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Azure Firewall Manager vs Cisco Security Cloud Control comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Feb 8, 2026

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 Manager
Ranking in Firewall Security Management
10th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
4.8
Number of Reviews
9
Ranking in other categories
Microsoft Security Suite (26th)
Cisco Security Cloud Control
Ranking in Firewall Security Management
13th
Average Rating
8.2
Number of Reviews
15
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2026, in the Firewall Security Management category, the mindshare of Azure Firewall Manager is 2.5%, up from 1.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Cisco Security Cloud Control is 2.7%, up from 1.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Firewall Security Management Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Azure Firewall Manager2.5%
Cisco Security Cloud Control2.7%
Other94.8%
Firewall Security Management
 

Featured Reviews

Sikkander  Batcha - PeerSpot reviewer
DevOps Engineer at CloudIQ
Has managed traffic effectively but lacks visibility and advanced control features
Azure Firewall is typically behind other vendor firewalls because we don't see what kind of traffic is traveling through it. That is one drawback. The main drawback is that we need log support from Azure Firewall, which can be quite costly. There is no login feature in Azure Firewall because only the IAM feature is available in the Azure site; we manage it only through the Azure portal, not through any other portal. Other vendors, such as Palo Alto, provide GUI or CLI interfaces to manage their firewalls, whereas we only manage Azure Firewall through the Azure portal. In the future, I would like to see additional features in Azure Firewall Manager to make it more competitive, such as technologies like App-ID and User-ID that Palo Alto has. Azure Firewall currently only allows traffic based on layer four and sometimes layer seven, so they need to improve in those areas compared to other vendors.
FS
Security Engineer at Metrobank
Automation reduces intervention and speeds up threat prevention
Our primary use case for Cisco Defense Orchestrator is the automation of playbooks. We primarily use it for this purpose to streamline processes The most valuable feature is the automation, as it reduces user intervention and allows us to focus on other tasks. Since the system is automated,…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The most valuable feature of Azure Firewall Manager is the testing and configuration."
"It is easy to install and does not require any plugins for your browser."
"Azure Firewall Manager centralizes network security management with a hub and spoke architecture."
"Azure Firewall Manager centralizes network security management with a hub and spoke architecture."
"We are utilizing Azure Entra ID for group labeling, so Active Directory, or now it is Entra ID, securing our application for everyone who accesses it, and Azure Firewall Manager is definitely securing our projects and all its features are fine."
"The solution has improved our organization with its firewall."
"From a traffic management perspective, it's a good firewall because it's automatically scalable based on the traffic availability."
"From a traffic management perspective, it's a good firewall because it's automatically scalable based on the traffic availability."
"If our server is blocked, this solution shows us why it is blocked and allows us to update the network routing."
"The initial setup was straightforward. We spun up the VM onsite. We generated the key that it needed to talk to the Cloud Orchestrator. After that, as I started adding devices, it was relatively quick and easy."
"With Cisco Defense Orchestrator, we can manage the complete Cisco Security solution. It provides a simple and centralized way to manage all products."
"The most valuable feature is the automation, as it reduces user intervention and allows us to focus on other tasks."
"The most valuable feature is the automation, as it reduces user intervention and allows us to focus on other tasks."
"When we're looking to the policies, it identifies the shadow rules. It notifies us about anything that will supersede other rules."
"I like the upgrade feature. That is pretty valuable to me because I have dual ASAs and when I go through CDO it does it for me pretty well. It's all done in the back-end and I don't really have to be involved. I just initiate, pick the image, and I pick when I want it done and it just does it, whether I have a single ASA or have a dual ASA."
"This product provides excellent centralized device controls and reporting."
 

Cons

"The solution can improve the integration with open-source tools."
"The tool's security features need to improve. It needs also to include a monitoring system for logs. It is also complicated to find a query on the Azure firewall."
"Azure charges for many aspects including scaling, automated scaling deployment, and traffic management, which leads to higher costs."
"For Azure Firewall Manager, the learning curve for new people is a bit challenging, but the integration should be more straightforward for configuring a centralized system."
"The cost is a significant concern because we are in a region where the dollar is not our default currency, and converting to dollars makes it very expensive."
"Azure charges for many aspects including scaling, automated scaling deployment, and traffic management, which leads to higher costs."
"We could do only one-way NAT-ing, where the traffic comes from outside to internal, to Azure, which is fine. However, when we actually do NAT-ed traffic to hit the firewall, that way is not working."
"The price is okay. This said, the solution is certainly expensive in comparison with other cloud services."
"Cisco Defense Orchestrator should be made more user-friendly overall."
"The main thing that would useful for us would the logging and monitoring. I have to check it out, to get the beta, because I don't have access to them... I wanted CDO to be a central place so where I could do everything but right now I don't think that's possible. I really don't want to go back and forth between this and FMC. Maybe the logging portion, when I look at it, will give me some similarities."
"If I make a change locally to the firewall, CDO gives an alarm or an error message and says there's a change in compliance: "The firewall has this configuration but the last time it was compiled it had that configuration." That view of new changes versus the old could be better... I had to log in manually, locally on the firewall, to check which version, which configuration was actually running. I couldn't see it in CDO."
"They need to work on the user interface. It needs to be improved to make it more user-friendly."
"They can centralize all products and provide a correlation about an incident and the response. They can also provide an on-premises solution. Currently, Cisco Defense Orchestrator is just for cloud deployments, not for on-premises deployments. Customers have to manage it on the cloud. We are based in Vietnam, and most of the customers here prefer to have on-premises deployments. Customers, especially from banking and government sectors, do not prefer to do anything on the cloud. Some of the small enterprises use the cloud."
"The dashboard needs to be more customizable to provide better reporting for our network."
"We had some MX devices that were blocking Windows Update from happening. We found out it was a Meraki issue, but it would have been nice if it had been flagged for us: "Hey, these updates are failing because the MX is blocking it." It wasn't a huge problem, but there was a loss of our time as well as the fact that the updates didn't get pushed out... It would have been nice if CDO had let us know that that was an issue."
"CDO doesn't have a report, an official report that I can check daily. It has another module called FTD, but it doesn't have that specifically for ASA. In the reporting, there are a lot of things that aren't there. There is also room for improvement in the daily monitoring."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price of the solution is reasonable but it is reasonable for the features."
"The solution is certainly expensive in comparison with other cloud services."
"If you compare to what is available on the market, they are in the same range with respect to pricing."
"It is covered under the CIsco Enterprise License Agreement (ELA). So, it is licensed and ours."
"It is about a $100 per year for an ASA 5506 firewall, and from there it keeps going up if you have a bigger box. For example, the 5516 is $200 to $300 per year."
"It's around £500 per unit for a three-year license."
"After our free trial was done we got a subscription for three years and it was under $3,000 or so. It's part of the EA we already paid for, so I don't know what it would be if it was a la carte."
"I work with a lot of clients, and the price or value of the Cisco Defense Orchestrator can vary from one client to another. If you have a lot of Cisco solutions, the price of the Cisco Defense Orchestrator is justified. Whereas if you have some security components from other vendors, such as Check Point or Palo Alto. This solution would be a pretty expensive proposition considering that they don't integrate with them well."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
18%
Financial Services Firm
18%
Educational Organization
7%
University
5%
Computer Software Company
23%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Performing Arts
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business4
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise2
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business6
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise6
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Azure Firewall Manager?
The pricing for Azure Firewall Manager is expensive. In our project, we have used both Palo Alto Firewall and Azure Firewall. Azure charges for many aspects including scaling, automated scaling dep...
What needs improvement with Azure Firewall Manager?
Azure Firewall is typically behind other vendor firewalls because we don't see what kind of traffic is traveling through it. That is one drawback. The main drawback is that we need log support from...
What is your primary use case for Azure Firewall Manager?
My customers are using Azure Firewall Manager, so I'm learning from both documentation and practical knowledge. I usually recommend Azure Firewall Manager for projects such as an animal hospital pr...
What needs improvement with Cisco Defense Orchestrator?
Cisco Defense Orchestrator should be made more user-friendly overall. Currently, to use it effectively, one must be specific with the rule set that needs to be set up. Additionally, I suggest impro...
What is your primary use case for Cisco Defense Orchestrator?
Our primary use case for Cisco Defense Orchestrator is the automation of playbooks. We primarily use it for this purpose to streamline processes.
What advice do you have for others considering Cisco Defense Orchestrator?
Those who want to use Cisco Defense Orchestrator should build their own use case and see if it fits their environment. The most significant benefit for us is the response time because it automates ...
 

Also Known As

No data available
Cisco Defense Orchestrator, CDO
 

Interactive Demo

Demo not available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Insurance Company of British Columbia, Shawmut
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881,733 professionals have used our research since 2012.