Azure Firewall vs Palo Alto Networks K2-Series comparison

Microsoft and Palo Alto Networks are both solutions in the Firewalls category. Microsoft is ranked #14 with an average rating of 8.1, while Palo Alto Networks is ranked #28 with an average rating of 8.5. Microsoft holds a 2.1% mindshare in Firewalls, compared to Palo Alto Networks’s 0.0% mindshare. Additionally, 79% of Microsoft users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 96% of Palo Alto Networks users who would recommend it.

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 16, 2024

Azure Firewall and Palo Alto Networks K2-Series are two prominent firewall solutions. Based on user reviews, Azure Firewall excels in pricing and customer support, while Palo Alto Networks K2-Series is favored for its advanced features and overall performance.

Features: Azure Firewall offers scalability, seamless integration, and a straightforward deployment process, making it suitable for large environments. Palo Alto Networks K2-Series is known for its comprehensive security features, robust threat intelligence, and detailed documentation. The K2-Series stands out for its superior security capabilities.

Room for Improvement: Azure Firewall could improve its threat detection and management tools, streamline configuration processes, and reduce costs. Palo Alto Networks K2-Series could focus on simplifying the configuration process, enhancing user-friendliness, and reducing hardware costs.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Azure Firewall is noted for its straightforward deployment and responsive customer support. Palo Alto Networks K2-Series, despite its comprehensive documentation, may require a more complex setup and users sometimes experience longer support response times.

Pricing and ROI: Azure Firewall is considered cost-effective with a transparent pricing structure and quick return on investment. Palo Alto Networks K2-Series, although delivering high-quality security, is seen as a more expensive option, potentially impacting ROI.

To learn more, read our detailed Azure Firewall vs. Palo Alto Networks K2-Series Report (Updated: April 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Azure Firewall vs. Palo Alto Networks K2-Series

April 2025

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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

Fortinet FortiGate

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Firewalls category, the mindshare of Fortinet FortiGate is 21.4%, up from 17.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Azure Firewall is 2.1%, down from 2.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Palo Alto Networks K2-Series is 0.0%, up from 0.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Firewalls

Featured Reviews

EhabAli

Sr. Cybersecurity Solutions Architect at BMB

Efficient, user-friendly, and affordable

In the past, NSS Labs was utilized to test files and verify the numbers and datasheets. It would be beneficial to have an organization or testing lab that can verify the numbers in our datasheets since changes are frequently made, which can be inconvenient for review. For instance, when comparing different competitors such as Forcepoint, Palo Alto, and Check Point, the throughput or numbers in the datasheet may be lower than the actual numbers. Conversely, Fortinet typically reports very high numbers, but they cannot be replicated in the real world. Therefore, it would be advantageous for them to partner with a neutral testing organization such as NSS Labs to validate these numbers, thus providing more credibility and comfort to everyone regarding the accuracy of the datasheets. For the migration, everyone has a firewall in use and I am selling Fortinet. Typically, I am replacing another firewall. Previously, there was a tool available to convert configurations from one firewall, such as Palo Alto, to Fortinet, but this tool is no longer free. If it could be made free again, it would be very beneficial. This tool shows a lot of promise and is very good. Making it free would help many companies deliver their products in a more efficient and integrated way. It would also be more valuable to include the tool with the firewall package or license instead of having to pay extra for it. Paying extra puts more pressure on small companies to deliver the firewall and complete the configuration, especially if they have hundreds or thousands of policies. It's very painful to move through these policies line by line. The stability has room for improvement. When it comes to Secure SD-WAN, everything is fine. They are going the right way. SD-WAN is very promising. They can provide the SD-WAN solution separately, but they will not take this approach because even the smallest firewall can support the features, so there is no need to have a separate service or appliance. They are following the right steps, and there is nothing to be improved. Feature-wise, I'm really satisfied with the new release, and the features they have added. For now, it's fine.

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AnvarSadique

Information Technology Architect at GMS INC

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.

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Krishnakumar M

enterprise architect at a tech services company with 1-10 employees

One of the best tools for the prevention of evasive threats

There is a feature called granular application controls, which I liked. Instead of relying on ports and IP addresses, they use AMP ID. This kind of solution is very good. Another valuable feature is the prevention of evasive threats, which is one of the best tools I've encountered. SSL decryption and app ID-based SSL decryption are also impressive, along with the integration with user ID. Identity-based policies ensuring only authorized users can access specific resources are excellent features. Normally, there is something called SIM or SCIM in IDA IDM, but this feature is provided on the box, which is exemplary.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"I would recommend using Fortinet FortiGate because of its usability."

"The usage in general is pretty good."

"The stability and scalability of this solution are satisfactory. Its SD-WAN, VPN, and URL filtering features are very useful."

"The payment function for applications is good."

"The solution is very, very easy to use."

"The license management is very valuable. You can get a new license each year, or you can enroll every two to four years. You can get the logs, and you will get the information on the risk in your network and the entire organization. With this information, you can take action on your actives, computers, or devices. You can bring your own device as an SSE."

"It's very good and very stable for businesses. It works very well."

"Fortigate's most valuable feature is that it doesn't need a push policy when writing rules."

More Fortinet FortiGate pros

"The solution has FQDN integration."

"Azure's cost-effectiveness is its major advantage."

"The most valuable feature is threat intelligence. It is based on filtering and can identify multiple threats."

"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."

"Azure Firewall is integrated well with Microsoft ecosystem."

"The solution can autoscale."

"The feature that I have found the most valuable is the control over the network permissions and the network."

"The features of Azure Firewall that I find most valuable include DNS inspection, forward proxy, and security, particularly on the edge."

More Azure Firewall pros

"One of the most valuable features is Palo Alto's firewall management. We find it easier to manage the firewall centrally."

"The most valuable feature of Palo Alto Networks K2-Series is the performance which is above their competitors. The throughput they have delivered is good. When we used other solutions they failed the deployment when we were using different rules. They have a theory perform performance light and performance degradation. However, Palo Alto Networks K2-Series never fails in that scenario."

"Mainly, it is very easy to understand, and the logs are very good."

"Simple integrations with the domain controllers and other inventories"

"The solution is reliable and scales well."

"I like the tool's WildFire feature."

"The most valuable feature of Palo Alto Networks K2-Series is the configuration, it is very clear."

"Overall, this is a very simple and very effective firewall, and I am satisfied with it."

More Palo Alto Networks K2-Series pros

Cons

"Its reporting capabilities can be improved. It should have some out-of-the-box reporting capabilities and some degree of customization. The basic reporting that it currently has is not sufficient to create more usable reports. It needs some sort of out-of-the-box reporting. They try to make customers purchase FortiAnalyzer for this kind of reporting, which is an additional cost. Other firewall vendors, such as SonicWall and Sophos, provide this sort of reporting without any additional cost."

"The support is the main thing that needs to be improved."

"Fortinet FortiGate could improve by having better visibility. Palo Alto has better visibility."

"The user interface could be improved."

"There are some tiny bugs that sometimes affect the operations. In the past revision of it, there was a bug. Because of the bug, we had to downgrade the version. It happened only with the last revision."

"The firewall engine is not so strong as of now, in my opinion... My second concern is that, while they have Zero-day vulnerability and anti-malware features, the threat engine needs to be strengthened, its efficiency can be increased."

"Vulnerability scanning could be improved."

"There is room for improvement related to the logging and reporting aspect."

More Fortinet FortiGate cons

"In terms of improvements, I think the price could be a concern as Azure services are often more expensive compared to other firewalls."

"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."

"One thing that would help engineers adopt it better is the documentation."

"There should be better monitoring and logging. Currently, it is put in Sentinel. It should be more seamless and from the interface."

"It is a cloud service, but the lending speed for each region is not always the same. For example, in China, the speed is slow. They need to think about how to make sure that the service pace or speed is always the same in all regions. It would be a great improvement if they can provide the same pace worldwide."

"Azure Firewall definitely needs a broader feature base. It should be able to go all the way up to layer 7 when looking at applications and things like that."

"We find it's different implementing it region-to-region. It might help if it was universal across all regions."

"There is a lot of room for improvement, so I would rate it a six out of ten overall."

More Azure Firewall cons

"The licensing cost is a typical complaint with many clients. The solution is expensive."

"Sometimes there are interactions with support or the provider that are not ideal."

"Threat prevention could use improvement. Not just in malware exploits and C2 traffic; enhancing web traffic protection would be a great upgrade."

"Threat prevention could use improvement."

"It would be really helpful to have dashboards that provide information on IOC blockings such as where and how many. It will also be good to know how many hashing files have been reported. It would also be nice to have easy access to this information. Otherwise, it's a painful, manual task."

"The technical support, and how they provide it to the client, needs to be improved."

"When it comes to renewing the solution, they tend to try to jack up the pricing."

"The scalability of Palo Alto Networks K2-Series is good. It is good for larger environments over smaller ones."

More Palo Alto Networks K2-Series cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price could be lower."

"The pricing is justified. It's a little pricey, but what you pay for is what you get."

"This is not a cheap solution but it isn't expensive, either. It's a good solution for the right price."

"The main reason we chose Fortinet FortiGate was that the price was better than the competition."

"Compared to other firewall products, it's a little cheaper in terms of pricing."

"Fortinet Secure SD-WAN delivered the lowest total cost of ownership (TCO) per Mbps among all other vendors."

"The price of Fortinet FortiGate is reasonable."

"Its price is affordable and lesser than Cisco. Cisco is expensive. In terms of licensing, there is only one issue. If a customer's license has expired a month ago and they do the renewal after one month, Fortinet renews the license from the start of the previous month. The activation of the product is done from the previous month, not from the date of renewal. The customers usually shout and complain that because they are paying today, the renewal should start from today. The support contract renewals or licensing should be renewed from the date of renewal, but Fortinet starts from the day it had expired. It is a loss for customers. They might have had some problems because of which they did not take the license one month before. Fortinet should work on this. Cisco doesn't do this. Cisco always starts from the day they apply for the license."

More Fortinet FortiGate pricing and cost advice

"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."

"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."

"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."

"The solution is cheaper than other brands. My company has an enterprise contract and we finally got a good price with Azure."

"It is expensive, especially with the premium functions. For one of the clients, it was very expensive. You have to use it more at an enterprise level, and there, it was not at an enterprise level. So, it was very costly, but security-wise, it was a very wise decision to use it that way."

"The total cost of ownership is much less than Palo Alto, Cisco, or any other brand."

"The licensing module is good."

"I rate the product pricing a five out of ten."

More Azure Firewall pricing and cost advice

"When comparing Palo Alto Networks K2-Series with other solutions it is on the higher end of the price scale."

"The price of this solution is too high."

"Pricing is a sensitive issue because the cost is high in this market."

"It is an expensive solution."

"This product is designed for large companies. The price would not be suitable for a small or medium size company."

"Palo Alto firewalls are very expensive."

"The pricing is expensive."

"If you compare K2-Series' quality with its price, I think it is reasonable."

More Palo Alto Networks K2-Series pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Educational Organization

20%

Computer Software Company

14%

Comms Service Provider

Manufacturing Company

Computer Software Company

16%

Government

10%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Manufacturing Company

Computer Software Company

28%

Manufacturing Company

Media Company

Energy/Utilities Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

Which is the better NGFW: Fortinet Fortigate or Cisco Firepower?

When you compare these firewalls you can identify them with different features, advantages, practices and usage a...

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What is the biggest difference between Sophos XG and FortiGate?

From my experience regarding both the Sophos and FortiGate firewalls, I personally would rather use FortiGate. I know...

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What are the biggest technical differences between Sophos UTM and Fortinet FortiGate?

As a solution, Sophos UTM offers a lot of functionality, it scales well, and the stability and performance are quite ...

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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 Firew...

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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...

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Which would you recommend - FortiGate VM or Azure Firewall?

Both of these solutions are excellent options that provide flexible scalability and solid security. Fortinet Fortigat...

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Features comparison between Palo Alto and Fortinet firewalls

In the best tradition of these questions, Feature-wise both are quite similar, but each has things it's better at, it...

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What do you like most about Palo Alto Networks K2-Series?

It is a stable solution.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Palo Alto Networks K2-Series?

The pricing for the Palo Alto Networks K2-Series solution is affordable and there are no complaints about the licensing.

See all answers

Comparisons

Sophos XG vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 22% of the time

Netgate pfSense vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 13% of the time

Cisco Secure Firewall vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 11% of the time

WatchGuard Firebox vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 5% of the time

SonicWall TZ vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 5% of the time

More Fortinet FortiGate Competitors

Fortinet FortiGate-VM vs Azure Firewall

Compared 19% of the time

Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls vs Azure Firewall

Compared 16% of the time

Palo Alto Networks VM-Series vs Azure Firewall

Compared 6% of the time

Check Point NGFW vs Azure Firewall

Compared 5% of the time

Cisco Secure Firewall vs Azure Firewall

Compared 3% of the time

More Azure Firewall Competitors

Cisco Secure Firewall vs Palo Alto Networks K2-Series

Compared 100% of the time

More Palo Alto Networks K2-Series Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Fortinet FortiGate

May 2025

Download Fortinet FortiGate product report

Buyer's Guide

Azure Firewall

May 2025

Download Azure Firewall product report

Buyer's Guide

Palo Alto Networks K2-Series

April 2025

Download Palo Alto Networks K2-Series product report

Also Known As

FortiGate 60b, FortiGate 60c, FortiGate 80c, FortiGate 50b, FortiGate 200b, FortiGate 110c, FortiGate, Fortinet Firewall

No data available

Overview

Fortinet FortiGate offers comprehensive network security and firewall protection across multiple locations. It effectively manages data traffic and secures environments with features like VPN, intrusion prevention, and UTM controls.

Organizations rely on Fortinet FortiGate for its robust integration with advanced security policies, ensuring significant protection for enterprises, cloud environments, and educational sectors. It facilitates network segmentation, application-level security, and authentication management, securing communication within and between locations such as branches and data centers. Its efficient SD-WAN and UTM features enable streamlined data management and enhanced threat protection capabilities. Users appreciate its centralized management, facilitating seamless operations across diverse environments.

What are the key features of Fortinet FortiGate?

VPN Capabilities: Ensure secure remote access for users and seamless site-to-site connections.
Intrusion Prevention System (IPS): Detect and prevent security threats and vulnerabilities.
Advanced Firewall: Offers robust firewalling with application control and web filtering.
SD-WAN: Optimizes application performance and enhances bandwidth management.
SSL VPN: Provides reliable and secure access for remote workers.

What benefits should users expect from Fortinet FortiGate?

High-performance Security: Delivers effective threat mitigation with high availability.
Centralized Management: Simplifies network operations with cloud-based management tools.
Detailed Analytics: Provides comprehensive insights into network activity and security threats.
Load Balancing: Ensures optimal resource distribution and traffic management.

Fortinet FortiGate is crucial in sectors like education, offering robust networks for secure data flow between campuses and facilitating remote learning. In enterprise environments, it allows efficient management of application traffic and security across multiple branches, while in the cloud, it seamlessly integrates with diverse platforms to enhance security infrastructure.

Fortinet

Azure Firewall is a user-friendly, intuitive, cloud-native firewall security solution that provides top-of-the-industry threat protection for all your Azure Virtual Network resources. Azure Firewall is constantly and thoroughly analyzing all traffic and data packets, making it a very valuable and secure fully stateful firewall as a service with built-in high availability and unrestricted cloud scalability. Azure Firewall allows users to create virtual IP addresses and provides for secure DDoS protection for the virtual machines on your network. It also provides fast and efficient east-west and north-south traffic security.

Azure Firewall is a managed, cloud-based network security service built to protect your Azure Virtual Network resources. It is a fully stateful firewall as a service with built-in high availability and unrestricted cloud scalability.

Azure Firewall has two significant offerings, Standard and Premium.

Azure Firewall Standard works directly with Microsoft Cyber Security and supplies excellent L3-L7 filtering and threat awareness. The proactive real-time threat awareness will quickly alert you and immediately deny all traffic to and from any known problematic or suspicious domains or IP addresses. Microsoft Cyber Security is updated continually to protect against all new and known potential threats at all times. To learn more about Azure Firewall Standard, click here.

Azure Firewall Premium provides everything the standard version does, and additionally adds extra levels of data encryption, network intrusion detection, extended URL filtering, and Web category filters. To learn more about the added features of Azure Firewall Premium, click here.

Key Benefits and Features of Azure Firewall:

High availability - You do not need load balancers with Azure Firewall; it's already built in and ready to go.
Self-scalability - Azure Firewall is intuitive and will auto-scale as needed based on traffic flow to be ready for peak traffic times.
Threat awareness - Using Microsoft Cyber Security to filter traffic, Azure Firewall will deny any known problematic threats to keep your network safe.
Additional IP addresses - You can securely add up to 250 public IP addresses with Azure Firewall
Improved web category filtering - You can set up specific protocols to allow or deny categories within websites that are deemed inappropriate for use within your network. You have the ability to organize categories based on a defined set of descriptions.

What our real users have to say:

Many PeerSpot users found Azure Firewall to be very user-friendly and easy to use. They liked that it offers seamless integration to the cloud and were especially pleased with the threat filtering options.

Regarding integration and threat intelligence, our users wrote:

“The most valuable feature is the integration into the overall cloud platform.”

“The most valuable feature is threat intelligence. It is based on filtering and can identify multiple threats.”

“I think that one of the best features is definitely the premium version, along with the IDPs in terms of the intrusion detection and prevention system.”

Microsoft

Designed to handle growing throughput needs due to increasing amounts of application-, user-, and device-generated data, the K2-Series offers amazing performance and threat prevention capabilities to stop advanced cyberattacks and secure mobile network infrastructure, subscribers, and services.

Palo Alto Networks

Sample Customers

Amazon Web Services, Microsoft, IBM, Cisco, Dell, HP, Oracle, Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile, Sprint, Vodafone, Orange, BT Group, Telstra, Deutsche Telekom, Comcast, Time Warner Cable, CenturyLink, NTT Communications, Tata Communications, SoftBank, China Mobile, Singtel, Telus, Rogers Communications, Bell Canada, Telkom Indonesia, Telkom South Africa, Telmex, Telia Company, Telkom Kenya

Information Not Available

State of North Dakota, SEGA, Alameda County Office of Education, Temple University, VERGE, CAME

Buyer's Guide

Azure Firewall vs. Palo Alto Networks K2-Series

April 2025

Free Report: Azure Firewall vs. Palo Alto Networks K2-Series

Find out what your peers are saying about Azure Firewall vs. Palo Alto Networks K2-Series and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.

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