Azure Firewall Manager vs FireMon Security Manager comparison

Azure Firewall Manager vs. FireMon Security Manager

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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

Azure Firewall Manager

Ranking in Firewall Security Management

10th

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

4.8

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Microsoft Security Suite (26th)

FireMon Security Manager

Ranking in Firewall Security Management

3rd

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

7.7

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2026, in the Firewall Security Management category, the mindshare of Azure Firewall Manager is 2.5%, up from 1.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of FireMon Security Manager is 17.7%, up from 16.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Firewall Security Management Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
FireMon Security Manager	17.7%
Azure Firewall Manager	2.5%
Other	79.8%

Firewall Security Management

Featured Reviews

Sikkander Batcha

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.

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SurajYadav

Network Security Consultant at NTT DATA

Centralized policy governance has reduced audit effort and continuously improves risk visibility

I wish to see deeper and more customizable reporting and dashboards, as while the standard reports are useful for audits, operational teams sometimes need real-time, flexible views without exporting data. Tighter integrations with ticketing and change management tools would also enhance the workflow from request to implementation. FireMon Security Manager is excellent for policy governance and risk reduction, but better real-time dashboards and stronger workflow integrations would make it even more powerful for daily operations. There are one or two areas where FireMon Security Manager could be improved to make it even stronger. While FireMon Security Manager overall delivers solid governance and risk insight, it would benefit from more flexible dashboards and deeper integrations to reduce manual steps and improve visibility without relying on external tools. I rate FireMon Security Manager an 8 out of 10. It is a strong tool for firewall policy management, risk analysis, and compliance, clearly improving our audit process and policy governance. The reason I do not give it a 9 out of 10 is mainly because the dashboard could be more flexible and integration with the firewalls could be smoother. FireMon Security Manager is a reliable and high-value platform for managing and governing firewall policies, especially in a multi-vendor environment, though a few areas can still be improved.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"From a traffic management perspective, it's a good firewall because it's automatically scalable based on the traffic availability."

"The solution is very easy to set up."

"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."

"The most valuable feature of Azure Firewall Manager is the testing and configuration."

"The tool's support is good."

"Azure Firewall Manager centralizes network security management with a hub and spoke architecture."

More Azure Firewall Manager pros

"I like the Security Manager console where we can see any changes that have been made or pull the results of an assessment and control the policies that we implement."

"When it comes to real-time compliance management, it is very good because it is able to compare changes in the configuration as well as giving us a timestamp. It also sends email alerts to our environment so we know if someone has made a change on the network. It gives us the whole picture of that change. Whether it is a configuration change or just a small comment, it gives us the before and after snapshot."

"It provides us with a single pane of glass for our on-prem environment, to see configuration. We have not implemented into the cloud yet. We can search for an object group and see where it lives on any firewall in the enterprise or find security rules, no matter what firewall they're on."

"FireMon decreases errors and misconfigurations by 10% that increase risk in our environment. That has to do a lot with the change reporting that is in place, but also with the built-in controls and custom controls that we have made. Those all decrease the errors that people naturally make on a day-to-day basis for firewall administration."

"The automation that the platform provides to create tickets reduces human error and more generally, reduces the operational overhead."

"The firewall assessment feature is great."

"Its user-friendly interface allows for easy viewing and searching of network policies, including proxies, all on one console."

"Vendor agnostic when it comes to integrating with other product."

More FireMon Security Manager pros

Cons

"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."

"The configuration and settings require substantial time for learning, particularly for new users. Improvements in ease of configuration would benefit users significantly."

"The solution can improve the integration with open-source tools."

"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."

"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."

"The configuration and settings require substantial time for learning, particularly for new users."

"Azure charges for many aspects including scaling, automated scaling deployment, and traffic management, which leads to higher costs."

More Azure Firewall Manager cons

"FireMon could be made more user-friendly when it comes to creating filters or conducting traffic analysis."

"The training for configuring new users or operators is confusing because the UI is not user-friendly and has room for improvement."

"One area for 7.x customers that needs improvement is the migration. It is an involved process so get ready to spend some time getting your environment back to the way it was."

"The advanced features are complex in setting up the rules."

"When it comes to real-time compliance management, something that is missing is alerting on certain, predefined controls. It would be good to have a predefined set of controls which, if not complied with in a newly set up rule, would create an alert for us. That is something that is missing, out-of-the-box."

"We've had recurring issues managing FireMon's internal backups. Sometimes, the space allocated for the backup is full, and there is no process where it deletes files that are older than I certain date. It's just waiting for the storage to get full and then it's cleaned up. It isn't something that creates serious issues for us."

"I don't like that it comes with bugs, constant issues, and limited functionality."

"I ran a report and FireMon suggested that certain tools were not used. When I removed them, while it didn't bring our environment down completely, a lot of our environment started malfunctioning. Our backup system did not work, nor did other things that involve internal and external communication. We are not comfortable with what it did."

More FireMon Security Manager cons

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."

"We pay for it yearly."

"Its pricing is good. Compared to others, it is not so expensive."

"Relative to what it offers, the price is fair."

"Regarding additional costs, if you want things like Policy Optimizer, extra features, that's extra."

"We don't license all of the devices in our network, so it does not provide us with a comprehensive visibility of all devices in a hybrid network at this time."

"Pricing is reasonable."

"The pricing was very good during our initial year, but they increased it this year a little bit. The price is okay. It is not cheap, but it is still average."

"This is an expensive solution. The cost of three modules for three years was approximately one million."

More FireMon Security Manager pricing and cost advice

See which vendors are best for you

Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Firewall Security Management solutions are best for your needs.

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884,873 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

16%

Computer Software Company

15%

Educational Organization

University

Financial Services Firm

12%

Manufacturing Company

12%

Computer Software Company

10%

Comms Service Provider

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	4
Midsize Enterprise	2
Large Enterprise	2

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	9
Midsize Enterprise	9
Large Enterprise	46

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?

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 do you like most about FireMon?

I like the Security Manager console where we can see any changes that have been made or pull the results of an assessment and control the policies that we implement.

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for FireMon?

Our experience with FireMon Security Manager's pricing and licensing is that it is on the higher side, but justified for a large, regulated environment. The setup cost and licensing made sense give...

What needs improvement with FireMon?

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Comparisons

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Azure Firewall vs Azure Firewall Manager

Compared 15% of the time

AlgoSec vs Azure Firewall Manager

Compared 14% of the time

Palo Alto Networks Panorama vs Azure Firewall Manager

Compared 11% of the time

Microsoft Defender for Cloud vs Azure Firewall Manager

Compared 8% of the time

More Azure Firewall Manager Competitors

Tufin Orchestration Suite vs FireMon Security Manager

Compared 36% of the time

AlgoSec vs FireMon Security Manager

Compared 33% of the time

Skybox Security Suite vs FireMon Security Manager

Compared 7% of the time

Palo Alto Networks Panorama vs FireMon Security Manager

Compared 6% of the time

Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center vs FireMon Security Manager

Compared 2% of the time

More FireMon Security Manager Competitors

Product Reports

Azure Firewall Manager

Download Azure Firewall Manager product report

FireMon Security Manager

Download FireMon Security Manager product report

Overview

Azure Firewall Manager is a security management service that provides central security policy and route management for cloud-based security perimeters.

To learn more about our solution, ask questions, and share feedback, join our Microsoft Security, Compliance and Identity Community.

Microsoft

The increasing complexity of networks, driven by the constant influx of new devices, applications, and cloud services, presents a daunting challenge for managing firewall policies and rules. A typical enterprise environment has millions of rules, and just one simple misconfiguration can lead to devastating consequences like compliance violations, outages, and data breaches.

FireMon’s Security Manager is a purpose-built network security policy management (NSPM) platform that automates the management of firewall and cloud security policies to eliminate policy-related risk, accurately and quickly change rules, and meet internal and external compliance requirements.

Reduce Risk Manage risk with real-time visibility and control
Manage Change Avoid misconfigurations, accelerate business, and improve security
Enforce and Maintain Compliance Avoid violations, avoid risk, and avoid fines

FireMon

Sample Customers

Information Not Available

Convey, MGM Resorts International, Southwest Airlines, Alkami, Costco, Aetna, IBM, Verizon, Wells Fargo

Azure Firewall Manager vs. FireMon Security Manager