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Cisco Secure Email Threat Defense vs Microsoft Exchange Online Protection (EOP) comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 3, 2024
 

Categories and Ranking

Microsoft Defender for Offi...
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Ranking in Email Security
1st
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
47
Ranking in other categories
Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) (1st), Microsoft Security Suite (10th)
Cisco Secure Email Threat D...
Ranking in Email Security
28th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
12
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Microsoft Exchange Online P...
Ranking in Email Security
4th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
36
Ranking in other categories
Anti-Malware Tools (9th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of December 2024, in the Email Security category, the mindshare of Microsoft Defender for Office 365 is 15.8%, down from 20.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Cisco Secure Email Threat Defense is 1.3%, down from 2.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Exchange Online Protection (EOP) is 8.2%, down from 12.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Email Security
 

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.
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.
Nur Mohammad - PeerSpot reviewer
An effective email security solution that provides DLP, Safe Attachment, and Safe Links
If you want extensive email security, you need to purchase a Plan 2 license. Plan 1 and Plan 2 are the two plans for Microsoft Exchange Online Protection. Some customers hesitate to purchase this product because it adds some costs to them, which is necessary for them. It would be helpful for customers if Plan 1 features were included with EOP. However, they still need to purchase Plan 2 for advanced security features. One of our clients recently requested to compare Zimbra's features with Microsoft Exchange Online Protection. Zimbra is open source, while Microsoft Exchange Online Protection is not. When I compare both the products, many free features are available in Zimbra because it is open-source software. It makes no sense to request Microsoft Exchange Online Protection add all the features people get on open-source software like Zimbra. Hence, I would say whatever features Microsoft Exchange Online Protection has are enough. Microsoft has a dedicated research team that should research and add new techniques like phishing and spamming solutions to the product.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The email protection is excellent, especially in terms of anti-phishing policies."
"I like its investigation capabilities, as that is what is most important to me. It is fairly simple with a user-friendly interface."
"The deployment capability is a great feature."
"We use Microsoft Defender for its ability to integrate with existing business technologies, which is beneficial for protecting business areas."
"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."
"The technical support is good and quick to resolve issues."
"Microsoft Defender has a feature to protect each and every attachment. Even if it's an encrypted attachment, it will check for any potential threats."
"Does a thorough job of examining email and URLs for malicious content."
"The solution is stable."
"This solution is easy to use."
"It has an efficient email filtering feature."
"It's very easy to deploy and configure."
"The ability to see east-west traffic is its most valuable feature. Traditionally, email defense focuses on north-south, inbound-outbound, egress-ingress traffic. With Cisco Secure Email Cloud Mailbox, it's able to quickly identify, track, tag, and categorize emails that are internal. That can typically give us visibility into if there's an internal compromised account (for example). Someone can then use that internal compromised account to email additional accounts with either malicious software or links, but internal within that Office tenant. Effectively, that email message never leaves the tenant. Any of the mail gateways really do not have any method or way of seeing this traffic since it's not leaving the environment."
"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."
"I would say it's very comprehensive, with multiple antivirus OEMs, virus encrypt features, encryption, and more."
"Secure Email Threat Defense's scalability is good."
"The scalability is pretty good; it does what it is supposed to do."
"We use the solution to receive emails. We do not use the calendar function as our clients are slow adaptors to the latest features."
"We use the solution in all our environments. We use it for remedy tickets and give them updates. It was our main communication point."
"What I like most about Microsoft Exchange Online Protection is its integration with Windows, so we have one central view for all alerts and incidents."
"Online Protection's most valuable feature is its admin interface."
"You can use the product to create special accounts."
"The security features provided by Microsoft are robust."
"It is an easy solution."
 

Cons

"Microsoft should provide more documentation for users so they can self-educate. I would like to see more documentation for advanced security features."
"There's room for improvement regarding the time frame for retrieving emails."
"I am generally satisfied with how it currently is. If I could improve anything, I would reduce the cost."
"The pre-sales cost calculations could be more transparent."
"The GUI is sometimes slow to fetch the device report and could be improved."
"The custom alerts have to improve a lot."
"The phishing and spam filters could use some improvement."
"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."
"This solution could be improved by integration with Sandbox."
"The solution is a bit expensive."
"The pricing could always be better."
"Customers will benefit greatly from monthly billing because the majority of customers today use the cloud, be it Office 365, or Google Cloud."
"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."
"We encounter issues while searching for missing emails."
"From a technical point of view, Cisco is far behind in terms of cybersecurity, and it has to improve very much."
"The tool gives false positives and it needs to be more accurate. I would like to see AI as a new feature."
"It doesn't protect against everything. We do need protection for, for example, endpoints."
"Microsoft 365 Defender and EOP policies are stable with the proper license. However, with the basic policy, it's hard to say it's stable due to configuration limitations."
"The tool's classification for bulk email is cumbersome."
"When the product is being updated, it changes some of the setups. The support team is also not good."
"I would like to get reports about vulnerable connections from our clients with information about domains, public IPs, etc. That would be highly useful."
"Our company faces difficulty with Microsoft Exchange Online Protection (EOP) because it's too big, clunky, and difficult for a small client to implement quickly and easily."
"Performance and speed should continue to be improved."
"The licensing can be on the expensive side, especially in the cloud space."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I was working in the government and it was too expensive for us to use our Microsoft products."
"From the pricing point of view, like any other product in the market, there is scope for negotiation."
"The product is very expensive."
"It is much more expensive than using another solution because we have had to include some options and upgrade our license."
"It's a user-base subscription."
"While Microsoft Defender for Office 365 necessitates pricier E3 or E5 subscriptions, the extensive functionality offered by these licenses across various Microsoft products justifies the investment."
"For large enterprise organizations, they can definitely afford it, but for small and medium organizations, they might struggle to cover the expenses."
"The pricing has become expensive."
"The feedback from vendors and customer is that it is expensive."
"It is expensive compared to other vendors."
"The solution’s pricing is manageable."
"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 tool's pricing is excellent."
"On a scale of one to ten, where one is cheap, and ten is very expensive, I rate the pricing a six. For licensing, we can make monthly or yearly payments. Right now, we pay 5 USD per month to secure a person's license."
"The pricing of the solution is reasonable."
"The pricing for the solution depends on what you are trying to achieve with the use of the product, but I know that it is not a cheaply priced product. Yearly payments have to be made towards the licensing fees of the solution."
"The solution should reduce the cost."
"Microsoft Exchange Online Protection's pricing is a little bit more because its price has recently increased."
"The product's pricing is competitive for the US market."
"The solution falls on the higher or more expensive side of the spectrum."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
17%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
6%
Computer Software Company
41%
Healthcare Company
6%
Financial Services Firm
5%
Manufacturing Company
5%
Computer Software Company
15%
Government
9%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
7%
 

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 Secure Email Threat Defense?
Secure Email Threat Defense's scalability is good.
What needs improvement with Secure Email Threat Defense?
Cisco is a multi-product, diverse organization. Before it was acquired by Cisco, the company that developed Email Thr...
What do you like most about Microsoft Exchange Online Protection?
The initial setup was easy. The configuration process is very straightforward.
What needs improvement with Microsoft Exchange Online Protection?
The product's end-of-life cycle could be extended. When it gets upgraded, we should receive some incentives. For exam...
What is your primary use case for Microsoft Exchange Online Protection?
The main use case is to block suspicious links in emails. However, some functionalities like SIPP attachment are not ...
 

Also Known As

MS Defender for Office 365
Cisco Secure Email Cloud Mailbox, Cisco CMD, Cisco Cloud Mailbox Defense
Microsoft EOP, MS Exchange Online Protection
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Microsoft Defender for Office 365 is trusted by companies such as Ithaca College.
Luiss University, Lone Star College, T-Systems, Magyar Telekom
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco Secure Email Threat Defense vs. Microsoft Exchange Online Protection (EOP) and other solutions. Updated: December 2024.
824,053 professionals have used our research since 2012.