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Check Point Anti-Spam and Email Security Software Blade vs Cisco Secure Email Threat Defense 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

Microsoft Defender for Offi...
Sponsored
Ranking in Email Security
1st
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
48
Ranking in other categories
Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) (1st), Microsoft Security Suite (11th)
Check Point Anti-Spam and E...
Ranking in Email Security
12th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
38
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Cisco Secure Email Threat D...
Ranking in Email Security
20th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
13
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Email Security category, the mindshare of Microsoft Defender for Office 365 is 13.1%, down from 19.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Check Point Anti-Spam and Email Security Software Blade is 0.8%, up from 0.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Cisco Secure Email Threat Defense is 1.1%, down from 1.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Email Security
 

Featured Reviews

Tolu Omolaja - PeerSpot reviewer
Great URL scanning and attachment scanning, but I would like more proactive threat analysis
The two main features that prove most beneficial for us are URL scanning and attachment scanning. URL scanning involves an automatic scan of links and emails. When a user clicks on a link within an email, the system promptly checks the link's safety. If the link is deemed safe, access is granted automatically. However, if it is flagged as unsafe, we receive feedback and notification to caution us about the potentially harmful link. At this point, we are presented with the option to proceed or return. I have personally witnessed the system identify a few unsafe links, making this the primary advantage of using the solution. The second crucial aspect is the scanning of attachments. When an email containing an attachment arrives, we receive a notification of the new email, along with information that the attachment is being scanned for threats. This additional layer of security provides peace of mind for our organization. While Microsoft Defender for Office 365 offers numerous features, these two stand out as particularly impressive and valuable to us.
Dushyant Trivedi - PeerSpot reviewer
Effectively secures data centers against various threats, including spam emails and provides policy-based control
It is a stable solution. We implemented the solution in HA. This is because the solution is highly available and can withstand hardware failures and software upgrades. Once the solution is implemented, there is no need for any further downtime for the Check Point server. Because once we change any policy, we can break the High Availability (HA) session and define the new policy on the Check Point Security Gateway (SGW) in isolation. This allows us to test the new policy without affecting the production traffic. Once the new policy is tested and active, we can then activate it on the HA pair and bring the HA session back up. This process ensures that we can make changes to the policy without any interruption to the user experience. It is a really stable solution. I would rate the stability a ten out of ten.
Mike Bulyk - PeerSpot reviewer
Can quickly identify, track, tag, and categorize internal emails. Reporting accessibly via the main dashboard would be a great addition.
If Cisco could continue to develop integrations, whether it's internal tooling, Threat Grid, or AMP reporting which could be accessible via a single web page, that would be helpful. This would essentially add additional context on messages as well as files or links being detected. Potentially adding additional context on why certain messages are tagged as spam or malware. In our case, malware hasn't been detected yet, but spam certainly has been. Knowing what engines or which components of the message make it identifiable as spam, that could be useful. Additional context and reporting accessibly via the main dashboard would be great. There is still room for improvement in terms of integrations with other Cisco tools and non-Cisco tools. There is also some room for improvement needed in terms of the reporting.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It also gives the vulnerability status according to the versions you have selected. Let's say you have Google Chrome. It mentions the versions it has, and it updates. Within two hours of an update, it is reflected in the dashboard. That's really nice to have."
"Microsoft Defender for Office 365's most valuable feature is its performance."
"The most valuable feature of Microsoft Defender for Office 365 is the ease of use."
"The technical support is good and quick to resolve issues."
"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."
"The product is not resource-intensive."
"The solution is very easy to use. All you have to do is to assign the license to the end-user and it's done. The customer will only have the feature activated, and the solution will monitor the emails to determine if they are a threat or not."
"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."
"A scalable, stable solution with good technical support."
"The policies and port blocking are the most valuable features. We have a significant amount of spam emails passing through our network."
"The robust Smart Dashboard enables to us fetch important and accurate data insights concerning the blocking of spammers and malware attacks on the system."
"It has several very good features that form an excellent tool."
"It's a fairly old solution, however, that has been updated over time to become one of the best manufacturers of security solutions."
"DLP features can help prevent sensitive information from being leaked via email."
"One of the standout features of the product is a significant reduction in false positives, achieved through the implementation of artificial intelligence for detecting malware, phishing attempts, and spam emails."
"This solution helped us lock down and have our infrastructure easier to manage."
"The features and functionalities are much better than Microsoft's in-built Defender plan."
"On ease of use, it rates very high. It's something that I was able to get into without really looking at any documentation. I wanted to see what it felt like before I started looking at any documentation on how to use it, and it was very easy to use. It works very smoothly. The user experience is very intuitive. They did an amazing job on that."
"The solution is stable."
"The product offers protection, email security, anti-spam, and antivirus."
"This solution is easy to use."
"Secure Email Threat Defense's scalability is good."
"Cisco has a threat mechanism called cloud-based Talos, where all the threats are inbuilt."
"Cisco Secure Email Cloud Mailbox can handle a complete portfolio, which is required to protect any kind of attack coming from emails. However, it does not have advanced phishing, but it is available through Cisco. If you compare Cisco Secure Email Cloud Mailbox with the competition, in the competition you have to have one or two solutions together to address the customer's requirement, whereas Cisco Secure Email Cloud Mailbox is addressing everything, such as web domain and email protection. If there is any kind of challenge it will come across through email."
 

Cons

"I'd like some additional features any product can give me to protect our environment in a better way."
"The visibility into threats is not up to the mark, as I do not have control. I rate my experience with Microsoft Defender for Office 365 as six out of ten due to troubleshooting and pricing concerns."
"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."
"One area for improvement is support, in terms of being able to reach them and, especially, technical support for configuration."
"The XDR dashboard has room for improvement."
"The custom alerts have to improve a lot."
"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."
"The support language is only English."
"Installation time could be improved as it takes too long to install."
"They should upgrade support services and make a more user-friendly database."
"It would be useful to have more logs and in aggregate mode, perhaps through a specific report, that can be more easily used for troubleshooting."
"It would be useful to have more logs and in aggregate mode, perhaps through a specific report, that can be more easily used for troubleshooting."
"The cost is high when putting through Check Point Blade in your Gateway."
"The solution could be improved by reducing false positives."
"Recognizing spammers and spam email sourcing is extremely lagging these days, and the performance could be improved to provide better efficiency."
"From a technical point of view, Cisco is far behind in terms of cybersecurity, and it has to improve very much."
"Customers will benefit greatly from monthly billing because the majority of customers today use the cloud, be it Office 365, or Google Cloud."
"Cisco Secure Email Cloud Mailbox can improve by adding advanced phishing, then the solution would become the best in the market. However, this could increase the price even more. Additionally, if CES with domain protection could be added it would be an even better solution."
"Cisco's multiple product lines and verticals made this just one of their many verticals, and we could see a shift in focus."
"The search area has room for improvement. When you go to the next page, it remains at the bottom of the current page that you're on. Also, under the reports section, it allows you to see any "convictions," but if you want to search for those convictions you have to remember when they all came in and go back and edit the search accordingly. You cannot click on the list of convictions to actually see if you had a spike at a certain time."
"There is still room for improvement in terms of integrations with other Cisco tools and non-Cisco tools. There is also some room for improvement needed in terms of the reporting."
"The tool gives false positives and it needs to be more accurate. I would like to see AI as a new feature."
"The physical appliance has been discontinued, although the platform still exists."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"I know that the product is incredibly expensive."
"Microsoft Defender for Office 365 is an add-on to the Office license. Many customers are purchasing this solution."
"The product is very expensive."
"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."
"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."
"The license is expensive because the cost is based on the number of users."
"The pricing has become expensive."
"I rate the product pricing a seven out of ten."
"For licensing, my company makes yearly payments, which is expensive."
"Choosing the correct set of licenses is essential because, without the additional software blade licenses, the Check Point gateways are just a stateful firewall."
"Reasonably priced solution."
"This is a simple system with a very low cost and basic functions, which surely is ideal for a small company."
"The cost is competitive with other security products on the market."
"I rate the pricing as an eight on a scale of one to ten, where one is cheap and ten is expensive."
"It is expensive compared to other vendors."
"Cisco Secure Email Cloud Mailbox does not have any competition with Sophos, Trend Micro, or other vendors of the world. However, there is a pricing premium for the solution. One has to look at it from that angle that while they are buying Cisco, there will be a premium, and Cisco justifies that premium value. That's why they're charging a high price."
"The solution’s pricing is manageable."
"The feedback from vendors and customer is that it is expensive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
16%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
6%
Security Firm
24%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Computer Software Company
12%
Educational Organization
5%
Computer Software Company
36%
Healthcare Company
7%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Government
5%
 

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?
I don't have detailed specifics on pricing, setup cost, or licensing.
What needs improvement with Microsoft Defender for Office 365?
I am generally satisfied with how it currently is. If I could improve anything, I would reduce the cost.
What needs improvement with Check Point Anti-Spam and Email Security Software Blade?
Regarding Checkpoint, I would suggest an easier interface to understand. With time and practice, users can get a bett...
What is your primary use case for Check Point Anti-Spam and Email Security Software Blade?
My primary use case is to mitigate any spoofing or phishing attempts related to the intake of emails and outbound ema...
What do you like most about Secure Email Threat Defense?
Secure Email Threat Defense's scalability is good.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Secure Email Threat Defense?
Cisco's closest competition is Proofpoint. Both are in the same range in terms of pricing. Pricing is on the higher s...
What needs improvement with Secure Email Threat Defense?
The physical appliance has been discontinued, although the platform still exists. Improvements here and there could b...
 

Also Known As

MS Defender for Office 365
No data available
Cisco Secure Email Cloud Mailbox, Cisco CMD, Cisco Cloud Mailbox Defense
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Microsoft Defender for Office 365 is trusted by companies such as Ithaca College.
SF Police Credit Union (SFPCU)
Luiss University, Lone Star College, T-Systems, Magyar Telekom
Find out what your peers are saying about Check Point Anti-Spam and Email Security Software Blade vs. Cisco Secure Email Threat Defense and other solutions. Updated: March 2025.
845,485 professionals have used our research since 2012.