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Avanan vs Mimecast Email Security 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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Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
47
Ranking in other categories
Email Security (1st), Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) (1st), Microsoft Security Suite (10th)
Avanan
Average Rating
9.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.8
Number of Reviews
19
Ranking in other categories
Email Security (14th), Data Loss Prevention (DLP) (11th)
Mimecast Email Security
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
5.9
Number of Reviews
29
Ranking in other categories
Office 365 Protection (5th), Secure Email Gateway (SEG) (4th)
 

Featured Reviews

Jamie LeClair - PeerSpot reviewer
File-sharing options and ease of collaboration or meetings allow for quick collaborations and chats
I work in my company's IT department, so I use all of the products under Office 365 daily, including Microsoft Word, Microsoft PowerPoint, Microsoft Teams, and all the other components in the product. My company can't make it through a day or go by without using the products offered under Office 365. Some of our manufacturing workers may use Office 365 a lot less, but it is still necessary for things like Microsoft Outlook and Exchange. I found Microsoft Teams to be the most valuable feature of the solution, along with all of the products and features offered under Office 365. My organization has remote workers, and we can't run the company without meetings organized with the help of Microsoft Teams.
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.
Frank Rawson - PeerSpot reviewer
It gives clients peace of mind and helps them educate their users about threats
A few years ago, our team found the implementation to be somewhat challenging. It has gotten easier as we've grown more experienced. The difficulty depends on the expertise of the person doing it. I don't work with Mimecast every day, so it might be more difficult for me than it is for one of my techs who regularly does Mimecast implementations. It requires some specific in-depth product knowledge and an understanding of email solutions. The deployment time varies. In South Africa, it depends on who you use to deploy it. If you use one of Mimecast's local partners, it can take up to two weeks because of their process. However, it's only about four to eight hours of work. After deployment, there isn't much maintenance aside from supporting and educating your customers. Users require constant education on how to use the Mimecast client and release an email that has been blocked.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"I would say that 90% of the spam and phishing attack emails get blocked right off the bat."
"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."
"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."
"Defender for 365 is a comprehensive cloud-based solution. The value of the cloud is that you aren't alone. Threat intelligence and analytics are shared in the cloud. We don't have to find the solution alone. If you face an unknown threat with traditional solutions like Trend Micro and Symantec, you need to open a case and send your information to them to analyze forensically and identify the source of the attack."
"Defender enables us to secure all 365-related activity from a single place. It gives us visibility into everything happening in Outlook, protecting us against phishing and other email-based threats. Defender helps us detect any suspicious behaviors."
"The product's scalability is good."
"The most valuable feature of Microsoft Defender for Office 365 is the ease of use."
"The stability of Microsoft Defender for Office 365 is fantastic."
"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 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."
"The most valuable feature of Avanan is its Anti-Malware solution for Office 365, and box.com."
"The customizable rules allow you to change aspects."
"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."
"The most valuable feature of Avanan is its effectiveness. When scanning incoming emails for threats it can in an automated fashion, quarantine suspicious attachments."
"It does a good job for us, and its admin console is easy to use."
"What I like about the integration is that it is directly into Microsoft 365, users can use their Microsoft 365 credentials to log into the portal and access their mail."
"The solution offers good technical support."
"The biggest advantage of Mimecast Email Security is its spam filtering. Its filtering feature is interesting."
"The most valuable feature is the DMARC Analyzer."
"The piece that is most valuable from the Mimecast standpoint will be the sandboxing feature."
"The product is good. To date, we have not faced any challenges."
"Due to our specialized use case, that HIPAA dictionary really comes in handy."
 

Cons

"Microsoft needs to broaden its global support presence by establishing teams of subject-matter experts in all regions."
"Microsoft security solutions work as expected. They are constantly updating the solutions to make them better. At the same time, the changes can impact a customer's environment, and we need to adjust settings. Sometimes we aren't aware of the changes, and nothing is pushed from the backend automatically."
"The pre-sales cost calculations could be more transparent."
"The phishing and spam filters could use some improvement."
"One area for improvement is support, in terms of being able to reach them and, especially, technical support for configuration."
"The product must provide better malware detection."
"We need to be able to whitelist data at the backend."
"I am generally satisfied with how it currently is. If I could improve anything, I would reduce the cost."
"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."
"Avanan doesn't cover certain tool segments."
"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 user experience must be improved."
"It is complicated for new users unfamiliar with the modern cloud networking infrastructure."
"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."
"They should come up with a mobile application so that it can be more flexible."
"It should also offer a quick backup in case any email is wrongly quarantined or deleted to ensure no data loss."
"We have subscribed to an archival service, and yet, when we have to get our data out, we have to pay a fee to get our own data. They charge an extraction fee."
"I did have a problem with Mimecast. That is why I was looking for an alternative solution because their sender IP address gets poorly rated by Microsoft."
"Their support should be improved. They are notorious for sending you to knowledge-based articles rather than actually talking to you, but that is, unfortunately, kind of becoming a trend with everything. In terms of features, I haven't had any complaints. However, I don't like the fact they moved to a paid training subscription model. They used to have a lot of free webinars for training, but they have started to charge for them in the past year."
"The solution is very expensive."
"The installation is not so straightforward."
"Lately, Mimecast's outbound mail servers have been regularly blocklisted by spam filters. That didn't happen a few years back, but it seems to be a more frequent problem these days. When a server is blocklisted, it means all of my outgoing mail ends up in the recipient's junk mail. That affects my reputation and business confidence."
"External security features need improvement."
"The detection rates are an area for improvement."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Microsoft Defender for Office 365 is an add-on to the Office license. Many customers are purchasing this solution."
"The pricing is normal. Considering its popularity, it's not overpriced."
"The pricing has become expensive."
"I was working in the government and it was too expensive for us to use our Microsoft products."
"Defender is a little bit more expensive as compared to others. We are in the manufacturing environment. So, we don't have a high budget for all of our endpoint devices. Its cost is a major concern for us."
"I know that the product is incredibly expensive."
"The product is very expensive."
"Compared to other brands, Microsoft Defender for Office 365's pricing is competitive."
"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."
"Good pricing arrangement as an SaaS offering."
"The pricing of Avanan is reasonable."
"The product is not the cheapest in the market."
"Avanan’s price is comparable to Barracuda."
"There are additional costs beyond the standard licensing fee."
"The product price is moderate. I rate the pricing a five out of ten."
"I'm always going to say the price needs to be lower, but it's reasonable."
"The solution is expensive."
"On a scale of one to ten, where one is cheap, and ten is expensive, I rate the pricing a ten."
"The customers can select the license packages as per their requirements."
"It's an expensive solution."
"For what it is, the product is overpriced."
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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%
Financial Services Firm
4%
Computer Software Company
16%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Retailer
6%
 

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?
Microsoft needs to broaden its global support presence by establishing teams of subject-matter experts in all regions.
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 do you like most about Mimecast Email Security with Targeted Threat Protection?
The interface of this solution is very easy to navigate and user-friendly. There is no delivery in email and other co...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Mimecast Email Security with Targeted Threat Protection?
The pricing is higher for Mimecast, particularly for the Indian market, where it is considered expensive.
What needs improvement with Mimecast Email Security with Targeted Threat Protection?
Mimecast needs to reduce the number of false positive emails; a big pain point for us. A lot of emails were missed de...
 

Also Known As

MS Defender for Office 365
No data available
Mimecast Email Security with Targeted Threat Protection
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Microsoft Defender for Office 365 is trusted by companies such as Ithaca College.
Bethel School District, ServiceSource, Capital Caring
Azizi Developments, Affinity Credit Union, Aftercare, Al Abbar Group
Find out what your peers are saying about Avanan vs. Mimecast Email Security and other solutions. Updated: January 2024.
823,875 professionals have used our research since 2012.