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Abnormal Security vs Avanan comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 3, 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

Abnormal Security
Ranking in Email Security
3rd
Average Rating
9.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.9
Number of Reviews
10
Ranking in other categories
Secure Email Gateway (SEG) (2nd)
Avanan
Ranking in Email Security
16th
Average Rating
9.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.8
Number of Reviews
19
Ranking in other categories
Data Loss Prevention (DLP) (21st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Email Security category, the mindshare of Abnormal Security is 7.5%, up from 4.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Avanan is 3.8%, up from 3.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Email Security
 

Featured Reviews

ChrisBrown5 - PeerSpot reviewer
Automated threat detection that protects against corruption with minimal intervention
Abnormal Security is valuable because it features an automated scoring tool that doesn't require much intervention from our team. It enhances threat detection capabilities by making the process automated and is easy to scale to our entire environment. Additionally, it protects us from being business email compromised, which is invaluable for maintaining our security.
Robert Melendez - PeerSpot reviewer
Enhances email security and has a very simple and easy-to-use UI
Spam protection is the most valuable feature. We have implemented the tool to enhance our email security. It helps prevent phishing attacks. The anomaly detection capabilities are baked into the security platform. The product integrates wonderfully with Microsoft 365. It's built right on a cloud platform and works almost natively. The solution has a very simple and easy-to-use UI. The tool appears extremely powerful and has a good solid feature set. It catches things that are bad for my environment. The user interface is good the way it is. If the solution continues down that path, I see no problems with the way it is going. It feels like a mature product.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"I would recommend Abnormal Security."
"What I like about Abnormal Security is that it notifies me if any of my partners or suppliers are experiencing a security breach by analyzing their database and identifying potential cyber threats."
"It does some really cool stuff that other tools aren't doing. We found it to be really effective, and the AI/ML functionality is really what differentiates them."
"Initial auto-remediation allows us to auto-remediate before the email lands in the end user's inbox for a split second."
"I have never encountered any stability issues with Abnormal."
"I like Abnormal's threat protection with auto-remediation, but I also love its abuse mailbox feature, which automatically responds to the end user. That feature has a super-valuable security component and helps improve the user experience."
"Their ability to take things out of the mailbox and catch things much faster than users is excellent."
"Ease of use is undoubtedly one of the most valuable features of Abnormal Security."
"The ease of installation and the AI capacity of the product are valuable."
"The customizable rules allow you to change aspects."
"When we don't understand some functionalities, the customer support staff responds fast to our calls and provides immediate action."
"The program has reduced the dangers related to phishing, malware, ransomware, and other vulnerabilities."
"Email Attachment Protection detects any insecure files and quickly blocks them to prevent the spread of viruses to other secure documents."
"Email encryption enhances end to end security of any data before it passes through the networking system."
"If we look at four to five years ago, we had close to six or eight people click a link in an email per month. Now, we are probably down to about five or six clicks a year, if not less."
"It can detect corrupted files and filters out documents with viruses."
 

Cons

"There could be more selectable options and more granular selections available."
"One feature I'd love to see is outbound scanning."
"I, as such, do not have anything that I do not like or would like to add, but you could argue that because they are doing it API-based, there is a chance that something could slip through temporarily before they are able to pull it out. In theory, it could happen just because of the nature of the system. They are not in line with the delivery of the mail. They are kind of asynchronous, which is a pro as well as a con. If it is synchronous, then I know it would always stop them, but because it is asynchronous, things could get through temporarily or because of some system issues on the Microsoft side or their side. It is the nature of the beast, but it is a little bit of a con."
"I would like to have the ability to customize the auto-remediation feature."
"The pricing for academic institutions and student mailboxes is challenging."
"The biggest pain point for us is the lack of support for on-premise email systems."
"The ideal scenario would be for Abnormal Security to work in tandem with Microsoft to analyze incoming emails."
"When we're working on something as engineers, and we find an idea or a method of doing something that would be greatly improved by doing it another way, there should be an ability for me to click the ideas button, type in an idea that I have, and submit it to a product review team or developers to have them think through the process a little bit more."
"In Avanan, the email channel is one of the channels where data leakage happens, and they need to consider it from a DLP perspective."
"The system could be designed to give corporate emails first priority due to demands."
"It is very difficult to find the required documentation."
"Familiarization with performance for new teams may take a long time."
"Sometimes it seemed like the allow list wasn't working. I've created many allow list rules however, they still seem to be blocked; the same is true with the blocked list rules."
"The system response in a slow computing device affects performance when sending and receiving emails."
"The customer service team could come up with clear tutorials on how to use this platform to help new teams."
"Avanan doesn't cover certain tool segments."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Abnormal Security, on the other hand, provides the same level of functionality for just over $60,000 – that's half the price!"
"The license is based on the user count, so the number of users that have an email address in the organization."
"Overall, we'd certainly prefer lower pricing, but Abnormal Security doesn't seem unreasonable compared to similar offerings in the market."
"The pricing appears fair, and they demonstrate a genuine willingness to work with us on it."
"Avanan’s price is comparable to Barracuda."
"Good pricing arrangement as an SaaS offering."
"The product is not the cheapest in the market."
"Having the flexibility and modeling to do the pricing that best fits the needs of the organization is incredibly ideal. That is what Avanan does. They know exactly how many users are using it, etc. We can tune the invoicing associated with how we are using the product so we can charge it back to the shows appropriately."
"The pricing of Avanan is reasonable."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Government
7%
Computer Software Company
15%
Educational Organization
8%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Abnormal Security?
The features that appeal to me most are the combination of auto-remediation and Detection 360.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Abnormal Security?
I find the pricing to be favorable, but I did not disclose the exact cost.
What needs improvement with Abnormal Security?
There could be more selectable options and more granular selections available.
What do you like most about Avanan?
Spam protection is the most valuable feature.
What needs improvement with Avanan?
Avanan doesn't cover certain tool segments. Barracuda provides backup and retention of emails and Microsoft 365’s backup and retention services. I've brought this up with the vendor. They told me t...
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Foot Lcoker, Xerox, Liberty Mutual, Mattel, Boston Scientific
Bethel School District, ServiceSource, Capital Caring
Find out what your peers are saying about Abnormal Security vs. Avanan and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
861,524 professionals have used our research since 2012.