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Azure Firewall vs WatchGuard Firebox comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 16, 2024

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

Fortinet FortiGate
Sponsored
Ranking in Firewalls
2nd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
373
Ranking in other categories
Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) Solutions (1st), WAN Edge (1st)
Azure Firewall
Ranking in Firewalls
12th
Average Rating
7.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
41
Ranking in other categories
Microsoft Security Suite (11th)
WatchGuard Firebox
Ranking in Firewalls
18th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
87
Ranking in other categories
Unified Threat Management (UTM) (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Firewalls category, the mindshare of Fortinet FortiGate is 21.2%, up from 17.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Azure Firewall is 2.2%, down from 2.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of WatchGuard Firebox is 3.0%, up from 2.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Firewalls
 

Featured Reviews

Vasu Gala - PeerSpot reviewer
A stable solution with an intuitive interface and quick customer service
I have been working with Fortinet FortiGate, WatchGuard, Sophos, and SonicWall. I'm not as comfortable with SonicWall because of their UI and limitations. I prefer Fortinet above all other options. When it comes to configuration, I am confident in my ability to handle various tasks, including creating policies such as firewall rules, web policies, and application policies. Additionally, I can configure VPNs and implement load balancing, among other tasks. Overall, I feel much more comfortable working with Fortinet. Fortinet has made significant improvements by integrating AI with firewalls for threat analysis and prevention. In the past 2-3 years, they have launched FortiSASE and SIEM, and they also provide SOC services. Both Palo Alto and Fortinet FortiGate are excellent. While Fortinet FortiGate comes at higher prices, the functionality and support justify the cost. They promptly resolve firmware issues and inform all support providers about configuration changes.
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.
Rajesh  Makwana - PeerSpot reviewer
Efficient bandwidth management and secure network access with a strong firewall
The primary use case of the Firebox mainly revolves around bandwidth management, unnecessary web blocking, application control, and protection against brute force attacks. It is also implemented for load balancing, SD-WAN, and branch-to-branch connectivity from one location to another. We also use…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The most valuable features of the solution are SD-WAN, filtering testing applications, web filtering, and the new VPN."
"Virtual Domains (VDOMs) are a feature that we found valuable."
"Fortinet FortiGate is scalable for our users. Right now, we have almost 70 users. We do not have any plan to increase our usage of FortiGate. For maintaining the firewall solution, one staff member is enough."
"It has upscaled our security posture, especially regarding external connectivity, because any access or connection from the company has to go through the Fortinet FortiGate firewall."
"It's comprehensive and time-saving. It covers several areas regarding security."
"The threat prevention is the solution's most valuable aspect."
"The solution has very good threat and content filtering switches."
"The SD-WAN feature of Fortinet FortiGate has been most impactful in maintaining our network's integrity."
"I like its order management feature. It doesn't have the kind of threat intelligence that Palo Alto has, but the order management makes it much simpler to know the difference."
"The solution is stable."
"One of the best features is that it natively integrates with Azure Services and tools. When you have a third-party offering, that is not the case. But Azure Firewall provides a comprehensive and seamless security solution for your Azure resources."
"One of the notable advantages of Azure Firewall is its user-friendly interface, which closely resembles or shares similarities with other Azure components."
"The Layer four features are okay and meet my business needs."
"Great security and connectivity."
"Azure Firewall is integrated well with Microsoft ecosystem."
"The product's value to my company stems from its ability to secure my organization."
"It's pretty simple to understand when you want to do any diagnostics on your network. If you want to go in and see what packages are having trouble getting through, what's being held, stalled, etc., it's very easy to use in that way."
"Because we bought two firewalls... we need a central place to manage the policies and deploy them to both devices. It's good that it provides a system management console that is able to manipulate and manage policies in one place and deploy them to different locations."
"The firewall aspect and the branch office VPNs are the most valuable features... We don't have any issues with it. We don't have to spend a lot of time maintaining it."
"There are no problems with the technical support. If a problem occurs it gets resolved immediately with our technical support partners."
"WatchGuard Firebox offers a satisfying VM and hardware"
"I find this solution very easy to manage. The web manager and Firebox key features are particularly impressive for cloud applications. That's why I often recommend this solution to our clients. It has good threat management capabilities and works against different types of threats."
"The security that is used for defending from the attacks is very good."
"Firebox operates effectively in the background, blocking potential threats without a need for constant monitoring."
 

Cons

"Vulnerability scanning could be improved."
"The configuration part was challenging, especially converting configurations from another OEM to FortiGate."
"There are too many updates coming for VPN, and the VPN keeps disconnecting frequently, which I find problematic. It does what it's supposed to do, but I practically face reconnection issues with the VPN."
"Performance on the box and technical support are areas where Fortinet FortiGate can be improved."
"The visibility of the network can be better. The GUI can be improved for better visibility of the network flow. Other solutions have better GUI in terms of network visibility."
"It is somewhat expensive compared to other solutions such as Sophos."
"Though the tool's GUI is user-friendly, it can be considered as an area with certain shortcomings where improvements are required."
"There are a lot of bugs I have found in the solution and it is difficult to upgrade. These areas need improvement."
"There should be better monitoring and logging. Currently, it is put in Sentinel. It should be more seamless and from the interface."
"The threat intelligence aspect of this particular firewall is not at par with other providers."
"For large organizations, a third-party firewall would be an added advantage, because it would have more advanced features, things that are not in Azure Firewall."
"Diagnosing blocked traffic was initially challenging because we didn't know how to diagnose and integrate Azure Firewall with other Azure services for storing logs in Log Analytics."
"The threat intelligence part could be better. I don't see why our customers have to get an additional solution with Azure Firewall. It would be great if they made it on par with Palo Alto."
"We find it's different implementing it region-to-region. It might help if it was universal across all regions."
"You have to have a defined IP range within your network to associate it with your network. The problem is you have to plan ahead of time if you expect to use the firewall in the future so that you don't have to reconfigure your subnets or that specific IP range. Other than that, I don't any issues. I use it for basic configuration for a single application, so I really don't try to leverage it for multiple applications where I might find some complexity or challenges."
"One thing that would help engineers adopt it better is the documentation."
"There is room for improvement in the threat protection, data packet inspection, and performance of the solution. Generally, it's just a lower-end product. It does the job but doesn't do it very well."
"There's always room for improvement, especially if the threats are getting more sophisticated and the IT department cannot sufficiently meet this kind of sophistication with their own knowledge and experience. Knowing that this solution can get up to the level of addressing a lot of these threats is something that everybody wishes for. If we look at the dark web and the lawful web, they are two opposites, and if these two good and bad collide in the world of the internet, you want the best possible product—especially if you cannot get to that point of knowledge. I am just an individual and end user, with limited knowledge of usage. That's why I say there's always room for improvement, from their side and also from mine, because by knowing exactly what they can achieve and the knowledge that they can get on an everyday basis, and the portion that is understandable to me, it's an improvement for them as well."
"The product's technical support services need improvement."
"In terms of the reporting and management features — and this isn't necessarily a WatchGuard issue, this seems to be more of an industry-wide issue — you get reports, but a lot of times you don't know what you're looking at. You're so overwhelmed with the data. You're getting a lot of stuff that doesn't matter, so it takes time to parse through it, to actually get what you want to know."
"The only problem I have with Firebox is the grouping issue. When implementing a rule using a group of IPs, it is not possible to do that directly."
"The product can improve in terms of layout to provide easier access and viewing to users, especially for the reports."
"Once you start getting into proxy actions and setting up: "Okay, cool. Once this rule gets triggered, what actions have to happen?" I do know a few people who use WatchGuard and they still have to get assistance when they look at that. So I would file that as a con for WatchGuard. Proxy actions can be a little bit complicated."
"Firebox would be improved with integration for endpoint protection solutions."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"They need to be competitive with other solutions."
"Pricing for this product is comparatively lower than other products. It's an affordable solution, but when expanding the number of users, they'll ask you to replace the model, so that's an added cost."
"It is expensive. You need to pay for the subscription every year, which is very expensive. The subscription includes technical support and hardware exchange in case of failure."
"Setup cost may be not so low, as you expect, because it depends on different factors, but TCO for 5 years may pleasantly surprise you."
"Our licensing costs are on a yearly basis."
"In the Asian economy in which we operate, FortiGate is expensive."
"It is affordable. Palo Alto is much more expensive than Fortinet."
"The pricing is flexible."
"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."
"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."
"It is pay-as-you-go. So, you pay based on the usage. If I remember it well, there is a basic fee, and there is a traffic fee. It is not per month. It is per hour or something like that. It is not so expensive."
"I rate the product pricing a five out of ten."
"The solution is cheaper than other brands. My company has an enterprise contract and we finally got a good price with Azure."
"Azure Firewalls operate on a pay-as-you-go model, similar to cloud services."
"The licensing module is good."
"Azure Firewall is quite an expensive product."
"The cost three years ago was about $800."
"We pay about $3,500 every three years."
"We only license our corporate one and the one we have at our DR site, we don't worry about the branches. It doesn't pay for us to license the ones at the branches. What they charge for what they call basic maintenance is extremely high for those little fireboxes."
"The licensing can be a one-time purchase unless you need the extra services for example twenty-four seven support."
"It's in the medium range. Its price is pretty good considering the functions and add-ons that are used."
"Firebox is priced reasonably."
"Each one, for the primary unit, was $8,600 and the High Availability unit was $2,000. That's with three years of subscription and support and the Total Security Suite."
"I think the larger firewall packages are much better because a normal firewall is not enough for these times. You need IPS, APT, and all the security features of a firewall that you can buy."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
15%
Educational Organization
12%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Computer Software Company
16%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Government
9%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Computer Software Company
15%
Comms Service Provider
11%
Hospitality Company
6%
Educational Organization
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

Which is the better NGFW: Fortinet Fortigate or Cisco Firepower?
When you compare these firewalls you can identify them with different features, advantages, practices and usage a...
What is the biggest difference between Sophos XG and FortiGate?
From my experience regarding both the Sophos and FortiGate firewalls, I personally would rather use FortiGate. I know...
What are the biggest technical differences between Sophos UTM and Fortinet FortiGate?
As a solution, Sophos UTM offers a lot of functionality, it scales well, and the stability and performance are quite ...
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 Firew...
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...
Which would you recommend - FortiGate VM or Azure Firewall?
Both of these solutions are excellent options that provide flexible scalability and solid security. Fortinet Fortigat...
What is your primary use case for WatchGuard Firebox?
We are providing our services to all WatchGuard customers in the region.
What is your primary use case for WatchGuard Firebox?
We just use it as a secondary WiFi device. We're a small office and we needed to set up a WiFi device for a few of ou...
What is your primary use case for WatchGuard Firebox?
We're a hospital and we use it for developing our incoming and outgoing policies, and we also use it for VPN.
 

Also Known As

FortiGate 60b, FortiGate 60c, FortiGate 80c, FortiGate 50b, FortiGate 200b, FortiGate 110c, FortiGate, Fortinet Firewall
No data available
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Amazon Web Services, Microsoft, IBM, Cisco, Dell, HP, Oracle, Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile, Sprint, Vodafone, Orange, BT Group, Telstra, Deutsche Telekom, Comcast, Time Warner Cable, CenturyLink, NTT Communications, Tata Communications, SoftBank, China Mobile, Singtel, Telus, Rogers Communications, Bell Canada, Telkom Indonesia, Telkom South Africa, Telmex, Telia Company, Telkom Kenya
Information Not Available
Ellips, Diecutstickers.com, Clarke Energy, NCR, Wrest Park, Homeslice Pizza, Fortessa Tableware Solutions, The Phoenix Residence
Find out what your peers are saying about Azure Firewall vs. WatchGuard Firebox and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.
860,592 professionals have used our research since 2012.