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AppRiver Email Security vs IRONSCALES comparison

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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

Cloudflare One
Sponsored
Ranking in Email Security
20th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
23
Ranking in other categories
Secure Web Gateways (SWG) (15th), Data Loss Prevention (DLP) (21st), Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB) (11th), Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection (7th), Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) Solutions (13th), Access Management (12th), Bot Management (3rd), ZTNA as a Service (8th), ZTNA (3rd), Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) (10th), Remote Browser Isolation (RBI) (3rd)
AppRiver Email Security
Ranking in Email Security
31st
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
IRONSCALES
Ranking in Email Security
12th
Average Rating
9.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
16
Ranking in other categories
Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) (16th), Secure Email Gateway (SEG) (5th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2026, in the Email Security category, the mindshare of Cloudflare One is 1.5%, down from 1.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of AppRiver Email Security is 0.8%, down from 1.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IRONSCALES is 2.0%, up from 2.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Email Security Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
IRONSCALES2.0%
Cloudflare One1.5%
AppRiver Email Security0.8%
Other95.7%
Email Security
 

Featured Reviews

CV
Network Architect at IP Dimension
Cloud security has improved remote access and has reduced costs for smaller client sites
I have used Cloudflare One's Identity-Aware Proxy, and it is quite straightforward from what I have seen so far. The app registration on the Azure side integrates fully into Cloudflare, and I am very satisfied with that part because it is easy to set up. The integration of Cloudflare One's Secure Web Gateway and Zero Trust Network Access works without any issues. That part is pretty automatic, and if you complete the rest of the setup, it comes together by itself with no issues from my side. What makes it nice is that we can actually start replacing on-site firewalls at this stage for the smaller clients because it does not matter if they go to a coffee shop or work from home; they are still secured by the same connection. The hops get shorter and you get better latency. We have done testing to see if it is better. One thing that we did notice with our proof of concept with our current client is that they have people connecting from the UK. When they used their previous VPN solution, uploading CAD drawings and other files to the server took a long time. They mentioned that it is much quicker on Cloudflare One's solution. I definitely believe that is part of the improved performance, and I am satisfied with that as well. What is nice about Cloudflare One is that it makes the setup easier and also easier to train technicians to maintain it. Compared to legacy systems, we do not need to get fancy firewalls in place that are costly. That is definitely also a cost-saver with Cloudflare One.
John Zupancic - PeerSpot reviewer
Vice President / Branch Manager / Senior Technician at Aperion Information Technologies, Inc.
Pricing that is competitive, excellent technical support, and email security
They do a better job of distinguishing between what's real and what's not than most of the other solutions we've tried. They are very easy to use. We don't have as many problems with email security. They have some areas that could be improved. For example, we also use Zix email Encryption for email encryption, which was clunky and could be improved, but the email security itself has been excellent.
reviewer2770017 - PeerSpot reviewer
Email Security Analyst at a computer software company with 51-200 employees
Has improved threat analysis by providing clear email correspondence history and reporting tools
The best features IRONSCALES offers are the investigation tabs, headers, and correspondence history, which stand out the most for me. The investigation tabs are valuable for my work because reporting goes a long way in terms of playbooks and having a full investigation. The investigation tab knows exactly how to put the information in a way that makes it very easy for reports to get done fast. Security awareness training is a big part of IRONSCALES. The platform offers a broad spectrum in terms of what campaigns can be run for security awareness for users as well as reporting back on how users interact with their mails and understanding where the vulnerabilities lie. IRONSCALES has positively impacted my organization by making email security simple in terms of controlling mails, understanding where the threats are, and protecting the organization itself.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Cloudflare Access is part of the Zero Trust philosophy."
"Cloudflare is simple to use."
"The simplicity of the solution is its valuable features as almost no effort was needed to learn the configurations. It is also one of the cheapest firewalls available in this category."
"Cloudflare DDoS is better than its competitors for its security, deployment, and scalability."
"It will take the blow rather than our applications should an attack occur."
"It is a stable solution."
"The best feature is rate limiting. If I'm expecting 500 visits per hour, Cloudflare will limit the requests if I suddenly get 50,000."
"I'm very satisfied with the environment and the dashboard."
"They are very easy to use."
"It's easy to use and user-friendly. Users can also easily release spam emails."
"They do a better job of distinguishing between what's real and what's not than most of the other solutions we've tried."
"It has helped immensely because it has gotten rid of malicious links and malicious attachments that have been targeted at our different staff members."
"The report function through Gmail is probably the most valuable feature. The next most valuable features are simulation and training."
"IRONSCALES has enabled us to spend more time on other activities because it is just install and forget."
"It is a totally stable solution."
"I couldn't believe that it could filter out 35% of the email."
"The biggest benefit is that we get fewer phishing and spam emails, so using IRONSCALES has made our environment much safer."
"By having an integrated approach of combining email security and employee awareness training, they've hit the nail on the head."
"We like IRONSCALES because it's easy to use and saves us some time."
 

Cons

"From a logging perspective, it is still a bit difficult to see exactly what users are being blocked with the current views."
"Lacks a VPN feature to provide a secure connection to the data center."
"The tool should provide on-premise versions. Currently, all versions are cloud-based."
"When there are any dynamic changes in complex applications, the tool takes a lot of time, making its analytics-related area a major matter of concern where improvements are needed."
"Feedback could be enhanced. While I work efficiently with Clover as a partner in Mexico City, sometimes the information and requests are easier to manage with more concrete solutions."
"Feedback could be enhanced."
"There are premium tier live service and lower tier live service, so we opted for the lower tier. But there is no medium tier where we pay a little extra and get a bit more service. So if that can be improved."
"The software has automated alerts, but the automated alerts are not available in the mobile app."
"It needs to make sure that the application is up to date with new attacks. They should also send us the demo or introductions for their new incoming features."
"Technical support is no longer as good as it once was."
"Email security checks contain a small number of false positives."
"There's room for improvement in the campaign management. IRONSCALES has many built-in templates that I use, but you can also build templates from scratch. However, the interface for creating custom templates needs to be updated."
"I would love to see the indication of compromise and how the solution utilizes open source resources. It would be good to see that included in the paid versions. It would be a small addition but add a lot of value for clients."
"There is a feature called Account Takeover, which isn't what I want it to be able to do."
"In addition to integrated training, they should also have personalized training that you don't have to do as part of a phishing campaign or a simulation."
"As far as training awareness, I would give it 6.5 to 7 out of 10."
"In addition to integrated training, they should also have personalized training that you don't have to do as part of a phishing campaign or a simulation."
"Its UI could be improved. My pet peeve with a lot of these cloud-based systems is that a lot of times, the interface for the management is a little clunky. If you live and breathe IRONSCALES all day long, you'll obviously know where everything is just from muscle memory, but the system is not designed for people to be in it all day long. You're only supposed to occasionally look at it. When things get moved around, it is not necessarily that intuitive. I'm an IT guy, and I can pretty much take the worst UI and figure it out, but the menus and the options in the interface could be a little cleaner graphically. If you have a quick problem that you want to resolve, it takes a little bit of digging in the admin console, whereas it should take a few clicks up front."
"The integration with Google Suite needs to be better. it's something they can work on."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"My company has to make yearly payments towards the licensing costs attached to the solution. There are no hidden charges apart from the licensing costs of the solution."
"The price tag is no longer $200,000, but rather $300,000 to $400,000. It's twice."
"The solution is not that expensive."
"The solution's pricing lacks transparency."
"The prices are slightly expensive."
"The pricing is somewhere in the middle. I would rate the pricing a seven out of ten."
"Cloudflare Zero Trust Platform's pricing is good."
"The pricing of the solution is cheap. The licensing cost is also very low. I rate the cost and pricing a three out of ten."
"I can rate it five out of ten because there are different platforms that also offer the same services for lower prices. But AppRiver is more flexible."
"They're fairly inexpensive, but they're right in the ballpark of most of the other online products like that."
"I don't know about its pricing because I don't run the budget or pay the bills, but if it was extortionate, we probably would be looking to scrap it, and because we are not, I assume its price is okay."
"There is an installation cost. Since we have this as a managed service, we pay for licensing and the managed service itself. Other than that, there are no additional costs."
"They are pretty much the same as all the other competitors in the market."
"As compared to everything else we looked at, it was good. It was the best value for the dollars."
"We pay $3000 plus a little more a year for the number of employees we have, and we're not even that big. The solution is at the higher end in terms of cost. It's not the most expensive product, but I would say it's worth the price if you have a high volume of email traffic. In our case, the solution has inspected over 162,000 emails between three and four months. It saved us a lot of time and money. It's a worthwhile investment because a bad actor only has to succeed once; we must defend against everything in our business. IRONSCALES offers a sense of security and confidence from being well protected."
"IRONSCALES is an expensive solution."
"The tool is not very cheap, but it is affordable."
"Considering the value it provides, it is definitely worth the cost. We don't have to do manual analysis and remediation of phishing emails, which saves us a lot of hours. Its licensing is based on the number of users being supported and the number of email addresses being protected. I'm not aware of any additional costs."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Construction Company
23%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Computer Software Company
6%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Retailer
10%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Computer Software Company
8%
Computer Software Company
16%
Construction Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business10
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise11
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business7
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise4
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Cloudflare Access?
Cloudflare Access has strong integration with Microsoft, among other platforms. However, when it comes to Kaspersky, ...
What is your primary use case for Cloudflare Access?
Cloudflare Access provides secure access to internal applications for employees, external members of the organization...
What advice do you have for others considering Cloudflare Access?
Cloudflare Access is one of the best integrations available. While about two hundred vendors offer similar services, ...
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What do you like most about IRONSCALES?
The solution captures a bit more of the unknown, quantifies it, and applies intelligence to it to pick out and stop a...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IRONSCALES?
While I don't specifically oversee the pricing details, I understand that IRONSCALES is in the range of similar solut...
What needs improvement with IRONSCALES?
I would really prefer to drill down more on correspondence history. It provides detailed background information to ac...
 

Also Known As

Cloudflare Area 1 Email Security, Cloudflare Bot Management, Cloudflare Gateway, Cloudflare Zero Trust Platform, Cloudflare DDoS, Cloudflare SASE & SSE Platform
AppRiver Advanced Email Security
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

23andMe
IHMC
Allegheny Millwork, Ayrshire College, Nium, Orris, Paramount School District, Pres Les, PRT Staffing, Recovery Unplugged, Telit, WebHelp
Find out what your peers are saying about AppRiver Email Security vs. IRONSCALES and other solutions. Updated: March 2026.
885,789 professionals have used our research since 2012.