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Azure Firewall Manager vs Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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 Microsoft Security Suite
25th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
5.4
Number of Reviews
9
Ranking in other categories
Firewall Security Management (10th)
Microsoft Defender for Clou...
Ranking in Microsoft Security Suite
13th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
42
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB) (6th), Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) (19th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2026, in the Microsoft Security Suite category, the mindshare of Azure Firewall Manager is 1.5%, up from 0.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps is 3.8%, up from 3.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Microsoft Security Suite Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps3.8%
Azure Firewall Manager1.5%
Other94.7%
Microsoft Security Suite
 

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.
reviewer2777910 - PeerSpot reviewer
Partner & Chief Executive Officer at a consultancy with 51-200 employees
Enforces dynamic policies and blocks risky behaviors to safeguard sensitive data
The fidelity of the signal in Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps has been a challenge in some areas. There have been instances where the alerts generated have been false positives. A lot of work has to go into scoping and tuning the policies so that actual value can be achieved, especially when not doing outright blocks. When monitoring is the approach, it can be overwhelming for security teams to review all of the alerts and determine which ones require action. When a legitimate alert is found that requires action, the tools are available to take that direction, but it can take considerable time to determine if an alert is real or not, and that represents a problem. There is uncertainty about how well Microsoft is keeping up with the changing landscape of threats, as new artificial intelligence services and software as a service applications appear every day.

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 has improved our organization with its firewall."
"The most valuable feature of Azure Firewall Manager is the testing and configuration."
"Azure Firewall Manager centralizes network security management with a hub and spoke architecture."
"The best feature of Azure Firewall Manager is that it is easy to maintain and configure."
"It has helped us in multiple ways; for example, we don't require different spaces to manage it, we can do a lot of automation integrations into the code, we could integrate it into the DevOps pipeline, and it has helped us with our time-to-market for a very specific product when we are actually deploying or upgrading."
"I would definitely recommend the solution to my clients, especially if one is using Azure Cloud."
"The most valuable feature is the web firewall, as it is easy to install and does not require any plugins for your browser."
"The most valuable feature is the ease of management. It's important."
"We have seen a 35% to 45% cost reduction with this solution."
"From what I've seen, it's a good product."
"The most valuable features of Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps include live, up-to-date information, which provided real-time alerts, and the ability to delve into detailed metadata information."
"The solution is helping a lot; we get very detailed reporting on security that really shows what users are doing, including what they've opened, what they're sharing, downloading, viewing, and when they are logging in."
"Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps is very comprehensive, providing a complete 360-degree view of applications within an organization."
"The major benefit is that it is a Microsoft tool, so if you're in a Microsoft ecosystem, this is the best tool that you can get in the market."
"If your business requirements are relatively simple, it can get the job done."
 

Cons

"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."
"Azure charges for many aspects including scaling, automated scaling deployment, and traffic management, which leads to higher costs."
"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 price is okay. This said, the solution is certainly expensive in comparison with other cloud services."
"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 solution can improve the integration with open-source tools."
"There should be a simple one-click deployment for a firewall, rather than a set of setup instructions that include steps such as the DNS configuration, et cetera."
"Microsoft was unable to fully solve the problem with email phishing and spamming."
"Sometimes, we'll get false positive alarms. For example, when a SharePoint path has no file sharing, but there is an external user, it will trigger an alarm that the file has been shared with an external user... the alerting mechanism should be more precise when giving you an alert about what activity has been done with the file..."
"They should continue integration with all other Microsoft security-related products. The integration with all the other products is still ongoing."
"The interface needs to be more user-friendly."
"The technical support team has room for improvement."
"Currently, reporting is not very straightforward and it needs to be enhanced. Specific reports are not included and you need to run a query, drill down, and then export it and share it. I would love to have reports with more fine-tuning or granularity, and more predefined reports."
"Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps’s technical support services needs improvement."
"We are having trouble with our continuous reporting configuration and struggling with configuring the collector properly with our log parsing. We've also faced difficulties getting support for this issue. It's taken us months to figure this out after going through a couple of different support channels."
"We've had an issue where an in-session policy was not working."
 

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 utilize the Microsoft E5 licensing, which encompasses the entire Microsoft suite; however, it is costly."
"I'm not totally involved in the pricing part, but I think its pricing is quite aggressive, and its price is quite similar to Netskope. Netskope has separate licensing fees or additional charges if you want to monitor certain SaaS services, whereas, with MCAS, you get 5,000 applications with their Office 365. It is all bundled, and there's no cost for using that. You only have the operational costs. In the country I am in, it is a bit difficult to get people with the required skill sets."
"We have an educational licensing agreement. It's a customer agreement for multiple years."
"The pricing is fair."
"Where we are right now, this is an acceptable pricing. I would like to see more transparency given to the end user. The end user given to us is via the cloud service provider. There are different programs and license models. Some include this, and some include that. It is all over the place. There can be a little more consistency or simplification in the pricing so that your parts list is not ten pages long, and you are not trying to determine, "If I have an E3, does this cover that?", or "Do I need to pay separately for the license?" Simplification would probably be better."
"This product is not expensive."
"The pricing is a little bit high but right now, we are okay with it because of the compatibility with Office 365, Teams, and Azure AD."
"It is a little bit expensive. When you want to have the complete package with Office 365, Defender, and everything else, it is expensive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Construction Company
10%
Computer Software Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Computer Software Company
7%
Outsourcing Company
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 Business15
Midsize Enterprise13
Large Enterprise19
 

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...
Which is the better security solution - Cisco Umbrella or Microsoft Cloud App Security?
Cisco Umbrella is an integral component of the Cisco SASE architecture. It integrates security in a single, cloud-native solution, unifying multiple features like DNS-layer security, threat intelli...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Microsoft Cloud App Security?
At the time of implementation, when the size of our organization was small, it was a more affordable product. Since all our productivity applications were on O365, Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps...
What needs improvement with Microsoft Cloud App Security?
The fidelity of the signal in Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps has been a challenge in some areas. There have been instances where the alerts generated have been false positives. A lot of work has...
 

Also Known As

No data available
MS Cloud App Security, Microsoft Cloud App Security
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Customers for Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps include Accenture, St. Luke’s University Health Network, Ansell, and Nakilat.
Find out what your peers are saying about Azure Firewall Manager vs. Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
920,769 professionals have used our research since 2012.