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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

"From a traffic management perspective, it's a good firewall because it's automatically scalable based on the traffic availability."
"Azure Firewall Manager centralizes network security management with a hub and spoke architecture."
"The most valuable feature is the web firewall, as it is easy to install and does not require any plugins for your browser."
"The best feature of Azure Firewall Manager is that it is easy to maintain and configure."
"The solution has improved our organization with its firewall."
"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."
"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."
"Firewall policy management time reduced by 40 to 50% due to centralized control and reduced per-firewall configuration work."
"What I found most valuable in Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is that it's out-of-the-box, which brings more value to the customer. The technical support for the product is also one of the best parts, because it's good, in terms of the product knowledge of the technical engineers."
"The integration with all variations of Microsoft Defender, for Endpoint, 365, and Cloud is valuable."
"This is not an inventory solution, but it helps you take count of how many workstations you have, as well as what software is installed on each of them."
"One of the features which differentiates it from other EDR providers is the Automated Investigation and Response, which reduces the workload of SOC analysts or engineers. They don't have to manually investigate each and every alert on the endpoint, since it does so automatically. And you can automate the investigation part."
"The most valuable features are that it is flexible, and it is integrated with Microsoft products."
"Overall, this solution has helped us save 30% to 40% of our time, and our time to detect and respond has decreased by around 40 to 50%."
"I enjoy using the live response feature, which allows me to remotely access different endpoints and investigate malicious files, such as malware that people may have downloaded, and other related issues."
"What the Defender platform does is that it reduces the size of the haystack, and it'll say that the needle is over here."
 

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 solution can improve the integration with open-source tools."
"Customer support is good, and the response time is sometimes late for complex issues, but for simple issues, the response time is very low."
"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."
"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 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."
"From an audit point of view, our auditors would like to have more reports on how things are used, if things go wrong, and how they went wrong. For example, if something got a warning, "Why?" So, we would like more versatility for tracing and reporting. That would improve the product, as long as the user interface doesn't get bogged down."
"Sometimes the software doesn't work the way we expect it to, and in those cases, we can't communicate with a device because it may be infected."
"The file scanning has room for improvement."
"Some executive reporting is inefficient, and we're looking into ways to improve it."
"The time it takes to restore the application could be improved. It has a lot of dependencies. It's not like the Microsoft security that comes with the OS. Updating through the command prompt, most of the time, it takes some time to download some of these dependencies."
"With increase of cyber threats and cybersecurity issues, I would recommend that the product be developed like an AI product with more features which can counter any threat in the coming eras."
"Service Requests. Noncritical cases with MDE technical support teams tend to be queued for over a week before the first customer engagement."
"On Mac, it's quite unstable and unusable; however, it's very stable for Windows."
 

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."
"Licensing models of Microsoft are renowned for being complex. We just purchased the whole E5 stack. With E5 licenses for users, we get access to a bunch of features that are not just related to security. I would rate them a three out of five in terms of pricing."
"We have the E5 security license, and the solution comes with that."
"The price of Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is reasonable. Other solutions are more expensive, such as ClowdStrike."
"The solution is free."
"It's all pretty easy. For some clients, it's an easier sell because it's just an add-on to their existing Microsoft licensing and Office 365 licensing."
"The subscription is part of Windows, so we don't have to pay anything extra for this product."
"It is affordable and comes in the Office 365 bundle."
"This product is included in the pricing for Windows."
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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.