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Azure Firewall Manager vs Microsoft Sentinel 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 Sentinel
Ranking in Microsoft Security Suite
5th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
108
Ranking in other categories
Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) (3rd), Security Orchestration Automation and Response (SOAR) (3rd), AI-Powered Cybersecurity Platforms (5th)
 

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 Sentinel is 5.3%, up from 4.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Microsoft Security Suite Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Microsoft Sentinel5.3%
Azure Firewall Manager1.5%
Other93.2%
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.
Kallamuddin Ansari - PeerSpot reviewer
Cyber Security Consultant at HR Software Solution
Centralized monitoring has improved threat response but cost control still needs refinement
Based on real operations used in our corporate IT environment, the key features include log correlation and incident view. Microsoft Sentinel's biggest strength is how it correlates multiple related alerts into a single incident. This significantly reduces alert noise and helps the SOC focus on real threats instead of isolated events. Another valuable feature is KQL-based threat hunting with Kusto Query Language. The flexibility of this language allows us to build custom hunting queries based on our environment's behavior. This is extremely useful for detecting low and slow threats or hidden threats that default rules may miss. Cloud-native scalability and stability is another important feature. Being cloud-native, Microsoft Sentinel scales well for medium to large corporate environments without infrastructure management. Stability has been solid in day-to-day production. SOAR automation using playbooks is a feature we highly recommend. Microsoft Sentinel's SOAR functionality helps automate repetitive SOC tasks like alert enrichment and notification. This saves analyst time and improves response consistency.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"I would definitely recommend the solution to my clients, especially if one is using Azure Cloud."
"From a traffic management perspective, it's a good firewall because it's automatically scalable based on the traffic availability."
"The tool's support is good."
"Azure Firewall Manager centralizes network security management with a hub and spoke architecture."
"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 best feature of Azure Firewall Manager is that it is easy to maintain and configure."
"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 of Azure Firewall Manager is the testing and configuration."
"The AI and ML of Azure Sentinel are valuable. We can use machine learning models at the tenant level and within Office 365 and Microsoft stack. We don't need to depend upon any other connectors. It automatically provisions the native Microsoft products."
"Microsoft Sentinel has improved cost efficiency, which is one of the key areas we're able to win business against the ability to have threat intelligence."
"The best feature of Microsoft Sentinel is its ability to unify all dashboards or functions into one modern SecOps dashboard."
"We have no complaints about the features or functionality."
"Sentinel's cost-effectiveness blows a lot of other solutions out of the water, especially if you're already in Azure and you can leverage some relationships to bring that cost down."
"Microsoft Sentinel is an awesome SIEM/SOAR tool for customers with active Cloud presence."
"The log query feature has been the most valuable because it's very good. You can put your data on the cloud and run queues from Sentinel. It will do it all very fast. I love that I don't have to upload it to an Excel file and then manually look for a piece of information. Sentinel is much faster and is good for big databases."
"While Microsoft Sentinel provides a log of security events, its true power lies in its integration with Microsoft Defender."
 

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."
"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."
"With Azure Firewall, the problem is that the NAT-ing still has to be improved."
"The configuration and settings require substantial time for learning, particularly for new users. Improvements in ease of configuration would benefit users significantly."
"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 price is okay. This said, the solution is certainly expensive in comparison with other cloud services."
"Microsoft was unable to fully solve the problem with email phishing and spamming."
"The solution can improve the integration with open-source tools."
"The playbook is a bit difficult and could be improved."
"The dashboards can be improved. Creating dashboards is very easy, but the visualizations are not as good as Microsoft Power BI. People who are using Microsoft Power BI do not like Sentinel's dashboards."
"They can work on the EDR side of things... Every time we need to onboard these kinds of machines into the EDR, we need to do it with the help of Intune, to sync up the devices, and do the configuration. I'm looking for something on the EDR side that will reduce this kind of work."
"I think the number one area of improvement for Sentinel would be the cost."
"Driving deeper integration with the Defender XDR portal within Microsoft Sentinel, which is being done, and continuing to increase the number of third-party data connectors available is important."
"I would rate Microsoft technical support at five out of 10 because we have to go through a lot of steps before we get to the right technical stakeholder."
"Microsoft Sentinel is definitely costly. If we factor in the cost of other services, MCAS, MDI, and Microsoft Defender for Cloud, it gets seriously costly, to the extent that we cannot enable it across the organization."
"Currently, the watchlist feature is being utilized, and although there have been improvements, it is still not fully optimized."
 

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."
"The combination of the ease of accessibility and the free cost of the service is great. But we buy storage based on our events per second and on how many sources are integrated into the solution."
"Cost-wise, Sentinel is based on the volume of information being ingested, so it can be quite pricey. The ability to use strategies to control what data is being ingested is important."
"Sentinel is a pay-as-you-go solution. To use it, you need a Log Analytics workspace. This is where the logs are stored and the cost of Log Analytics is based on gigabytes... On top of that, there is the cost of Sentinel, which is about €2 per gigabyte. If a customer has an M365 E5 license, the logs that come from Microsoft Defender are free."
"Microsoft Sentinel's pricing is relatively expensive and extremely confusing."
"It is kind of like a sliding scale. There are different tiers of pricing that go from $100 per day up to $3,500 per day. So, it just kind of depends on how much data is being stored. There can be additional costs to the standard license other than the additional data. It just kind of depends on what other services you're spinning up in Azure, or if you're using something like Azure log analytics."
"Azure Sentinel is very costly, or at least it appears to be very costly. The costs vary based on your ingestion and your retention charges."
"I have had mixed feedback. At one point, I heard a client say that it sometimes seems more expensive. Most of the clients are on Office 365 or M365, and they are forced to take Azure SIEM because of the integration."
"The pay-as-you-go model is beneficial to customers."
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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%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Outsourcing Company
7%
Comms Service Provider
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 Business44
Midsize Enterprise23
Large Enterprise47
 

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...
Is there a common threat intelligence tool that aggregates multiple threat intelligence sources?
Yes, Azure Sentinel is a SIEM on the Cloud. Multiple data sources can be uploaded and analyzed with Azure Sentinel and its Threat Hunting functionality with AI available as templates or customized ...
What is a better choice, Splunk or Azure Sentinel?
It would really depend on (1) which logs you need to ingest and (2) what are your use cases Splunk is easy for ingestion of anything, but the charge per GB/Day Indexed and it gets expensive as log ...
Which is better - Azure Sentinel or AWS Security Hub?
We like that Azure Sentinel does not require as much maintenance as legacy SIEMs that are on-premises. Azure Sentinel is auto-scaling - you will not have to worry about performance impact, you will...
 

Also Known As

No data available
Azure Sentinel
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Microsoft Sentinel is trusted by companies of all sizes including ABM, ASOS, Uniper, First West Credit Union, Avanade, and more.
Find out what your peers are saying about Azure Firewall Manager vs. Microsoft Sentinel and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
920,574 professionals have used our research since 2012.