Azure Firewall Manager vs Palo Alto Networks Panorama comparison

Azure Firewall Manager vs. Palo Alto Networks Panorama

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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

10th

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

4.8

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Microsoft Security Suite (26th)

Palo Alto Networks Panorama

Ranking in Firewall Security Management

4th

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

6.6

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2026, in the Firewall Security Management category, the mindshare of Azure Firewall Manager is 2.8%, up from 1.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Palo Alto Networks Panorama is 7.8%, down from 8.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Firewall Security Management Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
Palo Alto Networks Panorama	7.8%
Azure Firewall Manager	2.8%
Other	89.4%

Firewall Security Management

Featured Reviews

Sikkander Batcha

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.

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Richard Dombo

Application Support Administrator at Meridian Port Services

Monitoring and managing multiple firewalls has become more efficient through centralized oversight and reliable logging

I would say that while Palo Alto Networks Panorama reporting capability is functional, it is not really intuitive. The presentation is not really as advanced as what an advanced solution would have provided. I would like to improve the dashboards on Palo Alto Networks Panorama, especially because I work in an environment where my managers are not really that technical. They do a great job leading us, but they do not have a technical background. If the dashboard could be improved to suit more executive use cases when it comes to reporting, that would be excellent. It is basic as far as I am concerned, and from an executive standpoint, it is not really that good. I would rate Palo Alto Networks Panorama as a product nine or 9.5 out of ten because there is always room for improvement, especially on the dashboard. I think if they could improve the dashboard, I would give them ten out of ten because from a technical standpoint, the dashboard is good, but at an executive level, it is not really that good. I usually struggle when doing presentations to my bosses because the dashboard and reporting from Palo Alto Networks Panorama are not as polished as they could be.

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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."

"From a traffic management perspective, it's a good firewall because it's automatically scalable based on the traffic availability."

"The tool's support is good."

"It is easy to install and does not require any plugins for your browser."

"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 solution is very easy to set up."

"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."

More Azure Firewall Manager pros

"It provides a quicker response time to vulnerabilities and more visibility into traffic flows."

"It has been very useful for our organization and we have been quite happy with its capabilities."

"It is very stable, from my experience, at least."

"It is great that the records go back to 30 days."

"The most valuable aspect of this solution is the ability to manage our devices centrally, and additionally we can monitor the workforce connections, receive reports, and use the backup feature."

"From a configuration point of view, when we are implementing it for large organizations where the customer owns a hundred firewalls, it's just easy to manage them all at one central location."

"The threat prevention and layer seven security features were the most used and important for us. All operations are quite good in this solution."

"The most valuable feature of Palo Alto Networks Panorama is the simplicity of rule management. Both this device group and template management are very easy to use."

More Palo Alto Networks Panorama pros

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."

"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 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."

"Microsoft was unable to fully solve the problem with email phishing and spamming."

"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."

"Azure charges for many aspects including scaling, automated scaling deployment, and traffic management, which leads to higher costs."

More Azure Firewall Manager cons

"Sometimes in Palo Alto Networks Panorama, we receive issues where it is overloaded and unresponsive. We have issues with accessing the devices due to a slow response from Panorama."

"Customer support can improve."

"There could be more integrations with third parties."

"The licensing costs are quite high."

"The product does need a bit of configuration. It's not quite ready to go out of the box."

"As the cybersecurity threats have become more aggressive these days, Palo Alto Networks Panorama can still be improved, particularly on the security side, for example, more network management, and penetration test."

"The configuration could be a bit better."

"I would like to have better analytics."

More Palo Alto Networks Panorama cons

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."

"It is pretty reasonable as compared to other companies."

"The pricing is pretty average. On a scale of one to ten, I would rate it a five."

"It has freed up staff time, which is where we are seeing ROI."

"The licensing is not cheap. There are always hidden costs. You have support costs, or maybe you need to buy more optics on how the solution fits into the rest of your environment. It is possible some of the rest of your environment will need to change too."

"Its licensing is yearly and multi-yearly. It is not expensive."

"Palo Alto is costly compared to Fortinet and Sophos."

"With the URL filtering, we probably went down from around four hours in response time to about five minutes."

"Palo Alto Networks Panorama has so many licenses. For example, it has threat protection and group protection licenses. One license depends on another. I find it more expensive than Cisco."

More Palo Alto Networks Panorama pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

15%

Construction Company

11%

Computer Software Company

10%

Educational Organization

Financial Services Firm

11%

Comms Service Provider

10%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Computer Software Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	4
Midsize Enterprise	2
Large Enterprise	2

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	33
Midsize Enterprise	15
Large Enterprise	46

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?

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 Palo Alto Networks Panorama?

We did not purchase Palo Alto Networks Panorama through the Azure Marketplace. We purchased it directly through Palo Alto.

What needs improvement with Palo Alto Networks Panorama?

From a monitoring perspective, if we could improve on data retention and keep it for quite a long time, such as 90 days of data retention, that would be good for us to manage our CPU usage, as we c...

What is your primary use case for Palo Alto Networks Panorama?

My main use case for Palo Alto Networks Panorama is to manage our firewalls. We have around 450 firewalls, and we manage them through Panorama. Configuration entry is the primary focus of our use.

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Product Reports

Azure Firewall Manager

Download Azure Firewall Manager product report

Palo Alto Networks Panorama

Download Palo Alto Networks Panorama product report

Overview

Azure Firewall Manager is a security management service that provides central security policy and route management for cloud-based security perimeters.

To learn more about our solution, ask questions, and share feedback, join our Microsoft Security, Compliance and Identity Community.

Microsoft

Panorama network security management provides static rules and dynamic security updates in an ever-changing threat landscape. Reduce administrator workload and improve your overall security posture with a single rule base for firewall, threat prevention, URL filtering, application awareness, user identification, file blocking and data filtering.

Palo Alto Networks

Sample Customers

Information Not Available

University of Arkansas, JBG SMITH, Temple University, Telkom Indonesia

Azure Firewall Manager vs. Palo Alto Networks Panorama