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Azure Firewall 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
Ranking in Microsoft Security Suite
10th
Average Rating
7.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
40
Ranking in other categories
Firewalls (14th)
Microsoft Defender Vulnerab...
Ranking in Microsoft Security Suite
22nd
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
12
Ranking in other categories
Vulnerability Management (14th), Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) (17th), Risk-Based Vulnerability Management (5th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Microsoft Security Suite category, the mindshare of Azure Firewall is 4.2%, down from 5.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management is 0.6%, up from 0.5% 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.
TakayukiUmehara - PeerSpot reviewer
Ease of management and integration supports operations, but has high resource consumption
A valuable feature is the ease of management and integration with Microsoft products. I appreciate that I can click on a server in the Defender Console, notice a risk, and retrieve all necessary information. Speed is a key feature as it is very quick to administer and allows for manual configuration from the portal.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It's auto-scalable, which is a great feature."
"The solution has many useful features. For example, the solution allows users to create virtual IP addresses."
"The product's value to my company stems from its ability to secure my organization."
"Azure Firewall is a cloud-native solution that removes the pain of load balancers."
"Azure's cost-effectiveness is its major advantage."
"The solution is stable."
"The Layer four features are okay and meet my business needs."
"The SIEM that Azure Firewall provides us is very robust."
"The product's stability is very high...The scalability of the product is amazing."
"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 solution helps identify threats and vulnerabilities."
"Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management provides regular advisories and recommendations that help improve our security posture."
"Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management is versatile and assesses vulnerabilities, providing detailed information on CVEs, their categories, and exploit statuses."
"The solution is highly scalable."
"The solution is up-to-date and helps prevent zero-day attacks."
 

Cons

"There is a lot of room for improvement, so I would rate it a six out of ten overall."
"There are a number of things that need to be simplified, but it's mostly costs. It needs to be simplified because it's pretty expensive."
"I would appreciate it if Azure Firewall included built-in VPN capabilities."
"The tool needs to improve the onboarding and transition process for on-prem users."
"The development area and QA area could be improved. With those improvements, we can improve projects and take even less time to implement them."
"Azure Firewall has limited visibility for IDPS, no TLS inspection, no app ID, no user ID, no content ID, no device ID. There is no antivirus or anti-spyware. Azure Firewall doesn't scan traffic for malware unless it triggers an IDPS signature. There is no sandbox or machine learning functionality, meaning we are not protected from Zero-day threats. There is no DNS security and limited web categories."
"It's a little heavy compared to a FortiGate or other firewalls."
"The threat intelligence aspect of this particular firewall is not at par with other providers."
"We have experienced some logging issues, including a few hours of downtime initially. Despite this, I would rate the overall stability as an eight."
"The general support could be improved."
"The technical support takes too much time to resolve tickets."
"Sometimes the stability of the agents could be improved."
"Integration can be improved."
"The worst aspect is the refresh rate of the dashboard."
"The product is not stable; it is very resource-intensive, consuming a lot of memory and CPU, which makes it slow."
"The automated remediations can be more specific."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The licensing module is good."
"The total cost of ownership is much less than Palo Alto, Cisco, or any other brand."
"Azure Firewall comes with Azure native services. We did not buy any kind of license for it. Whether you have a free subscription or a pay-as-you-go model, you can deploy the Azure Firewall service... The amount that you use will determine how much you pay."
"Before choosing this solution, we evaluated others, and we found this to be the most cost-effective."
"The pricing of Azure Firewall is pay-as-you-go. Fortinet also has a pay-as-you-go model, but Azure's pricing is higher and, with FortiGate, you also have the license."
"Azure Firewall is expensive."
"I rate the product pricing a five out of ten."
"Azure Firewalls operate on a pay-as-you-go model, similar to cloud services."
"The tool is a bit costly."
"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 licensing costs are reasonable."
"The product’s pricing is medium."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
16%
Government
10%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Computer Software Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Government
10%
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 is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management?
I would rate the price as a three for us due to the partnership discounts. For non-partners, however, the cost could be seen as higher, between seven to ten.
What needs improvement with Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management?
For our current usage, we do not have any complaints, but a potential improvement could be the introduction of a more advanced AI agent, possibly a large language model with better performance than...
 

Overview

Find out what your peers are saying about Azure Firewall vs. Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
850,028 professionals have used our research since 2012.