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Azure Firewall Manager vs Microsoft Defender for Endpoint comparison

 

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
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
5.4
Number of Reviews
10
Ranking in other categories
Firewall Security Management (10th)
Microsoft Defender for Endp...
Ranking in Microsoft Security Suite
3rd
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
212
Ranking in other categories
Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) (2nd), Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) (5th), Anti-Malware Tools (1st), Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) (3rd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2026, in the Microsoft Security Suite category, the mindshare of Azure Firewall Manager is 1.2%, up from 0.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is 7.0%, down from 8.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Microsoft Security Suite Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Microsoft Defender for Endpoint7.0%
Azure Firewall Manager1.2%
Other91.8%
Microsoft Security Suite
 

Featured Reviews

Poornachandar  Madipoju - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior cloud Engineer at Softcell Technologies Limited
Centralized policies have streamlined multi-tenant security and now need better visibility tools
Azure Firewall Manager could be improved with better end-to-end visibility and more advanced policy simulation before deployment. We would also like more intuitive troubleshooting for rule conflicts, enhanced logging and analytics for policy impact analysis, and a more unified dashboard to simplify managing complex multi-region and multi-tenant firewall architecture. Another key improvement area for Azure Firewall Manager is better operational user experience for large-scale environments. We would benefit from more granular policy versioning and rollback controls, clearer change impact analysis before pushing updates, and deeper integration with monitoring tools to proactively detect misconfiguration or policy conflicts across hub and spoke deployments.
Robert Arbuckle - PeerSpot reviewer
Security Analyst III at a healthcare company with 10,001+ employees
Automatically isolates threats and integrates with logging to reduce response time
Overall, I would evaluate the Microsoft support level that I receive at probably about a seven, but that depends on the day. It has been spotty. We have had issues where the urgency level of the Microsoft support is not as high as ours, especially during a data breach or potential data breach situation. We have had issues with some of the offshore support being lackluster. One specific thing that comes to mind is we were on a support call with our CISO on the call, and the Microsoft agent, who did not actually work for Microsoft, is one of the vendors that Microsoft uses for support, said, "Just to set expectations, my lunch break is in an hour and I am going to go away then." For us, it was already ten o'clock at night and we had been working on this for a couple of hours, trying to get a security engineer on with us. For him to tell us that he was going to go away and have lunch, it was, "Okay, but go find somebody else if you need to." It was just the lackluster approach, and it seemed like he did not really care. We seem to get a lot of this when we get non-Microsoft support. I can identify areas for improvement with Microsoft Defender for Endpoint, as it is kind of a convoluted mess to try to take care of false positives. Especially when they have been identified as false positives but they keep going off over and over again. It is great for my pocketbook because it generates a lot of on-call action, but I would really prefer more sleep at two o'clock in the morning than dealing with false positives. I would say that the unified portal for managing Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is suitable for both teams as they are all in there. It would be great if they would stop moving things around and renaming things, which makes sense. The new XDR portal is pretty nice. Being able to have it central again inside of the regular Security Center without having to open up two windows is helpful. Overall, I think it is pretty good. There is always going to be something that could be improved, such as alerting and the ability to modify alerts would be a little bit helpful to have. Being able to add more data into the alerts and turn off alerts that are not as useful would be beneficial. It is hard to say what the quantitative impact the security exposure management feature has had on our company's security, because a lot of it is kind of subjective. I think we are sitting at around a fifty percent score still, and a lot of it is just kind of unusual circumstances that we cannot really implement without breaking the organization.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The solution is very easy to set up."
"Firewall policy management time reduced by 40 to 50% due to centralized control and reduced per-firewall configuration work."
"The most valuable feature of Azure Firewall Manager is the testing and configuration."
"The best feature of Azure Firewall Manager is that it is easy to maintain and configure."
"The tool's support is good."
"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."
"The most valuable feature is the web firewall, as 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 attack surface reduction rules are the most valuable. We're able to have unattended remediation actions when the solution works side by side with a local antivirus like Microsoft Defender or Kaspersky. The attack surface reduction rules help us to proactively block and stop threats."
"Overall, I was pretty impressed by it."
"The solution comes with SIEM-ingestion-ready features for extensive visibility, automation, and integration, including advanced hunting, threats and vulnerability management, embedded simulation for end-to-end testing, ransomware prevention (Controlled Folder Access), and Attack Surface Reduction (ASR) rules."
"The most valuable aspect is information, specifically the automatic investigation of packages."
"The solution has an easy-to-use interface, is always updated, and is user-friendly."
"It's got good detection rates, low on system resources, doesn't interfere or hamper workflows, and it's easy to use."
"The comprehensiveness of Microsoft threat-protection products is great."
"The antivirus is the most valuable feature."
 

Cons

"Microsoft was unable to fully solve the problem with email phishing and spamming."
"The price is okay. This said, the solution is certainly expensive in comparison with other cloud services."
"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."
"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."
"Customer support is good, and the response time is sometimes late for complex issues, but for simple issues, the response time is very low."
"With Azure Firewall, the problem is that the NAT-ing still has to be improved."
"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 frequency of the patching, and the frequency of the updates, are not included with the free version."
"It is currently more suitable for end-users rather than enterprises with lots of other processes and third-party tools. It needs improvement on that front. We had many issues while integrating it with our enterprise solutions, such as Splunk, and third-party tools. It provides everything via APIs. Other vendors provide integration with third-party tools, but Microsoft doesn't do that. It is also logging too much and is not serialized from the process aspect. It has all the data, but it is not in a proper format or not properly indexed, which doesn't make it easier for enterprises to use this data. Other vendors provide troubleshooting information that can be used to troubleshoot issues, but Microsoft doesn't provide anything like that."
"It could be easier when it comes to managing exceptions."
"They can improve it on the online protection front since people nowadays are moving online and working from home."
"Microsoft has some creative accounting when they promise an SLA of 99.99%. But it is generally good."
"I think Microsoft needs to improve some of the security aspects of Defender. The email part, in particular, needs to be improved in terms of security effectiveness."
"The GUI is very complex, particularly for normal users who work on it."
"It would be nice to have a paid upgrade that would provide additional screening of the day-to-day activities."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution is certainly expensive in comparison with other cloud services."
"The price of the solution is reasonable but it is reasonable for the features."
"Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is more affordable compared to some other endpoint solutions."
"Pricing can always be lower."
"The license cost is around $35 per machine, which is not expensive compared to other products."
"When compared with other vendors, the pricing is very high."
"Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is an expensive solution."
"Licensing options vary. Some customers buy it as an enterprise agreement and pay yearly. Others buy it as a CSP, so they pay per month. It completely depends on the customer's needs."
"I pay for it through the Windows Professional or Standard license. It is a one-time cost for me, and I use the same license."
"There are different licenses, such as E3 and E5."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Construction Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Computer Software Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Computer Software Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business4
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise2
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business82
Midsize Enterprise45
Large Enterprise96
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Azure Firewall Manager?
Our experience with Azure Firewall Manager is that pricing is primarily driven by the underlying Azure Firewall data processing and logging and monitoring costs rather than the manager itself. Setu...
What needs improvement with Azure Firewall Manager?
Azure Firewall Manager could be improved with better end-to-end visibility and more advanced policy simulation before deployment. We would also like more intuitive troubleshooting for rule conflict...
What is your primary use case for Azure Firewall Manager?
Azure Firewall Manager is used primarily for centralized private firewall policy management, securing hub and spoke network architecture, and enforcing consistent security controls across multiple ...
How is Cortex XDR compared with Microsoft Defender?
Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is a cloud-delivered endpoint security solution. The tool reduces the attack surface, applies behavioral-based endpoint protection and response, and includes risk-ba...
Which offers better endpoint security - Symantec or Microsoft Defender?
We use Symantec because we do not use MS Enterprise products, but in my opinion, Microsoft Defender is a superior solution. Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is a cloud-delivered endpoint security s...
How does Microsoft Defender for Endpoint compare with Crowdstrike Falcon?
The CrowdStrike solution delivers a lot of information about incidents. It has a very light sensor that will never push your machine hardware to "test", you don't have the usual "scan now" feature ...
 

Also Known As

No data available
Microsoft Defender ATP, Microsoft Defender Advanced Threat Protection, MS Defender for Endpoint, Microsoft Defender Antivirus
 

Interactive Demo

Demo not available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Petrofrac, Metro CSG, Christus Health
Find out what your peers are saying about Azure Firewall Manager vs. Microsoft Defender for Endpoint and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.
900,644 professionals have used our research since 2012.