Top 7 Cloud-Native Firewalls for Cloud Security

Cloud-native firewalls are designed specifically to protect workloads running in public, private, and hybrid cloud environments. They integrate deeply with cloud platforms, offering granular visibility, automated policy enforcement, and elastic scalability. Choosing the best cloud-native firewall for cloud security can significantly reduce attack surfaces, simplify operations, and ensure consistent protection across multi and hybrid-cloud environments.

Listed below are the top 7 cloud-native firewalls for cloud security, including platform-native firewalls from major cloud service providers and broader solutions from the leading cloud security companies.

#1. Check Point Cloud Security

A leader in enterprise security, Check Point is a comprehensive cloud security platform that minimizes cyber risk across your applications, network, and workloads. Check Point delivers full Next-Generation Firewall (NGFW) capabilities, including advanced AI-powered threat prevention and application and API security. Centralized management ensures consistent policy enforcement across cloud, on-premises, and remote environments, making it a strong contender for organizations seeking the best cloud-native firewall for cloud security.

Independent tests show Check Point provides the best threat detection and the highest block rates in the industry. This includes a 99.9% malware block rate and a 99.7% phishing and malicious URL block rate. The vendor also provides high-integrity solutions with significantly fewer Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEVs) compared to the competition.

As a cloud-native firewall, Check Point continuously scans cloud control planes to detect dynamic variables and incorporate them into real-time, adaptive security policies. The cloud-native security architecture auto-scales, ensuring firewall throughput increases to match cloud traffic. Support for CI/CD pipelines further reinforces Check Point’s cloud-native design, even if its primary firewall enforcement today is Virtual Machine (VM) based rather than container-based.

• Prevention-first NGFW with industry-leading malware and phishing block rates according to independent tests.
• True cloud-native policy enforcement driven by cloud control plane intelligence.
• Unified management across public, private, and hybrid cloud, securing even complex cloud environments and delivering consistent protection.
• No container-based firewall implementation today, which may be a

#2. Fortinet Cloud-Native Firewall (CNF)

The FortiGate Cloud-Native Firewall (CNF) extends the vendor’s enterprise-grade security portfolio into the cloud, offering a solution built and delivered as a service. FortiGate CNF is designed to protect dynamic cloud environments without the operational burden of managing firewall infrastructure.

FortiGate CNF automatically scales to keep up with changes in cloud traffic and workload demand. The firewall is also a core component of Fortinet’s Hybrid Mesh Firewall strategy, enabling organizations to apply the same security policies and analytics across cloud and on-premises deployments using FortiOS.

From a cloud firewall capability standpoint, FortiGate CNF delivers full NGFW functionality. This includes an Intrusion Prevention System (IPS), web filtering, DNS security, and advanced threat protection powered by FortiGuard Labs threat intelligence. It supports inbound, outbound, and east-west traffic inspection to prevent intrusions, stop lateral movement, and block data exfiltration or malicious outbound connections.

• Enterprise-grade NGFW protection delivered as a scalable cloud-native service.
• Inspects both north-south and east-west traffic.
• Automatic scaling and high availability.
• Some users noted a lack of features, including support issues for on-premises infrastructure.

#3. Palo Alto CN Series Container NGFW

As containerized applications become an integral part of many organizations’ infrastructure, Palo Alto has created a cloud-native firewall solution tailored to Kubernetes environments: the CN Series Container NGFW. A machine learning powered NGFW, Palo Alto’s cloud-native firewall provides deep packet inspection and full outbound traffic inspection, including encrypted SSL traffic and traffic originating from containerized applications.

The CN Series firewalls allow organizations to prevent network-based threats, block suspicious activity, and stop data exfiltration attempts, critical for maintaining a secure containerized environment. The CN Series Container NGFW also seamlessly integrates into DevOps workflows, can be deployed in minutes, and dynamically scales to meet rapidly changing traffic requirements. This flexibility is enhanced by Palo Alto’s credit-based licensing model, which aligns security costs with consumption, making it easy to match your security needs to your container infrastructure.

• Advanced machine learning-powered NGFW designed for Kubernetes container environments.
• Full inspection of outbound traffic, including SSL and traffic from containerized apps.
• Seamless integration with DevOps workflows.
• A focus on Kubernetes environments might limit applicability for organizations using workloads outside Kubernetes.

Zscaler Zero Trust Cloud Firewall

Zscaler’s cloud-native firewall is built on zero trust principles to protect all traffic, whether web or non-web, across users, locations, and clouds. With the shift to remote work and cloud environments, Zscaler’s solution adapts to the dynamic needs of modern networks, ensuring 100% traffic inspection, including encrypted traffic, without compromising performance.

Zscaler’s zero-trust cloud firewall is designed to stop threats and enforce security policies based on user context, risk, and device posture. With integrations for popular SaaS applications, Zscaler ensures secure connectivity and optimal performance across cloud environments, making it an ideal solution for organizations looking to secure their entire network without the limitations of legacy appliances.

The Zscaler firewall offers significant scalability, maintaining performance with zero degradation. Centralized policy management also covers all users and traffic regardless of location or cloud environment. Leveraging the cloud for security eliminates the need for costly on-prem appliances and dramatically reduces the complexity of managing a large, distributed environment.

• 100% traffic inspection (including encrypted TLS/SSL) for all traffic types and locations.
• The zero trust security model ensures protection based on various factors, including user and device context.
• Seamless SaaS application integration, prioritizing traffic to key services.
• Implementation can require significant change management, particularly for organizations transitioning from large-scale legacy infrastructure.

#5. AWS Network Firewall

AWS Network Firewall is a platform-native cloud firewall that provides advanced network security directly within Amazon Virtual Private Clouds (VPCs). Built and operated by AWS, it allows organizations to protect cloud workloads without relying on third-party appliances or managing firewall infrastructure. As a fully managed, cloud-native firewall service, AWS Network Firewall integrates tightly with the broader AWS ecosystem, making it one of the best cloud-native firewalls for cloud security if your organization primarily runs on AWS.

The solution delivers enterprise-grade firewall capabilities using intelligence-driven, managed rules powered by Amazon threat intelligence. Customers can define granular rules, apply geographic IP filtering, and leverage deep packet inspection and intrusion prevention to protect both inbound and outbound traffic. AWS Network Firewall also supports proxy-based TLS/SSL inspection, helping detect malicious activity hidden in encrypted traffic and prevent data exfiltration.

AWS Network Firewall automatically scales to match traffic volumes and can be deployed consistently across multiple VPCs and accounts. It provides centralized inspection of north-south and east-west traffic, while simplifying policy management across Availability Zones.

• Native AWS cloud firewall with deep packet inspection and centralized policy management across accounts and VPCs.
• Automatically scales to protect workloads without manual capacity planning.
• Create custom security rules with AWS cloud environments.
• Limited to AWS environments, making it unsuitable for multi-cloud security strategies.

#6. Azure Firewall

Microsoft’s platform-native cloud firewall is designed to protect Azure Virtual Network resources with fully managed, scalable network security. Its tight integration with the Azure platform makes it a natural choice for organizations embedded in the Microsoft cloud ecosystem. Delivered as a cloud service, the Azure Firewall allows organizations to enforce application and network policies across subscriptions and virtual networks without managing underlying infrastructure.

A stateful firewall service, Azure Firewall provides comprehensive protection for inbound and outbound traffic, including internal spoke-to-spoke and hybrid connections via Azure VPN and ExpressRoute. It leverages Microsoft threat intelligence to enable filtering based on the latest attack information, automatically alerting security teams and blocking traffic from known malicious IP addresses and domains.

The Azure Firewall also offers deep visibility and advanced threat protection. Features such as TLS inspection, URL filtering, and intrusion detection and prevention system (IDPS) capabilities help prevent malware, detect suspicious behavior, and even stop zero-day threats. With unified management and centralized rule enforcement, the Azure Firewall simplifies cloud security operations while meeting the needs of regulated and security-sensitive environments.

• Native Azure cloud firewall with seamless integration into Azure networking services.
• Built-in high availability and automatic scaling with minimal operational overhead.
• Advanced threat protection using Microsoft threat intelligence and IDPS.
• Again, the platform-native cloud firewall cannot provide complete coverage for organizations with multi-cloud deployments.

#7. Google Cloud NGFW

Ending with the last major platform-native cloud firewall, Google’s Cloud NGFW is designed to deliver scalable network security with advanced threat protection and operational simplicity. Cloud NGFW enforces security policies at each workload, eliminating the need for standalone firewall appliances. This distributed, cloud-native firewall approach makes it well-suited for large-scale Google Cloud environments.

Cloud NGFW provides stateful inspection for both north-south and east-west traffic, offering granular control across VPCs, projects, and organizations. Firewall policies are global by default, allowing organizations to define and apply consistent rules across regions from a centralized hierarchy. Context-aware policy objects such as fully qualified domain names (FQDNs), geolocation filters, and Google Cloud threat intelligence lists are continuously updated and automatically enforced within firewall rules.

For advanced security, Cloud NGFW integrates an intrusion detection and prevention service powered by Palo Alto Networks. This delivers inline protection against malware, spyware, and command-and-control attacks while maintaining performance. With simplified deployment and IAM-governed tagging, Google Cloud NGFW enables fine-grained security enforcement down to individual virtual machines, making it a strong cloud firewall option for organizations prioritizing scalability and native integration.

• Advanced threat protection with IDS/IPS powered by Palo Alto Networks.
• Global firewall policies simplify management at scale.
• Granular policies for north-south and east-west traffic.
• Designed specifically for Google Cloud, organizations with multi-cloud environments would require multiple cloud firewalls.

Summary Table

Protect Your Cloud Environments with Check Point

While there are pros and cons to each of the products listed above, ultimately, the best cloud-native firewall for cloud security is the solution that stops the most threats. With industry-leading malware and phishing block rates, Check Point from Check Point offers the best security on the market for cloud-native workflows.