We compared Palo Alto Networks VM-Series and Azure Firewall based on our user's reviews in several parameters.
The Palo Alto Networks VM-Series is praised for its strong security measures, effective threat prevention, and reliable customer support, offering scalability and flexible pricing. On the other hand, Azure Firewall is commended for its seamless integration with Azure services, robust security capabilities, and excellent customer service from Microsoft, but could benefit from enhancements in logging and reporting capabilities, rule customization, and user interface improvements.
Features: According to user feedback, the most valuable features of Palo Alto Networks VM-Series are its strong security measures, comprehensive firewall capabilities, effective threat prevention, and seamless integration with existing infrastructure. In contrast, Azure Firewall is praised for its robust security capabilities, seamless integration with other Azure services, comprehensive monitoring and logging functionality, user-friendly interface, and excellent support from Microsoft.
Pricing and ROI: The setup cost for Palo Alto Networks VM-Series is considered to be affordable and straightforward, with flexible licensing options. In comparison, Azure Firewall also offers a reasonable pricing and straightforward setup cost, with a hassle-free licensing process., The Palo Alto Networks VM-Series offers increased network security, threat prevention, and visibility, along with scalability and flexibility. Users have praised its comprehensive features and responsive support. On the other hand, Azure Firewall enhances ROI by offering cost-effectiveness, improved security measures, and reliable performance.
Room for Improvement: Palo Alto Networks VM-Series could improve its user interface, documentation, performance, integration with third-party apps, supported platforms, and reporting capabilities. Azure Firewall could benefit from advanced logging and reporting, better customization options, and an improved user interface.
Deployment and customer support: The user reviews for Palo Alto Networks VM-Series show a varying duration for establishing a new tech solution, with some users spending three months on deployment and an additional week on setup. On the other hand, the reviews for Azure Firewall also mention a varying duration, with some users spending three months on deployment and an additional week on setup. However, for users who required a week for both deployment and setup, it can be assumed that these terms refer to the same period and should not be considered separately., The customer service for the Palo Alto Networks VM-Series product has been highly rated and reliable, with customers speaking highly of the professional, prompt, and knowledgeable assistance provided. On the other hand, Azure Firewall also receives positive responses for its excellent customer service, with users appreciating the prompt and helpful assistance provided by the Azure team. Both products ensure users feel supported and valued.
The summary above is based on 27 interviews we conducted recently with Palo Alto Networks VM-Series and Azure Firewall users. To access the review's full transcripts, download our report.
"We use the FortiGate Sandbox to detect zero-day vulnerabilities, such as anomalies or malware, that are unknown and have not yet been discovered."
"The UTM feature is quite good. FortiAP is easy to deploy because both Fortigate and FortiAP are under the same brand. Otherwise, you need to do more work on the configuration."
"The product is easy to use and is stable. The SV1 functionality is a benefit."
"You can purchase switches and you don't need to do anything with them. You just put in the firewall and the switches get all the policies and rules that you already have in the firewall. With Fortinet, you just connect the FortiSwitch to the Fortinet and that's it."
"I like Fortinet FortiGate's antispam filter, SPN, and clustering features."
"The most valuable feature of Fortinet FortiGate is the simple configuration."
"The inspection and web security features are most valuable."
"FortiGate Secure SD-WAN includes best-of-breed next-generation firewall (NGFW) security, SD-WAN, advanced routing, and WAN optimization capabilities, delivering a security-driven networking WAN edge transformation in a unified offering."
"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."
"The most valuable feature is the integration into the overall cloud platform."
"Microsoft's technical support is very good. They're quite knowledgable and responsive."
"Performance and stability are the key features of this product."
"The solution can autoscale."
"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."
"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."
"We secure the entry point to the virtual data center with the firewall."
"The most effective features of the solution for threat prevention are Layer 7 inspection, SSL decryption, IPS, and the web filtering profile."
"We can monitor the traffic manually and detect threats. Additionally, we can block different IP addresses and URLs."
"The most valuable feature is the Posture Assessment."
"The most valuable features are security and support."
"It gives us the ease that we are secure. We have set up the proper things that help make our data safe."
"In Palo Alto the most important feature is the App-ID."
"The most valuable features of the solution are its stability, ease of implementation, ease of operation, and security."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is the zero-trust security architecture."
"The Wi-Fi controller needs a lot of improvement."
"The logging details need to be improved."
"There are some problems that support cannot give you a logical reason as to why it happened. For example, I had a case where I was dealing with a WhatsApp application that was giving issues. Technical support gave more than one reason it could be giving issues, but none of them solved the problem. Eventually I solved the problem, but it was far from the solutions that support had given."
"The updates Fortinet provides are sometimes unstable."
"The UTM filtering needs improvement."
"Fortinet FortiGate should improve the VPN tokens."
"The solution lacks multi-language support."
"The inability to scale the FortiAnalyzer to match our growth necessitates the purchase of new hardware."
"For larger enterprises, they need to adjust the scalability."
"The product could be made more customizable."
"We find it's different implementing it region-to-region. It might help if it was universal across all regions."
"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."
"The solution lacks artificial intelligence and machine learning. It might be in the roadmap. However, currently, it's not available."
"You have to have a defined IP range within your network to associate it with your network. The problem is you have to plan ahead of time if you expect to use the firewall in the future so that you don't have to reconfigure your subnets or that specific IP range. Other than that, I don't any issues. I use it for basic configuration for a single application, so I really don't try to leverage it for multiple applications where I might find some complexity or challenges."
"It would be nice to be able to create groupings for servers and offer groups of IP addresses."
"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."
"On the cloud side, they need to come up with more HA solutions to support the multi-region."
"The web interface is very slow, and it needs to be faster."
"They made only a halfhearted attempt to put in DLP (Data Loss Prevention)."
"The product could provide protection above Layer 3, which gets into the application layer and provides better visibility into those aspects of application security."
"The tool is very costly."
"From time to time, they have released some content updates that have some issues, maybe twice a year."
"We don't know how it will scale once we start putting more load on it."
"There could be dynamic DNS features similar to Fortinet in the product."
Azure Firewall is ranked 17th in Firewalls with 33 reviews while Palo Alto Networks VM-Series is ranked 10th in Firewalls with 50 reviews. Azure Firewall is rated 7.2, while Palo Alto Networks VM-Series is rated 8.6. The top reviewer of Azure Firewall writes "Easy to use and configure but could be more robust". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Palo Alto Networks VM-Series writes "Many features are optimized for troubleshooting real-time scenarios, saving a lot of time". Azure Firewall is most compared with Fortinet FortiGate-VM, Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls, Microsoft Defender for Cloud, Check Point NGFW and Cisco Secure Firewall, whereas Palo Alto Networks VM-Series is most compared with Fortinet FortiGate-VM, Cisco Secure Firewall, Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls, Juniper SRX Series Firewall and Huawei NGFW. See our Azure Firewall vs. Palo Alto Networks VM-Series report.
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