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Azure Firewall Manager vs Microsoft Purview Data Lifecycle 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 Purview Data Life...
Ranking in Microsoft Security Suite
27th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
5.2
Number of Reviews
4
Ranking in other categories
Email Archiving (9th), Document Management Software (6th), Data Governance (26th)
 

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 Purview Data Lifecycle Management is 1.8%, up from 0.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Microsoft Security Suite Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Azure Firewall Manager1.2%
Microsoft Purview Data Lifecycle Management1.8%
Other97.0%
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.
ST
Ict Systems Manager at Lltnpa
Automated retention has transformed compliance workflows and now simplifies audit responses
The deep native integration with Microsoft 365 is what ultimately made me decide on Microsoft Purview Data Lifecycle Management over Enterprise Vault and OpenText Content Manager. Auto-apply retention labels using machine learning is the specific integration with Microsoft 365 that made it the deciding factor for me over Enterprise Vault or OpenText. Manually labeling content at our data volumes is not realistic. The automated classification based on sensitive information types and trainable classifiers is what makes the program actually scale. That feature gets used constantly. We went from inconsistent ad-hoc retention practices to a consistent, automated, documented program across the whole organization with Microsoft Purview Data Lifecycle Management. That shift from a compliance audit perspective is enormous.

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."
"I would definitely recommend the solution to my clients, especially if one is using Azure Cloud."
"From a traffic management perspective, it's a good firewall because it's automatically scalable based on the traffic availability."
"The solution has improved our organization with its firewall."
"The most valuable feature is the web firewall, as it is easy to install and does not require any plugins for your browser."
"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."
"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."
"The best feature of Azure Firewall Manager is that it is easy to maintain and configure."
"We went from inconsistent ad-hoc retention practices to a consistent, automated, documented program across the whole organization with Microsoft Purview Data Lifecycle Management."
"The system is stable; I haven't encountered any worldwide stability issues unlike other office products."
"The UI is the most valuable feature."
"The impact of Microsoft Purview Data Lifecycle Management on my unified data catalog has improved a lot; the improvements I see are in the lineage, the discovery, and the labeling."
 

Cons

"With Azure Firewall, the problem is that the NAT-ing still has to be improved."
"The solution can improve the integration with open-source tools."
"The configuration and settings require substantial time for learning, particularly for new users. Improvements in ease of configuration would benefit users significantly."
"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 price is okay. This said, the solution is certainly expensive in comparison with other cloud services."
"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."
"Azure charges for many aspects including scaling, automated scaling deployment, and traffic management, which leads to higher costs."
"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 time it takes to scan is one issue; when we raise high-volume issues and tickets related to scanning failures, it relates to permission errors, which are technical challenges."
"I think labeling could use a lot more AI assistance. AI implementation into labeling would be beneficial."
"Microsoft's Purview Data Lifecycle Management preview features can be unreliable, hindering their usefulness."
"The initial setup took longer than we expected. Microsoft Purview Data Lifecycle Management is not a turn-it-on-and-go product."
 

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."
"The service operates on a pay-as-you-go basis, charging an extra one cent per field of metadata scanned in our data."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Construction Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Computer Software Company
9%
Educational Organization
9%
Computer Software Company
12%
Government
11%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Comms Service Provider
8%
 

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 needs improvement with Microsoft Purview Data Lifecycle Management?
Better coverage outside Microsoft 365 is a feature I wish Microsoft Purview Data Lifecycle Management had that it does not offer today. If I could change one thing about Microsoft Purview Data Life...
What is your primary use case for Microsoft Purview Data Lifecycle Management?
Automating retention and deletion across our Microsoft 365 environment is my main use case for Microsoft Purview Data Lifecycle Management. At Microsoft scale, Exchange, SharePoint, OneDrive, and T...
What advice do you have for others considering Microsoft Purview Data Lifecycle Management?
Microsoft Purview Data Lifecycle Management implementation is very much a team-wide effort. The policies apply organization-wide across all Microsoft 365 users. The management side, configuring pol...
 

Also Known As

No data available
Microsoft Information Governance, Microsoft Purview Records Management
 

Overview

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