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Azure Firewall vs Microsoft Defender Threat Intelligence 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:
 

ROI

Sentiment score
1.0
Azure Firewall offers cost-effective security, appealing to smaller businesses; larger enterprises might prefer alternatives like Fortinet or Palo Alto.
Sentiment score
8.1
Microsoft Defender Threat Intelligence consolidates security, reduces costs, enhances intelligence, and effectively prevents breaches, offering significant ROI.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
4.4
Azure Firewall support receives mixed reviews, with praise for expertise but criticism for inconsistent response times and delays.
Sentiment score
7.4
Microsoft Defender support varies, with excellent technical help praised but mixed experiences with contact ease and expertise levels.
Microsoft provides excellent customer support, especially with premium support plans.
Nevertheless, the final support from Microsoft remains effective.
With Azure products, customer support is really good.
Level two support is knowledgeable and knows how the product works, which is very good.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.3
Azure Firewall offers strong scalability with automatic scaling, but some users note limitations in handling high bandwidth demands.
Sentiment score
7.9
Microsoft Defender Threat Intelligence offers scalable security, favored for flexibility, ease of use, and seamless cloud integration despite potential costs.
Based on my experience, I would rate it nine out of ten for scalability.
Azure Firewall is highly scalable, and I would give it a scalability rating of nine out of ten.
When we started deploying the solution, it was not a mature product at times.
If there were some customizations available, I would rate its scalability as nine out of ten.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
8.6
Azure Firewall is praised for its reliability and stability, generally receiving high ratings despite minor past incidents.
Sentiment score
8.3
Microsoft Defender Threat Intelligence is praised for stability, performance, security features, and resilience, despite occasional outages and delays.
The stability of Azure Firewall is excellent.
It provides a high level of security and avoids phishing and scam emails.
 

Room For Improvement

Azure Firewall needs enhanced security, usability, flexibility, better pricing, support, threat intelligence, documentation, and improved Azure integration.
Microsoft Defender Threat Intelligence needs pricing, integration, support, AI, automation, and customization improvements for better affordability and usability.
Improvement in reporting and better visibility into network traffic would also be beneficial.
It lacks some functionalities when compared to competitors like Check Point and Fortinet, such as WAF or load balancing.
Azure Firewall could improve its reporting capabilities.
Providing code customization would help keep pace with new vulnerabilities and threats.
From the telemetry data standpoint, I would prefer Defender data to be more open in future updates.
 

Setup Cost

Azure Firewall offers flexible pricing appealing to enterprises, balancing cost-efficiency with seamless Azure ecosystem integration despite potential premium costs.
Microsoft Defender Threat Intelligence is cost-effective in E5 bundles but can be complex and costly standalone for SMEs.
Azure Firewall is quite expensive, with a high cost.
Azure Firewall is subscription-based, which is advantageous as there is no need for upfront payment.
I would rate the pricing of Azure Firewall around a seven, with one being high and ten being low.
 

Valuable Features

Azure Firewall provides scalable security with IPS, threat intelligence, malware protection, automation, and integrates with Azure Monitor for management.
Microsoft Defender Threat Intelligence integrates globally informed threat detection with seamless Microsoft product integration for comprehensive, automated protection and analysis.
We have to combine multiple features and multiple products, and then we can say that this is more cost-effective and works properly to ensure the security posture of our cloud deployments.
The premium version includes all traditional firewall features, reducing the need for separate compute resources.
We created rules in the firewall to ensure that the traffic would be diverted to the right endpoint and made sure only specific application VMs could reach the database server.
One of the best features is that it provides a certain level of customization, allowing us to set our spam confidence levels.
Our threat detection is enhanced due to the AI agents in Microsoft Defender Threat Intelligence, which helps in detecting automatically.
 

Categories and Ranking

Azure Firewall
Ranking in Microsoft Security Suite
11th
Average Rating
7.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.4
Number of Reviews
42
Ranking in other categories
Firewalls (12th)
Microsoft Defender Threat I...
Ranking in Microsoft Security Suite
15th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
32
Ranking in other categories
Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) (10th), Threat Intelligence Platforms (4th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Microsoft Security Suite category, the mindshare of Azure Firewall is 3.7%, down from 5.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Defender Threat Intelligence is 0.5%, up from 0.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Microsoft Security Suite
 

Featured Reviews

AnvarSadique - PeerSpot reviewer
Easy setup and effective traffic routing enhance security
In terms of improvements, I think the price could be a concern as Azure ( /products/microsoft-azure-reviews ) services are often more expensive compared to other firewalls. However, the functional aspects of Azure Firewall met our needs. While I found the interface not particularly user-friendly, this is a common issue across vendors.
TapabrataSamanta - PeerSpot reviewer
A cost-effective solution for monitoring and security but lacks supports for non-Microsoft products
There are weaknesses, and Microsoft is working on addressing them. Over the past three to four years, the ATP and other components have improved significantly, and the integration has also advanced. We are using third-party services. While we have Microsoft Threat Intelligence, which leverages Microsoft's facilities, we also utilize additional third-party threat intelligence. As of today, we don't completely rely on Microsoft for certain regions. This is an area where Microsoft needs to improve. Consequently, we use Anomali, a third-party threat intelligence provider. We integrate our product's intelligence with Anomali, from which we obtain threat insights. Microsoft products offer significant advantages, especially in the realm of threat intelligence. It works very well with Microsoft products. However, you might need additional services if you have non-Microsoft products in your environment. For instance, if you use Apple or Linux, Microsoft's solutions alone might not be sufficient. If they can work more effectively, especially with zero-day attack speed and other sophisticated threats, it will help us provide our customers with timely newsletters about new attacks.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Government
9%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Computer Software Company
16%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Educational Organization
12%
Manufacturing Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What is a better choice, Azure Firewall or Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls?
Azure Firewall Vs. Palo Alto Network NG Firewalls Both solutions provide stellar stability and security. Azure Firewall is easy to use and provides excellent support. Valuable features include int...
How does Azure Firewall compare with Palo Alto Networks VM Series?
Both products are very stable and easily scalable. The setup of Azure Firewall is easy and very user-friendly and the overall cost is reasonable. Azure Firewall offers a solid threat awareness, can...
Which would you recommend - FortiGate VM or Azure Firewall?
Both of these solutions are excellent options that provide flexible scalability and solid security. Fortinet Fortigate VM integrates well and has excellent centralized reporting. It is very easy to...
What do you like most about Microsoft Defender Threat Intelligence?
It just runs in the background. I don't have to worry about, making sure it's Intelligence. So, you know, this kind of makes it very easy, have to worry about installing. It is easy to use.
What needs improvement with Microsoft Defender Threat Intelligence?
From the telemetry data standpoint, I would prefer Defender data to be more open in future updates.
What is your primary use case for Microsoft Defender Threat Intelligence?
We have tried Microsoft Defender Threat Intelligence. I have expertise with Microsoft Defender products. I am not familiar with Microsoft Defender for IoT because we did not use that in our environ...
 

Overview

Find out what your peers are saying about Azure Firewall vs. Microsoft Defender Threat Intelligence and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.
862,499 professionals have used our research since 2012.