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Avanan vs Fortinet FortiMail comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 8, 2024
 

Categories and Ranking

Microsoft Defender for Offi...
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Ranking in Email Security
1st
Average Rating
8.2
Number of Reviews
45
Ranking in other categories
Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) (1st), Microsoft Security Suite (10th)
Avanan
Ranking in Email Security
7th
Average Rating
9.2
Number of Reviews
21
Ranking in other categories
Data Loss Prevention (DLP) (7th)
Fortinet FortiMail
Ranking in Email Security
4th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
60
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2024, in the Email Security category, the mindshare of Microsoft Defender for Office 365 is 15.9%, down from 20.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Avanan is 4.7%, up from 3.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Fortinet FortiMail is 7.2%, down from 8.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Email Security
 

Featured Reviews

Luis-Brown - PeerSpot reviewer
Aug 8, 2023
Allows for easy reporting of problems, valuable anti-phishing, and anti-malware support
Microsoft Defender for Office 365 lacks proactivity in assisting us with preparing for potential threats before they occur. While they employ a substantial amount of threat intelligence to preemptively prevent incidents, their effectiveness diminishes when it comes to delivering proactive threat intelligence alerts from Microsoft. Their focus primarily revolves around managing the internal environment. On the other hand, my other vendor, Check Point, along with my membership in MS-ISAC, supplements me with this type of information. The phishing and spam filters could use some improvement. It is adequate, but it doesn't match the quality of Proofpoint or Mimecast. However, it comes close in effectiveness. Plus, if we're obtaining it for free, investing in the other products seems impractical.
Robert Melendez - PeerSpot reviewer
Mar 21, 2024
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.
Andras Solt - PeerSpot reviewer
Dec 12, 2022
Reasonable pricing and good spam filtering but does not offer robust gatekeeping
The solution is primarily for mail security. We use it primarily for incoming and outgoing emails. We also use other products which are quite new for us. We just invested in GFI, and we use it also for the incoming email traffic to check with more antivirus monitoring The spam filtering is great.…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Microsoft Defender for Office 365's most valuable features are safe attachments and safe links."
"Some of the valuable features on the email side are anti-phishing, anti-malware, and Safe Links."
"Does a thorough job of examining email and URLs for malicious content."
"One of the best features of the tool is its capability to aggregate insights from different workloads, basically from the Office 365 and endpoints part."
"The most valuable feature of Microsoft Defender for Office 365 is the ease of use."
"Microsoft Defender for Office 365 is a stable solution."
"I like its investigation capabilities, as that is what is most important to me. It is fairly simple with a user-friendly interface."
"Defender is a SaaS platform, so it offers more flexibility. Managing the permissions is easier. The solution's automated detection and response features are scalable."
"Avanan is a stable software. My company hasn't faced any issues, bugs, or problems with the performance of Avanan."
"The program has reduced the dangers related to phishing, malware, ransomware, and other vulnerabilities."
"Email inspection has saved many employees from spam attacks and viruses from unauthorized sources."
"The most valuable feature of Avanan is its Anti-Malware solution for Office 365, and box.com."
"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."
"The most valuable feature of Avanan is its effectiveness. When scanning incoming emails for threats it can in an automated fashion, quarantine suspicious attachments."
"I like Avanan's SmartDLP module. It's seamless, and the administrative overhead is low. We aren't a very sophisticated operation. We just want to reduce our exposure, so we find ThreatCloud helpful. Avanan's acquisition by Check Point was beneficial for them."
"The threat detection tools enable us to ascertain malware and phishing messages across the email network infrastructure."
"I love the integration between Fortinet products."
"It can block a lot of fake emails."
"The most valuable features are the endpoint defense features, it is very secure."
"The integration with FortiSandbox is good, and something that we utilize often."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is the tool's ability to prevent phishing attacks."
"The product helps users handle security challenges as it offers prefiltering options and does relatively good incident reporting."
"The solution is very reliable and very stable."
"Fortinet’s support services are good."
 

Cons

"In some situations, it has not been able to pick impersonated emails having no attachments. Technical support definitely has a scope for improvement."
"Too many false positives and lacks an accurate capability to detect malicious SharePoint sites."
"Configuration at the mid-level could be improved for the support team."
"About eight months ago, we started to measure the quantity of phishing and spam that we have been receiving, and it has been increasing a lot. That means that protection for our email is not as good as we were expecting."
"Microsoft wants its well-paying customers to finish testing some of its half-baked products, find bugs, and report bugs back to Microsoft's team, which is a little frustrating for those who have to manage it and roll it up to thousands of people across the organization."
"The phishing and spam filters could use some improvement."
"You should be able to deploy Defender for every subscription without the need to add servers."
"The UI needs to be more user-friendly."
"Integration with various SaaS offerings, who are leading in the SaaS market."
"The unified dashboard that it displays needs some improvements in terms of the KPIs that they have."
"The user experience must be improved."
"The overall user interface is not attractive. It needs some improvement."
"It should reduce the amount of time needed for thorough scanning."
"Being cloud first and because we are in the movie business, we use a lot of Macintoshes. So, there is absolutely no reason for us to have Active Directory whatsoever. However, if you are using Office 365, you must have Active Directory in order to reset passwords. Even though we have a single sign-on provider, we must have Azure Active Directory for Office 365, which is really stupid. As a cloud application, you would think that I don't need Active Directory, which I don't need for anything else except Office 365. We have one server inside that space to help us manage Active Directory just for Office 365. This is a very sore point, but it is what it is."
"The system could be designed to give corporate emails first priority due to demands."
"Avanan doesn't cover certain tool segments."
"It is not easy to install."
"I have little to say about possible improvements, but the configuration for content blocking could be better. So, for example, if the email includes the line "You have a Bitcoin", I would like it to be easier to block it before it enters an inbox. Fortinet could maybe offer better or simpler help on how to do this properly."
"Maybe FortiMail's integration could be better."
"FortiMail's dashboard is somewhat complex and could be made simpler."
"The sandboxing features are not well done in Fortinet FortiMail, making it an area of improvement."
"Such kinds of things, raised from the point from the objective actually, we are using Fortinet FortiMail. We don't find any kinds of challenge or difficulties, but Fortinet FortiMail is more efficient and more effective for us. I don't know for other client, but for us, Fortinet FortiMail is very effective Like, for instance, if it is possible, let's say some kind of high threat is actually encountered if it could be possible to SMBs in our smartphone, or mobile apps, kinds of thing, if Fortinet FortiMail is available to monitor the thing using from our mobile phone from our smartphone. If such kinds of things are truly included, it will be more or good for us."
"High Availability needs improvement."
"The infrastructure could be improved."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"From the pricing point of view, like any other product in the market, there is scope for negotiation."
"Defender for 365 comes in various plans and licenses, along with other Microsoft security solutions. Purchasing this kind of package or security bundle gives good value for money, and that's what I recommend."
"Microsoft Defender is expensive. I typically recommend it only if clients have the budget. Otherwise, I would suggest an alternative."
"It's a user-base subscription."
"I was working in the government and it was too expensive for us to use our Microsoft products."
"The solution saves money so we have seen a return on investment."
"The solution could be better by simplifying the business model of their licensing. It was hard to figure out how to get the licensing done for the environment, initially."
"Microsoft Defender for Office 365 is an add-on to the Office license. Many customers are purchasing this solution."
"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."
"We have a monthly license that is $4 to $8 per user."
"Good pricing arrangement as an SaaS offering."
"The product is not the cheapest in the market."
"Avanan’s price is comparable to Barracuda."
"The tool is very expensive."
"It is a fairly priced product, considering what it does. The product offers good value for the money users spend on it."
"The pricing is good."
"There is a license required for this solution and it is on an annual basis. I am satisfied with the price."
"9,000 Euro per annum for Fortinet Mail and sandbox."
"Fortinet FortiMail has an annual license agreement."
"This is a good solution and value for the money."
"The pricing is on the higher side."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
17%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
6%
Educational Organization
48%
Computer Software Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
5%
Government
4%
Educational Organization
49%
Computer Software Company
9%
Government
5%
Financial Services Firm
4%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Microsoft Defender for Office 365?
Threat Explorer is an invaluable tool for me, and it plays a crucial role in helping me discern the origins of variou...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Microsoft Defender for Office 365?
The pricing is reasonable since it comes integrated with our Office 365 license.
What needs improvement with Microsoft Defender for Office 365?
Sometimes, phishing emails manage to pass through the filter, so the system needs to enhance its phishing email detec...
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 bac...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Fortinet FortiMail?
Barracuda is less expensive compared to FortiMail. FortiMail is mid-range, and Cisco is priced higher.
What needs improvement with Fortinet FortiMail?
There are multiple areas for improvement, such as user visibility, which is less compared to Cisco's secure appliance...
 

Also Known As

MS Defender for Office 365
No data available
FortiMail
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Microsoft Defender for Office 365 is trusted by companies such as Ithaca College.
Bethel School District, ServiceSource, Capital Caring
Magromer Cueros y Pieles S.A.
Find out what your peers are saying about Avanan vs. Fortinet FortiMail and other solutions. Updated: October 2024.
815,854 professionals have used our research since 2012.