We performed a comparison between Azure Firewall and Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls based on our users’ reviews in five categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Comparison Results: Based on the parameters we compared, while Azure Firewall is certainly a solid option, Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls is equally good. Users of both products have been happy with the ROI results. What differentiates the two products is the stark difference in pricing, which may ultimately sway an organization’s purchasing decision.
"User-friendly and affordable security solution that's recommended for SMB customers. This solution has good technical support."
"The most valuable features are simplicity, management, and that it's constantly evolving."
"Fortinet FortiGate has many valuable features, such as IDS, and intrusion detection. It has security features that are in part with the technologies that are available in the market."
"The most valuable features of Fortinet FortiGate are the ease of use and the UI. It has always provided me with what I needed. I have no need for additional costs that other solutions have, such as Sophos."
"The tool is a nice product and easy to handle. The software's user interface is also good. You can easily implement remote access in the solution."
"The stability and scalability of this solution are satisfactory. Its SD-WAN, VPN, and URL filtering features are very useful."
"The most valuable feature is the interface, which is very user friendly. We are utilizing most of the features, like content filtering. The firewall is powerful."
"It is simple to manage, and there are a lot of functionalities in the same box."
"All its features are good. That's why we recommend it."
"The solution is stable."
"It's auto-scalable, which is a great feature."
"The initial setup is straightforward; Azure Firewall does not have a complex implementation process. It is very simple; you just need to enable the service within Azure. It does not require any maintenance because it is managed by Microsoft, that is, it is a fully managed service."
"It provided ease of maintenance. If a new firewall was needed, we only had to run the pipelines for this. So, the maintenance was very easy."
"We use the solution for application and server deployment."
"It is easy for me to protect certain ports or even the IP addresses, as well as do whitelisting, blacklisting, and the FQDN when we want virtual machines connected and to protect certain websites."
"Azure's cost-effectiveness is its major advantage."
"The centralization capability is the most valuable feature of this solution as it enables us to monitor our systems efficiently."
"The WildFire reporting and Cortex XDR platform have huge infrastructures in the cloud that secures the network against threats. So, we have the potential on the system, specifically for users, where we take care of this since the user is the most dangerous. We get reports back from WildFire on a minute-by-minute basis, rather than a daily or weekly update like I used to with different AV vendors. These features can detect viruses and malware more quickly, which is super important."
"The performance of Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls is the most valuable feature."
"It has a unique approach to packet processing. It has single-pass architecture. We can easily perform policy lookups, application decoding, and integration or merging. This can be all done with a single pass. It effectively reduces the amount of processing required to perform multiple actions. This is the main advantage of using Palo Alto."
"Prisma Access is the most valuable feature of Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is the network protection."
"The sandboxing is valuable and they are frequently updating their signature database. We get new updates every five minutes. That makes it easy to detect new and unknown attacks."
"The fact that I can perform several security functions in one device at wire speed is a valuable feature. I don't have to slow down my business transactions, and I don't have to inconvenience my users with 16 different solutions. I can have it all in one box, and it protects my organization at wire speed."
"The cloud management and automation capability could be improved."
"Lacks sufficient security options."
"Fortinet FortiGate is a stable solution. However, my issue is the performance only. When I use all the profiles, this affects the performance. From the beginning, I should have had a better sizing of the box."
"Fortinet FortiGate can be integrated with different platforms. They have integrations in place, but I can't say they're 100%."
"When we cluster the two Fortinet FortiGate boxes together we have some issues."
"The solution's framework needs to be frequently updated in order to have a stable solution."
"Fortinet FortiGate can improve by integrating the web application firewall and the DDoS protection part of the solution. Having a WAF feature, web application firewall, and proxy together would be a good benefit."
"Its filtering is sometimes too precise or strict. We sometimes have to bypass and authorize some of the sites, but they get blocked. We know that they are trusted sites, but they are blocked, and we don't know why."
"The solution should incorporate features similar to competitors like split tunneling."
"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."
"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."
"It has fewer features than you can get from other firewalls, like anti-spam and anti-phishing. Those kinds of things are not included. It only includes IDS and IDB."
"Azure Firewall should have a free trial version for new users so that they can evaluate it before deploying it."
"The development area and QA area could be improved. With those improvements, we can improve projects and take even less time to implement them."
"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."
"An Azure firewall is not a real firewall."
"I don't deal with it from a day-to-day perspective, but I can say that the evidence that I typically need is there, but sometimes, it's a task to actually get it and pull it out. They can make it easier to gather that evidence."
"Palo Alto is like Microsoft. It has varied features, but it's too technical. A lot of the features could be simplified. The procedure, process, features, and usability could be more simple."
"Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls do not provide a unified platform that natively integrates all security capabilities."
"We have a lot of the older firewall models, i.e., the PA-220. It seems that with newer operating systems the PA-220 is becoming slower than when I first bought it. It is not really an issue for users who are passing traffic through the firewall, but more from the management access of it."
"Palo Alto can do a little bit better when it comes to the User-ID part. I've been facing problems related to double authentication. You have a computer user, but you also have a VPN user, and when you do a single sign-on to another page, these logs can sometimes generate a problem notification. It doesn't happen a lot, but in some networks, it could be a problem. It would be very helpful to have the ability to restrict the connections that you can have in your VPN. For example, if you have the credentials, you can connect with the same user account from different computers or devices. If you have the domain information, you can connect from different devices. That's a problem that they need to address and resolve. They should ensure that at any moment, only one person is connected through a specific user account."
"The support could be improved. Palo Alto does not have a support team located in Bangladesh, and their support team operates from another location. Therefore, when we raise a ticket, it takes some time for them to respond, which can be problematic for us."
"Most other VPN clients include mobile VPNs but Palo Alto does not."
"Palo Alto keeps coming out with antivirus and malware updates. When we have to integrate those updates we face some problems with the cloud platform, not the on-prem setup. The device works fine, but sometimes the sync doesn't happen on time."
More Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls Pricing and Cost Advice →
Azure Firewall is ranked 22nd in Firewalls with 9 reviews while Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls is ranked 6th in Firewalls with 76 reviews. Azure Firewall is rated 7.0, while Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls is rated 8.8. The top reviewer of Azure Firewall writes "Meets industry-level standards and compliance requirements, supports native load balances, and is comparably priced". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls writes "Provides zero trust implementation, more visibility, and eliminated security holes". Azure Firewall is most compared with Fortinet FortiGate-VM, Palo Alto Networks VM-Series, Check Point NGFW, Netgate pfSense and Cisco Secure Firewall, whereas Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls is most compared with Check Point NGFW, Meraki MX, Sophos XG, Netgate pfSense and Cisco Secure Firewall. See our Azure Firewall vs. Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls report.
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