Avanan is praised for its advanced threat protection, ease of integration, competitive pricing, and valuable customer support. Users appreciate the machine learning capabilities and real-time alerts Avanan provides. On the other hand, Abnormal Security stands out for its behavioral AI engine, advanced threat protection and easy integration with email platforms.
The summary above is based on 30 interviews we conducted recently with Avanan and Abnormal Security users. To access the review's full transcripts, download our report.
"It gives us visibility into threats and, for endpoints, it helps us to prioritize threats. We used to have a lack of visibility, but now our time to detect and respond has decreased."
"Microsoft Defender for Office 365 has improved my organization's security. It makes it easier to manage the infrastructure without the help of third-party applications."
"Threat Explorer is one of the features that I very much like because it is a real-time report that allows you to identify, analyze, and trace security attacks."
"The email protection is excellent, especially in terms of anti-phishing policies."
"Microsoft Defender for Office 365's most valuable feature is its performance."
"Microsoft Defender for Office 365's most valuable features are safe attachments and safe links."
"Microsoft Defender for Office 365 helps people to work remotely. It is a secure solution. We don't need to use our company's computers or get VPN connections to the networks. I can control how they share screens and what they send to the devices. It keeps our organizations confidential and sensitive information safe."
"Our customers are satisfied with Defender for 365 because Microsoft products are easy to use and customize to meet the client's needs. Everything is in one place, so we can adjust policies as needed for phishing, DLP, ATP, or any other security features that our clients want to apply."
"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."
"I have never encountered any stability issues with Abnormal."
"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."
"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."
"The features that appeal to me most are the combination of auto-remediation and Detection 360."
"Initial auto-remediation allows us to auto-remediate before the email lands in the end user's inbox for a split second."
"One of the things that I love about them is that the setup and installation are super easy. All you do is give them access to your Microsoft 365 tenant, and through APIs, they are able to do their work. They are doing all this through APIs, so you do not have to install the software and take a month to get it all set up to even see the value of the solution. You could be up and running in less than an hour."
"The customizable rules allow you to change aspects."
"The ease of installation and the AI capacity of the product are valuable."
"It can retract unsafe emails and remove them from the entire communication channel."
"Email encryption enhances end to end security of any data before it passes through the networking system."
"Email Attachment Protection detects any insecure files and quickly blocks them to prevent the spread of viruses to other secure documents."
"Email inspection has saved many employees from spam attacks and viruses from unauthorized sources."
"Spam protection is the most valuable feature."
"I highly recommend this solution to any prospective buyer."
"The phishing and spam filters could use some improvement."
"There is room for improvement in terms of reporting."
"Microsoft sometimes has downtime, and we'll get several incidents coming in back to back. We have a huge backlog of notifications, many of which may be false positives. However, there might be serious alerts, so we can't risk dismissing all of them at once."
"The UI needs to be more user-friendly."
"The company should focus on adding threats that the solution is currently unable to detect."
"You should be able to deploy Defender for every subscription without the need to add servers."
"They can improve their security in a way where a customer can know if all their attachments are safe or not to open through a report. The solution does its job perfectly, but it never reports to the customer whether those attachments have been stopped before or not."
"Configuration requires going to a lot of places rather than just accessing one tab."
"I would like to have the ability to customize the auto-remediation feature."
"The ideal scenario would be for Abnormal Security to work in tandem with Microsoft to analyze incoming emails."
"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."
"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."
"The biggest pain point for us is the lack of support for on-premise email systems."
"One feature I'd love to see is outbound scanning."
"There could be room for improvement in enhancing integration with other cybersecurity tools."
"The pricing for academic institutions and student mailboxes is challenging."
"The overall user interface is not attractive. It needs some improvement."
"The system could be designed to give corporate emails first priority due to demands."
"Familiarization with performance for new teams may take a long time."
"The user experience must be improved."
"The customer service team could come up with clear tutorials on how to use this platform to help new teams."
"It is very difficult to find the required documentation."
"Avanan doesn't cover certain tool segments."
"They should come up with a mobile application so that it can be more flexible."
More Microsoft Defender for Office 365 Pricing and Cost Advice →
Abnormal Security is ranked 10th in Email Security with 8 reviews while Avanan is ranked 6th in Email Security with 21 reviews. Abnormal Security is rated 9.6, while Avanan is rated 9.2. The top reviewer of Abnormal Security writes "Provides comprehensive email security management, effective in detecting a wide range of email threats". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Avanan writes "We've noticed a significant decline from people accidentally or intentionally clicking on things". Abnormal Security is most compared with Mimecast Email Security, Egress Intelligent Email Security, Cloudflare Area 1 Email Security, Cisco Secure Email and Sublime Security, whereas Avanan is most compared with Check Point Harmony Email & Collaboration, IRONSCALES, Perception Point Advanced Email Security, Mimecast Email Security and Fortinet FortiMail. See our Abnormal Security vs. Avanan report.
See our list of best Email Security vendors.
We monitor all Email Security reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.