The Azure Firewall alternative — same control, no per-GB tax.

On the core firewall job they are at parity. Both do stateful L3–L7 filtering, FQDN/domain allow-listing, outbound SNAT for private subnets and destination NAT, and both deploy in the hub VNet / secured-hub topology you route spokes through to inspect egress, ingress and east-west traffic. Wherever Azure Firewall can be deployed, Enforza can be deployed. We show that parity openly: the difference is the cost model and the surrounding workflow, not whether the firewall does the job.

In several places, and we say so plainly. Azure gives you the deepest Azure-native integration (VNet routing, Azure Firewall Manager, Azure Policy); it is fully Microsoft-managed and auto-scaled, so there is no VM for you to run; it ships Microsoft threat intelligence and a Premium signature-based IDPS; and it bills through a single Azure invoice with one Microsoft support relationship. If those matter most to you, Azure Firewall may be the right call.

No, in both cases. Azure Firewall performs its own outbound SNAT through its public IPs, so on Azure there is no separate NAT Gateway in the filtered-egress path — the cost is the firewall's own two meters (the per-deployment-hour fee and the per-GB data-processing charge). Enforza does the same: secure source NAT and identity-aware L7 filtering in one appliance, at a flat per-firewall price and $0/GB.

Azure Firewall bills two ways at once: a per-deployment-hour fee — $1.25/hr on Standard (about $912/month) or $1.75/hr on Premium (about $1,278/month) before any traffic — plus $0.016 per GB processed, forever and uncapped. The same rates re-apply per secured virtual hub, so hub-and-spoke and multi-region estates multiply the per-hour line. (The cheaper Basic SKU is $0.395/hr but $0.065/GB.) Enforza is a flat per-firewall licence with $0/GB. Rates are region Central US, dated 2026-06-14, directional and subject to change — use the savings calculator for your own numbers.

No. Enforza filters egress by SNI and FQDN without decrypting TLS and without holding your keys. On Azure, the deep L7 controls — URL filtering and IDPS — live in the Premium SKU and require TLS inspection, which decrypts your outbound traffic and puts Microsoft in the key path. Enforza gives you identity-aware L7 control with no man-in-the-middle and no key custody.

Both. Wherever Azure Firewall can be deployed, Enforza can be deployed — including the hub VNet or secured virtual hub you route spoke networks through. In that topology Enforza inspects egress, ingress and east-west VNet-to-VNet lateral traffic between your own networks, not just the outbound path. Migration is a route-table change: point the user-defined route (UDR) that currently sends traffic to your Azure Firewall at the Enforza appliance instead, with no re-architecture.

It is the right moment to choose. Since March 31, 2026, new Azure virtual networks default to private subnets with no default outbound internet access, so every new network needs an explicit egress path. Rather than bolt on a metered path and then a separate firewall, Enforza gives you secure outbound SNAT and identity-aware L7 egress filtering in one flat-priced appliance — the secure egress path and the firewall in a single drop-in.

Yes. Azure Firewall is Azure-only — every benefit is framed around your Azure VNet. Enforza runs the same capability on Azure, AWS, Google Cloud and on-prem VMs, managed from one control plane, so a multi-cloud estate is one fleet rather than three separate firewall products.

Yes. Enforza has a genuine free tier — one firewall with L3/L4 policy and network objects, no card required. A 14-day trial unlocks the full feature set, including L7/FQDN filtering, compliance packs, log export and live logs. The paid plan is £179/month per firewall, dropping to £149 from your sixth, plus the Linux VM you already run. Azure Firewall has no free tier — the per-hour meter starts on deploy.