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Azure Firewall 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
Ranking in Microsoft Security Suite
11th
Average Rating
7.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
41
Ranking in other categories
Firewalls (13th)
Microsoft Purview eDiscovery
Ranking in Microsoft Security Suite
25th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
8
Ranking in other categories
eDiscovery (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2025, in the Microsoft Security Suite category, the mindshare of Azure Firewall is 4.0%, down from 5.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Purview eDiscovery is 0.7%, down from 0.9% 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.
Frank Radeck - PeerSpot reviewer
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

"The solution can autoscale."
"Great security and connectivity."
"The SIEM that Azure Firewall provides us is very robust."
"There is not a single feature or single product that can ensure security."
"All its features are good. That's why we recommend it."
"Azure's cost-effectiveness is its major advantage."
"One of the best features is that it natively integrates with Azure Services and tools. When you have a third-party offering, that is not the case. But Azure Firewall provides a comprehensive and seamless security solution for your Azure resources."
"The features of Azure Firewall that I find most valuable include DNS inspection, forward proxy, and security, particularly on the edge."
"I think eDiscovery Premium has made dealing with data from Teams much more accessible than any other platform."
"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."
"The ability to query everything that's in Microsoft and send links or add people, like managers, to review the documents is valuable. It's easy as I don't have to download and email anything. I just add them as a reviewer, and they can access it from there."
"Purview eDiscovery has made it significantly easier to handle rare litigation requests."
"The speed of it is valuable. I am able to search even 10,000 mailboxes for specific content. It helps search and accommodate the often limited information provided by users regarding what they need."
"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."
"Tasks that took an entire day before we implemented Purview now take just 30 minutes."
"Microsoft Purview eDiscovery has saved me personally a lot of time because I can query it, and it touches everything we have as a full Microsoft shop."
 

Cons

"Right now, with Azure Firewall, we cannot have a normal inbound traffic flow. For inbound, Microsoft suggests using application gateways, so the options are very limited. I cannot use this firewall as an intermediate firewall because of the limitations, and I cannot point routing to another firewall. So if I want to use back-to-back firewall architecture in my environment, I cannot use Azure Firewall for that type of configuration either."
"Currently, it only supports IP addresses, so you have to be specific about the IPs that are in your environment."
"For large organizations, a third-party firewall would be an added advantage, because it would have more advanced features, things that are not in Azure Firewall."
"The solution doesn't offer the same capabilities of Fortinet. It should offer intrusion prevention and advance filtering. These are two very useful features offered on Fortinet that Azure lacks."
"The development area and QA area could be improved. With those improvements, we can improve projects and take even less time to implement them."
"In my experience, Azure Firewall is quite expensive, with a high cost. I would rate its pricing a two out of ten."
"It would be much easier if the on-premises, firewall rules, had some kind of export-import possibility in place, which is not the case right now."
"This solution is not mature when it comes to handling perimeter traffic like internet browsing."
"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."
"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 beneficial. Copilot is expected to add such functionality in the future."
"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."
"The sorting and filtering of the result data need improvement, and the interface for writing queries is not user-friendly for business users."
"Microsoft Purview eDiscovery should be cheaper."
"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."
"Purview eDiscovery works, but it's not entirely perfect. There were times when search results would get hung up or error codes would be presented and we'd have to contact Microsoft to get that sorted out."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is pay-as-you-go. So, you pay based on the usage. If I remember it well, there is a basic fee, and there is a traffic fee. It is not per month. It is per hour or something like that. It is not so expensive."
"I rate the product pricing a five out of ten."
"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."
"Before choosing this solution, we evaluated others, and we found this to be the most cost-effective."
"Azure Firewall is expensive."
"The total cost of ownership is much less than Palo Alto, Cisco, or any other brand."
"Azure Firewall is more expensive. If Microsoft can make Azure Firewall cheaper, I can see that all clients will think of using it. One client used FortiGate because it is much cheaper. Some clients ask me for Cisco, but in the cloud estimate, I found its cost is the same as Azure Firewall."
"Azure Firewalls operate on a pay-as-you-go model, similar to cloud services."
"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."
"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."
"With the full bundle, pricing is not a significant concern. As an M3, I find the Purview pricing of 1250 per user worthwhile."
"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."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
16%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Government
9%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Government
13%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Computer Software Company
10%
University
6%
 

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 Purview eDiscovery?
The tool has been beneficial. Some of our previous users left the organization without sharing the information they had at a personal level. This information was related to the organization, and th...
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...
 

Overview

Find out what your peers are saying about Azure Firewall vs. Microsoft Purview eDiscovery and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
857,162 professionals have used our research since 2012.