Similarly, it might suggest closing some management ports, but you might need them to be able to log in, so the severity levels for certain things can be improved. Even though Microsoft Defender for Cloud provides a way to temporarily disable certain alerts or notifications without affecting our security score, it would be better to have more granularized control over these recommendations. Currently, we cannot even disable certain alerts or notifications. There should be an automated mechanism to design Azure policies based on the recommendations, possibly with AI integration. Instead of an engineer having to write a policy to fix security gaps, which is very time-consuming, there should be an inbuilt capability to auto-remediate everything and have proper control in place. Additionally, enabling Defender for Cloud at the resource group level, rather than only at the subscription level, would be beneficial.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Azure Firewall Manager centralizes network security management with a hub and spoke architecture."
"Azure Firewall Manager centralizes network security management with a hub and spoke architecture."
"The solution has improved our organization with its firewall."
"It is easy to install and does not require any plugins for your browser."
"The solution is very easy to set up."
"The most valuable feature of Azure Firewall Manager is the testing and configuration."
"The tool's support is good."
"It takes very little effort to integrate it. It also gives very good visibility into what exactly is happening."
"I would rate Microsoft Defender for Cloud a ten out of ten."
"Microsoft Defender for Cloud is stable and reliable as advertised."
"The most valuable feature of Microsoft Defender for Cloud is its ability to assess an environment and give us a clear idea of what security components are lacking and which are not."
"My favorite part of Microsoft Defender for Cloud is the compliance features. Defender covers a wide range of workloads, on par with competing products on the market."
"Everything is built into Azure, and if we go for cross-cloud development with Azure Arc, we can use most of the features. While it's possible to deploy and convert third-party applications, it is difficult to maintain, whereas Azure deployments to the cloud are always easier. Also, Microsoft is a big company, so they always provide enough support, and we trust the Microsoft brand."
"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."
"One important security feature is the incident alerts. Now, with all these cyberattacks, there are a lot of incident alerts that get triggered. It is very difficult to keep monitoring everything automatically, instead our organization is utilizing the automated use case that we get from Microsoft. That has helped bring down the manual work for a lot of things."
 

Cons

"The configuration and settings require substantial time for learning, particularly for new users."
"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."
"There should be a simple one-click deployment for a firewall, rather than a set of setup instructions that include steps such as the DNS configuration, et cetera."
"The configuration and settings require substantial time for learning, particularly for new users. Improvements in ease of configuration would benefit users significantly."
"The price is okay. This said, the solution is certainly expensive in comparison with other cloud services."
"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."
"The solution can improve the integration with open-source tools."
"The range of workloads is broad, but we'd love to add more workloads and make it a single security solution that covers all those workloads. Covering more would allow us to see and protect more workloads from a single pane of glass. Additional features should include protection for more AI workloads as it currently focuses primarily on OpenAI."
"There needs to be improvement in the security recommendations, particularly in attack path mapping. Sometimes, it misleads users about the real exposure of external-facing assets."
"Integration into other third-party products, particularly those from tier three vendors like ManageEngine and Hexcode, has proven difficult."
"Customer service and support from Microsoft are very poor. Even for high-severity cases, response or resolution time can extend to three or four weeks."
"If they had an easier way to display all the vulnerabilities of the machines affected and remediation steps on one screen rather than having to dive deep into each of them, that would be a lot easier."
"Defender could improve how data is represented. It can be unstructured or slow to load. The recent update allowing policy grouping into control groups is beneficial, but further enhancements for speed and clarity are needed."
"I recommend that they extend the scope for legacy infra assets."
"The overview provides you with good information, but if you want more details, there is a lot more customization to do, which requires knowledge of the other supporting solutions."
 

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."
"Microsoft Defender for Cloud is pricey, especially for Kubernetes clusters."
"This is a worldwide service and depending on the country, there will be different prices."
"There are improvements that have to be made to the licensing. Currently, for servers, it has to be done by grouping the servers on a single subscription... We don't have an option whereby, if all those resources are in one subscription, we can have each of the individual servers subject to different planning."
"This solution is more cost-effective than some competing products. My understanding is that it is based on the number of integrations that you have, so if you have fewer subscriptions then you pay less for the service."
"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."
"Understanding the costs of cloud services can be complicated at first. As with a lot of things in the cloud, it can be quite hard to understand the end cost, but it becomes clearer over time. Early on, the lack of transparency is a challenge. Microsoft does not tell you the cost when they launch something. It is clever marketing, and there is room for improvement there. There should be clarity from the start."
"Pricing is a consideration, but we strive to keep costs low by enabling only necessary services."
"The product's pricing policy is generally favorable."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Microsoft Security Suite solutions are best for your needs.
849,686 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
21%
Computer Software Company
18%
Government
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Azure Firewall Manager?
The most valuable feature of Azure Firewall Manager is the testing and configuration.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Azure Firewall Manager?
The pricing for Azure Firewall Manager seems okay compared to its good features. Although extra expenses are incurred for additional services, these are not directly related to the firewall, and th...
What needs improvement with Azure Firewall Manager?
The configuration and settings require substantial time for learning, particularly for new users. Improvements in ease of configuration would benefit users significantly.
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 cost is generally reasonable. Microsoft Defender for Cloud Plan 2 costs $15 per server, per month. For a normal customer with ten to twenty servers, the cost is about $300 per month, which is a...
 

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 Manager vs. Microsoft Defender for Cloud and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
849,686 professionals have used our research since 2012.