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Azure Firewall Manager 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 Manager
Ranking in Microsoft Security Suite
25th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
5.4
Number of Reviews
9
Ranking in other categories
Firewall Security Management (11th)
Microsoft Defender Vulnerab...
Ranking in Microsoft Security Suite
17th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.4
Number of Reviews
18
Ranking in other categories
Vulnerability Management (14th), Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) (20th), Risk-Based Vulnerability Management (5th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the Microsoft Security Suite category, the mindshare of Azure Firewall Manager is 1.2%, up from 0.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management is 1.7%, up from 0.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Microsoft Security Suite Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management1.7%
Azure Firewall Manager1.2%
Other97.1%
Microsoft Security Suite
 

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.
reviewer2770602 - PeerSpot reviewer
Cloud Security Engineer at a computer software company with 51-200 employees
Has helped with regional threat monitoring but needs better documentation and real-time capabilities
The documentation from Microsoft needs significant improvement. The documents are disorganized, with one document linking to another, making the steps unclear and difficult to follow. Regarding updates, it is not truly real-time as it takes between eight to twelve hours for updates to occur. It would be beneficial if updates could happen more quickly, perhaps within 10 minutes to half an hour. Support for integration and documentation needs to be more straightforward. The pricing is expensive, even though it is part of the E5 package.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The solution has improved our organization with its firewall."
"It has helped us in multiple ways; for example, we don't require different spaces to manage it, we can do a lot of automation integrations into the code, we could integrate it into the DevOps pipeline, and it has helped us with our time-to-market for a very specific product when we are actually deploying or upgrading."
"I would definitely recommend the solution to my clients, especially if one is using Azure Cloud."
"The most valuable feature of Azure Firewall Manager is the testing and configuration."
"The best feature of Azure Firewall Manager is that it is easy to maintain and configure."
"The solution is very easy to set up."
"From a traffic management perspective, it's a good firewall because it's automatically scalable based on the traffic availability."
"Azure Firewall Manager centralizes network security management with a hub and spoke architecture."
"The product’s most valuable features are compliance, recommendations, and inventories."
"A valuable feature is the ease of management and integration with Microsoft products."
"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 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."
"The integration with Sentinel has been one of the most valuable features for my organization."
"The integration with SIEM is the best, specifically the native integration with Microsoft SIEM."
"Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management provides regular advisories and recommendations that help improve our security posture."
 

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 solution can improve the integration with open-source tools."
"With Azure Firewall, the problem is that the NAT-ing still has to be improved."
"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 price is okay. This said, the solution is certainly expensive in comparison with other cloud services."
"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."
"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."
"It is challenging to extract and customize reports from the system."
"When I create rules, it gave me problems and I did not know where the problem was located."
"Regarding Microsoft's technical support, I would rate it a three out of ten; they could be more responsive and knowledgeable."
"They may need to improve the portal refresh rate for Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management because it takes time for recommendations to disappear after mitigation; sometimes, it takes one week, when it should ideally take only one to two hours."
"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. A vulnerability I patch within 15 minutes takes 24 additional hours for an update."
"The general support could be improved."
"The technical support takes too much time to resolve tickets."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution is certainly expensive in comparison with other cloud services."
"The price of the solution is reasonable but it is reasonable for the features."
"The licensing model follows a per-user per-month structure."
"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 product’s pricing is medium."
"The licensing costs are reasonable."
"The tool is a bit costly."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Construction Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Computer Software Company
9%
Educational Organization
9%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
7%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business4
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise2
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business9
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise8
 

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 needs improvement with Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management?
Configuration of Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management is something that needs improvement. In future updates of Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management, I would like to see security enha...
What is your primary use case for Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management?
I can control the applications using Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management, which are its best features for me personally. I use the Asset Discovery tool in Microsoft Defender Vulnerability M...
 

Overview

Find out what your peers are saying about Azure Firewall Manager vs. Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
909,725 professionals have used our research since 2012.