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Azure Firewall 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
Ranking in Microsoft Security Suite
10th
Average Rating
7.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
40
Ranking in other categories
Firewalls (13th)
Microsoft Defender for Endp...
Ranking in Microsoft Security Suite
5th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
197
Ranking in other categories
Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) (1st), Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) (2nd), Anti-Malware Tools (1st), Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) (3rd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Microsoft Security Suite category, the mindshare of Azure Firewall is 4.2%, down from 5.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is 8.9%, up from 6.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Microsoft Security Suite
 

Featured Reviews

AnvarSadique - PeerSpot reviewer
Easy setup and effective traffic routing enhance security
In terms of improvements, I think the price could be a concern as Azure ( /products/microsoft-azure-reviews ) services are often more expensive compared to other firewalls. However, the functional aspects of Azure Firewall met our needs. While I found the interface not particularly user-friendly, this is a common issue across vendors.
AnuragSrivastava - PeerSpot reviewer
Provides detailed visibility into threats but the ability to add exceptions needs improvement
One major item for improvement is the ability to add exceptions. We can add some exceptions, but not at the level we need to. The second major area for improvement involves enhanced capabilities for different operating systems or platforms. That is, even though we have coverage for different operating systems or platforms such as Linux, we don't get all of the controls and enhanced capabilities that are available with Windows devices. Reporting could also be improved because, at present, we get limited results at times. For example, in an environment with more than 100,000 devices, you may just get 10,000 results when you run a report.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"One of the notable advantages of Azure Firewall is its user-friendly interface, which closely resembles or shares similarities with other Azure components."
"The solution is stable."
"It provided ease of maintenance. If a new firewall was needed, we only had to run the pipelines for this. So, the maintenance was very easy."
"I think that one of the best features is definitely the premium version, along with the IDPs in terms of the intrusion detection and prevention system."
"Azure Firewall is integrated well with Microsoft ecosystem."
"Among the most valuable features are the DDoS protection that protects your virtual machines, the threat intelligence, and traffic filtering."
"The solution has many useful features. For example, the solution allows users to create virtual IP addresses."
"The solution is very stable. When comparing it to other environments, it's actually quite impressive."
"Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is a comprehensive and scalable solution for protecting on-premises and hybrid infrastructure."
"Provides good security features and you can view it in the central console."
"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 solution has an easy-to-use interface, is always updated, and is user-friendly."
"I am using it for very simple purposes. It is perfect and quite effective. I have been using it for a while, and I have never had any virus infection, data leak, or other security breaches. It works fine for standalone purposes. If you log on to OneDrive, it has ransomware protection."
"It's absolutely free to use."
"The stability keeps getting better and better."
"Microsoft Defender for Endpoint's WCS function, a content filtering solution, has proven to be the most useful, stable, and reliable option for our current needs."
 

Cons

"An Azure firewall is not a real firewall."
"For larger enterprises, they need to adjust the scalability."
"It has fewer features than you can get from other firewalls, like anti-spam and anti-phishing. Those kinds of things are not included. It only includes IDS and IDB."
"It is a cloud service, but the lending speed for each region is not always the same. For example, in China, the speed is slow. They need to think about how to make sure that the service pace or speed is always the same in all regions. It would be a great improvement if they can provide the same pace worldwide."
"In terms of improvements, I think the price could be a concern as Azure services are often more expensive compared to other firewalls."
"It would be nice to be able to create groupings for servers and offer groups of IP addresses."
"There is room for further integration of AI into the system."
"Maybe one of the things in the tool where improvements are needed as there are some shortcomings consist of Azure Firewall Manager."
"The integration and effectiveness of email security could be better. It's already built-in to the solution and checks emails, scans the links they contain etc."
"The log searches for Microsoft Defender for Endpoint are pretty difficult to navigate. It needs a better UI or more intuitive search and filter mechanisms to make it easy to get through and filter through all the data logs."
"Microsoft Windows Defender doesn't have a game mode."
"More integration with different platforms is an area for improvement for this product, and should be included in its next release."
"The initial support process can be lacking as first-line support is sometimes not well-versed technically, resulting in repeated exchanges to finally engage a knowledgeable support person."
"The end-user also cannot do some advanced actions on it. It's a little bit complicated for our end-user, so it needs to be simplified."
"Defender's cloud integration could be improved."
"The major area for improvement is the integration with a managed service provider. We use Microsoft partners to help govern the platform, and as part of an alliance, we want to gather data from each tenant and combine them for a complete view. This process has been complicated, though it has gotten better."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Azure Firewalls operate on a pay-as-you-go model, similar to cloud services."
"The pricing of Azure Firewall is pay-as-you-go. Fortinet also has a pay-as-you-go model, but Azure's pricing is higher and, with FortiGate, you also have the license."
"The total cost of ownership is much less than Palo Alto, Cisco, or any other brand."
"Azure Firewall is expensive."
"I rate the product pricing a five out of ten."
"Azure Firewall is more expensive. If Microsoft can make Azure Firewall cheaper, I can see that all clients will think of using it. One client used FortiGate because it is much cheaper. Some clients ask me for Cisco, but in the cloud estimate, I found its cost is the same as Azure Firewall."
"Before choosing this solution, we evaluated others, and we found this to be the most cost-effective."
"It is expensive, especially with the premium functions. For one of the clients, it was very expensive. You have to use it more at an enterprise level, and there, it was not at an enterprise level. So, it was very costly, but security-wise, it was a very wise decision to use it that way."
"The solution comes free with Microsoft Windows 10."
"You just pay Windows 10 prices, then you have antivirus software. As a price comparison, Defender's costs are very low."
"We are required to pay for the data we ingest, and increasing the data amount incurs additional expenses."
"It's included with the Windows Operating System, I don't pay for any licensing fees."
"This is an expensive product and licensing for all Microsoft products is a big issue."
"Its price at the moment is very good because you get a lot of value for your money, especially with the subscriptions. If you have the E1, E3, or E5 enterprise subscription, you pay per month per user, and you get almost an infinite number of solutions. If you compare the price to the number of solutions that you get, it is a very good deal."
"Pricing for Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is competitive. Out of the bundle, you will get a lot of security, if I talk about Microsoft E5, for example, and get a lot of benefits. If the customer goes and purchases a different solution, it will cost more, so pricing for Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is quite reasonable at the moment. There isn't any challenge in terms of pricing, for example, I didn't see a customer who pulled back because of the price. Some prices could be negotiable, and sometimes, as a sales point, the two become negotiable, but they don't bill one and pull back because of the pricing. If you have an E5 license, you get everything."
"It came with Windows."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
16%
Government
10%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Educational Organization
24%
Computer Software Company
12%
Government
7%
Financial Services Firm
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What is a better choice, Azure Firewall or Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls?
Azure Firewall Vs. Palo Alto Network NG Firewalls Both solutions provide stellar stability and security. Azure Firewall is easy to use and provides excellent support. Valuable features include int...
How does Azure Firewall compare with Palo Alto Networks VM Series?
Both products are very stable and easily scalable. The setup of Azure Firewall is easy and very user-friendly and the overall cost is reasonable. Azure Firewall offers a solid threat awareness, can...
Which would you recommend - FortiGate VM or Azure Firewall?
Both of these solutions are excellent options that provide flexible scalability and solid security. Fortinet Fortigate VM integrates well and has excellent centralized reporting. It is very easy to...
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 vs. Microsoft Defender for Endpoint and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
851,471 professionals have used our research since 2012.