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Azure Firewall Manager vs Microsoft Purview eDiscovery 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
26th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
4.8
Number of Reviews
9
Ranking in other categories
Firewall Security Management (10th)
Microsoft Purview eDiscovery
Ranking in Microsoft Security Suite
22nd
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
8
Ranking in other categories
eDiscovery (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2026, in the Microsoft Security Suite category, the mindshare of Azure Firewall Manager is 1.1%, up from 0.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Purview eDiscovery is 1.8%, 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 Purview eDiscovery1.8%
Azure Firewall Manager1.1%
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.
Frank Radeck - PeerSpot reviewer
Director, IT Infrastructure & Cloud Technology at a legal firm with 501-1,000 employees
Tasks that took an entire day before we implemented the solution now take just 30 minutes.
The most valuable feature of Microsoft Purview eDiscovery is its ability to search across various platforms, including Exchange, SharePoint, Teams, and OneDrive. It enables a streamlined, unified process for searching across these platforms. It is critical for Purview to be able to connect to iOS, Mac, and Android devices and data in other SaaS apps. From a support perspective, I can do things while I'm eating lunch or something else. It's more dynamic and responsive. I think everybody appreciates it. We're not tied to one device. Purview's multi-cloud capabilities are also essential for the same reasons. Keeping everything under one umbrella further increases the time savings. Purview accounts for critical regulations from around the world. This is crucial because we hold ourselves accountable to standards and need to align with them. Working at a law firm, we have clients who dictate to us what standards they expect. The visibility is excellent. As we move more things into the cloud, more opportunities exist to put everything under one umbrella.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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."
"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."
"The most valuable feature is the web firewall, as it is easy to install and does not require any plugins for your browser."
"The solution is very easy to set up."
"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."
"From a traffic management perspective, it's a good firewall because it's automatically scalable based on the traffic availability."
"Our legal team benefits from using Microsoft Purview eDiscovery."
"The return on investment is saving the equivalent of one or two full-time IT department employees and a few hours per week for legal staff."
"The most valuable feature of Microsoft Purview eDiscovery is its ability to search across various platforms, including Exchange, SharePoint, Teams, and OneDrive. It enables a streamlined, unified process for searching across these platforms."
"Tasks that took an entire day before we implemented Purview now take just 30 minutes."
"I think eDiscovery Premium has made dealing with data from Teams much more accessible than any other platform."
"Purview eDiscovery has made it significantly easier to handle rare litigation requests."
"The most valuable feature of Microsoft Purview eDiscovery is the content search. We can use it to find the data we need by searching for keywords, phrases, or the sender or recipient. It helps us gather information from current employees or ones who have left the company."
"The most valuable features are automatic content logging tagging. Performing these tasks manually would be impossible. Since most of our data is already in Microsoft, it's convenient to run it through this tool."
 

Cons

"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 price is okay. This said, the solution is certainly expensive in comparison with other cloud services."
"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."
"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."
"With Azure Firewall, the problem is that the NAT-ing still has to be improved."
"The configuration and settings require substantial time for learning, particularly for new users. Improvements in ease of configuration would benefit users significantly."
"The configuration and settings require substantial time for learning, particularly for new users."
"The sorting and filtering of the result data need improvement, and the interface for writing queries is not user-friendly for business users."
"The query language can be time-consuming to figure out if you don't know it initially."
"I would suggest adding more platforms."
"We find that many critical functions are available only to E5 license holders. It would be beneficial to have more options available for E3 customers. Enhanced Teams functionalities and better capture of text message data, both SMS and MMS, would also be improvements."
"The sorting and filtering of the result data need improvement, and the interface for writing queries is not user-friendly for business users. We still need all the backend stuff. We have to use Graph API to interface with everything and create custom interfaces on the front end to make it easier for the end users, which is costly. The reporting, sorting, and filtering capabilities that other products have aren't available natively in Purview."
"We find that many critical functions are available only to E5 license holders."
"I would suggest adding more platforms. Currently, it's compatible with OneDrive, Teams, SharePoint, and Exchange. Adding more features, as Microsoft continues to expand their cloud offerings, would be beneficial. Exploring options like Azure Files might be an avenue for improvement."
"It has been one of the most solid tools I have worked with. However, Purview Data Loss Protection for remediating policy violations needs refinement, for example, in defining what constitutes a credit card because that is where I get the most false positives."
 

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 costs associated with E5 licensing are currently expensive for us, so we use the E3 license, which comes with fewer features and functionalities."
"Microsoft Purview eDiscovery comes as part of Microsoft 365 licenses."
"In the positions that I've had through contracting over the years, I've heard talk of it being overpriced and underperforming compared to its competitors."
"With the full bundle, pricing is not a significant concern. As an M3, I find the Purview pricing of 1250 per user worthwhile."
"The pricing and licensing with Microsoft can be complex, and licensing is known to be a challenge because it changes frequently. While the licensing for Purview is not as tricky as other Microsoft products, navigating licenses since the shift to E3 and E5 plans has been a task, as individual licenses must now be purchased separately."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
13%
Construction Company
11%
Computer Software Company
10%
Educational Organization
8%
Government
14%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Computer Software Company
7%
Manufacturing Company
6%
 

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 Business3
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise3
 

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 Microsoft Purview eDiscovery?
The setup process was very straightforward. We acquired pricing through our reseller in NASDAQ, eliminating the need to search for prices ourselves.
What needs improvement with Microsoft Purview eDiscovery?
The query language can be time-consuming to figure out if you don't know it initially. While there are options with dropdowns to select criteria, having a natural language feature would be benefici...
What is your primary use case for Microsoft Purview eDiscovery?
I sometimes use it for legal holds or to find lost items, and to determine what is going on. However, most of the time, my use case is legal-related.
 

Overview

Find out what your peers are saying about Azure Firewall Manager vs. Microsoft Purview eDiscovery and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.
894,738 professionals have used our research since 2012.