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Azure Firewall vs Microsoft Purview Information Protection 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
7.4
Microsoft Purview enhances protection, automates compliance, reduces response time, and supports growth, though exact savings are hard to quantify.
Purview can do a quick scan, and it doesn't use human resources, so it gets time to do things that we need humans to focus on.
The E5 license comes with different solutions like data discovery classification, CASB, DLP solutions, and Defender for Cloud.
The cost of data loss and your data going to a competitor is potentially massive.
 

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
4.4
Users experience inconsistent Microsoft Purview support, citing slow responses and unresolved issues, despite some improvements in visibility and engagement.
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.
Sometimes, I get a fast and knowledgeable response, while other times, I've experienced delays and received no resolution.
It's hard to be an ambassador for a product when you know it will be hard to get support.
After our issues are reported, it takes a long time to find a resolution.
 

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
7.4
Microsoft Purview Information Protection is praised for scalability despite some concerns with data analytics speed and policy update intervals.
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.
It can be scaled across different departments organization-wide very quickly and easily.
It can handle large collections of data without issues.
Scalability can be improved by reducing these intervals.
 

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
7.4
Microsoft Purview is stable and reliable, with minor delays and occasional drawbacks, fostering user trust and wide deployment.
The stability of Azure Firewall is excellent.
Once implemented, I haven't had issues with its consistency.
The product is stable, and whatever it does, it does better than any other thing.
The solution is stable overall.
 

Room For Improvement

Azure Firewall needs enhanced security, usability, flexibility, better pricing, support, threat intelligence, documentation, and improved Azure integration.
Microsoft Purview requires better integration, pricing, navigation, and feature enhancements to address user concerns about functionality and support.
Improvement in reporting and better visibility into network traffic would also be beneficial.
Azure Firewall could improve its reporting capabilities.
It lacks some functionalities when compared to competitors like Check Point and Fortinet, such as WAF or load balancing.
Effectiveness in Microsoft Purview Information Protection means enforcing the policy and making sure it works consistently across non-Microsoft products as well.
Having a roadmap or updates about new releases would be helpful for demonstrating to clients.
Clarifying product features and use cases would help avoid such confusion.
 

Setup Cost

Azure Firewall offers flexible pricing appealing to enterprises, balancing cost-efficiency with seamless Azure ecosystem integration despite potential premium costs.
Microsoft Purview offers competitive pricing, flexible enterprise licenses, and cost-effective bundled solutions, despite some complexity in licensing options.
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.
Prices have increased recently
I talked to people who had compared it to other products on the market, and they're spending five figures to get started.
The E5 license covers most of the solutions for different technologies, so that way, it is good and more affordable compared to any other solution.
Our focus is on helping customers maximize their software investment.
 

Valuable Features

Azure Firewall provides scalable security with IPS, threat intelligence, malware protection, automation, and integrates with Azure Monitor for management.
Microsoft Purview enhances data protection with encryption, automated labeling, and compliance, excelling in Microsoft ecosystem integration and management.
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.
Microsoft Copilot is an advantage because it's enterprise-grade AI.
It's paramount to have a single solution for information protection.
Regardless of the education, the employee might share the information anyway, so the AI shouldn't be the first point of failure. It should be a human making good decisions.
 

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 (11th)
Microsoft Purview Informati...
Ranking in Microsoft Security Suite
13th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
14
Ranking in other categories
Data Governance (5th), Data Privacy Management Software (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the Microsoft Security Suite category, the mindshare of Azure Firewall is 3.6%, down from 5.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Purview Information Protection is 1.3%, up from 1.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Microsoft Security Suite
 

Featured Reviews

Rashedul Khan - PeerSpot reviewer
Seamless integration enhances security while reducing manual effort
We didn't use TLS termination or malware filtering extensively because those are part of the premium features for Azure Firewall. At this point, I cannot see much improvement needed for Azure Firewall, because it served my purpose; having used it for four months, I am satisfied with the features and performance that I needed for my project. Features that integrate AI functionalities into Azure Firewall could be added, which can also address costing issues. We have features that we require, but they are in the premium offerings. If some features with limitations, for example, limited users, could be made available in the standard Azure Firewall, it would be easier for beginners choosing Azure Firewall at a very first level to test those features without needing to upgrade to premium.
Abhi T - PeerSpot reviewer
Achieve comprehensive data protection with reliable performance and room for enhanced discovery accuracy
The product is still in a growing phase. I could see that many use cases in their product are not capable enough in terms of detecting or protecting. Compared to other products, they are in the middle of bringing their solution up to the mark, so it is not a full-grown solution. They have to get more accurate results in terms of data discovery and classification. The second thing is their support; support from Microsoft takes a lot of time to get a response from their support team. The third thing is their OCR capability is not that great in terms of identifying the documents. We would love to see response times of less than 24 hours. Additionally, there is no way to check the policy's current status in terms of whether it got synced or not. You have to wait and test the use cases after 24 hours or after 48 hours, and once it starts working, then it appears the policy got implemented.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
15%
Government
9%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
19%
Computer Software Company
13%
Retailer
7%
Government
7%
 

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 Information Protection?
It ensures that sensitive data is automatically safeguarded, even for email attachments, regardless of the user or device.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Microsoft Purview Information Protection?
Pricing is good because if somebody is looking for an overall cybersecurity solution, Microsoft has one license with many solutions bundled with that license. The E5 license covers most of the solu...
What needs improvement with Microsoft Purview Information Protection?
The product is still in a growing phase. I could see that many use cases in their product are not capable enough in terms of detecting or protecting. Compared to other products, they are in the mid...
 

Also Known As

No data available
Microsoft Information Protection
 

Overview

Find out what your peers are saying about Azure Firewall vs. Microsoft Purview Information Protection and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
865,384 professionals have used our research since 2012.