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Cisco Secure Email 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
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
47
Ranking in other categories
Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) (1st), Microsoft Security Suite (10th)
Cisco Secure Email
Ranking in Email Security
3rd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
59
Ranking in other categories
Cisco Security Portfolio (8th)
Fortinet FortiMail
Ranking in Email Security
5th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
61
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

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 is 9.4%, down from 11.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Fortinet FortiMail is 7.1%, down from 7.9% 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.
Kostas Karidas - PeerSpot reviewer
Helps prevent security breaches but fails to improve in the area of AI
I have not noticed any impressive advanced threat protection mechanisms in the tool. I don't know if there are any AI features in the product. I don't know if there is any other technology embedded in the solution. Cisco Secure Email successfully mitigated potential email threats. My company has seen plenty of scenarios where Cisco Secure Email successfully mitigated potential email threats, spam emails, and fraudulent domains. The product is good for dealing with spam emails, and it can take care of more than 100 spam emails per day. A huge number of spam emails are monitored with the help of Cisco Secure Email. I would not recommend the product to other businesses because you need to have some kind of expertise in configuring and knowing a bit about the tool's GUI. The tool also lacks in the area of AI mechanics. If I would like to have an overview and review another solution, I would go for another product other than Cisco Secure Email. I can definitely suggest others to look at the product and review it, but I would also recommend that they compare it with the other solutions in the market. I wouldn't prioritize Cisco Secure Email over other tools. Either the support partner of the product or I take care of the tool's maintenance phase by looking into the configurations and doing some fine-tuning. I rate the tool a seven to eight out of ten.
Andras Solt - PeerSpot reviewer
Reasonable pricing and good spam filtering but does not offer robust gatekeeping
It's mainly suited for mid-size companies, not for bigger companies like us. We are more than 1,000 people. In fact, we're over 2000 users, so that's why we investigated some other products, and Clearswift, for example. We likely won't increase usage. We're looking at GFI in a year or so.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The initial setup was easy."
"The most valuable aspect of Microsoft Defender for Office 365 is its ability to protect us from malware."
"The good part is that you don't have to configure it, which is very convenient."
"I would say that 90% of the spam and phishing attack emails get blocked right off the bat."
"Microsoft Defender for Office 365's most valuable feature is its performance."
"Some of the valuable features on the email side are anti-phishing, anti-malware, and Safe Links."
"The email protection is excellent, especially in terms of anti-phishing policies."
"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 blocks bulk marketing messages, graymail, spam, and provides advanced malware protection."
"It has the ability to tell us, after an email has been delivered, where else it went, once it got inside. Maybe it's something we wanted it to stop and it didn't stop it, but it notified us later that it was something that it should have stopped. It can give us a trajectory of all the other places that it went internally and it can tell us what files were transferred as well."
"The most valuable features are protection against ransomware and spam."
"At one point, there was a zero-day attack. The Cisco appliance detected it and stopped it, helping us out. We avoided the attack and potential damage."
"The advanced phishing protection and the integration with the awareness tool that Cisco has embedded into the solution to bring awareness to the customers about the dangers of phishing attacks and other things that come from email are the most valuable features."
"Administration of the email domains and custom filters are easily done via the web interface."
"The tool comes with AI features. It is good for clients who already use Cisco products due to integration."
"The security features are valuable."
"Fortinet FortiMail is a complete product addressing mail security concerns. It helps to know spam subscriptions and create restriction policies."
"It has a very high level of security through special licensing with solutions like FortiGuard, sandboxing solutions in the cloud, and URL rewriting solutions."
"The solution can scale."
"It is one of the most efficient solutions in our environment. We have more than nine hundred users. All of these users are protected by Fortinet FortiMail."
"The most valuable features of Fortinet FortiMail are its virus outbreak prevention and FortiSandbox integration."
"This solution is good for small and medium enterprise companies."
"The anti-spam feature is very valuable."
"I think the spamming feature is very valuable."
 

Cons

"They have moved features from one console to another. Things have been moved around in the interface and it takes me time to find where certain features are."
"The pre-sales cost calculations could be more transparent."
"Configuring the default strategies and policies in Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps generates a lot of noise and false positives."
"The XDR dashboard has room for improvement."
"Microsoft Defender for Office 365's Mac functionality requires improvement to deliver the same level of protection found on Windows devices."
"One area for improvement is integration. For example, when it comes to external SaaS platforms, we were not able to get a lot of information on integrations with such apps for security and authentication."
"There needs to be an improvement in integrating the product to work across multiple operating systems, and to have better support for non-Microsoft file types."
"The GUI is sometimes slow to fetch the device report and could be improved."
"One of the things that Cisco could improve on with IronPort is the support. Cisco doesn't really have enough engineers who have full, hands-on knowledge of IronPort. Knowledge of it is not something you can find easily compared to other security appliances."
"In future releases, I would like to see two main improvements come to mind. First, the current solution requires maintaining two separate operating systems for FTD, which can be cumbersome. I'd love to see a single operating system for the FTD box."
"They could improve the filters. In my time at the company, there were several times we had to contact support to update the filters."
"It is not user-friendly, and it is quite complicated. So, it should be more user-friendly."
"We cannot manage multiple devices from a single UI."
"I would like to see sandboxing for email, where suspicious emails received by the system are analyzed through online services."
"The user interface needs some improvement to become more user-friendly. The graphics could be better. It's designed more for a technical user rather than a business user."
"They can do it better with web links, with the URLs. They have a technology called Outbreak but it doesn't work as well as we would like."
"The tool needs to improve its pricing policy. Also, it needs to be more user-friendly. I would want it to improve email security as well."
"The web console management interface could be improved."
"Fortinet FortiMail could improve general user management. There are no password policies for users."
"The logging information is sometimes not clear or easy to understand."
"High Availability needs improvement."
"It can be easier to configure or connect to the cloud to report on the attachments."
"Header inspection and containerization, like on-prem premises sandboxing, need enhancement."
"It would be nice if we could manage the solution from the cloud so I could handle things off-site if necessary."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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 is expensive. I typically recommend it only if clients have the budget. Otherwise, I would suggest an alternative."
"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."
"It is much more expensive than using another solution because we have had to include some options and upgrade our license."
"The license is expensive because the cost is based on the number of users."
"The product is very expensive."
"For licensing, it's usually a yearly package for customers who are subscribed to Office 365, but they can also pay on a monthly basis."
"Microsoft Defender for Office 365 comes with Microsoft Windows. It is free with the operating system."
"The solution is expensive."
"The pricing is good."
"At times, we feel the pricing is a bit too high, but then, there is also room for discounts. We enjoy a lot of discounts, and that is why we are still with them. There are no costs in addition to the standard licensing fees."
"It's adapted to the market. It's similar to other vendors. We at least don't have many problems regarding that because Cisco is adaptable on that side. When we present the solutions to the customers, we tend to achieve the goals that the customer has in terms of the budget for such implementations."
"The license was not per user, the license model was per feature. You could choose anti-virus, anti-spam, etc. It was feature-based and charged yearly."
"The licensing was all transferred."
"Pricing depends on your environment and which model you want to buy."
"Cisco Secure Email is not expensive, and licensing costs are yearly."
"It is reasonable."
"The fees for Fortinet FortiMail can be complicated. However, overall the pricing is fair."
"My company has a three-year license for Fortinet FortiMail, including the support, but I'm not so sure of how much the solution costs because I'm not part of the procurement team. What's more important to me is the functionality and stability of Fortinet FortiMail. In terms of Fortinet FortiMail licensing, the cost is calculated based on company requirements. For example, it's based on the features you need for your environment, on capacity, how many CPUs you have, etc."
"The solution is reasonably priced compared to one of its competitors."
"Price-wise, you get what you pay for in Fortinet FortiMail. Apart from the licensing costs, no additional expenses are attached to the solution's pricing."
"There is a license required for this solution."
"In the future I would like it if there's a possibility to lower the price of the bandwidth and UTM. It is quite expensive."
"Price-wise, the solution is not far from Microsoft ATP. So, it is affordable."
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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
25%
Computer Software Company
17%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Government
5%
Educational Organization
50%
Computer Software Company
8%
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?
Microsoft needs to broaden its global support presence by establishing teams of subject-matter experts in all regions.
What do you like most about Cisco Secure Email?
Cisco Secure Email is a budget-friendly solution.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Cisco Secure Email?
The licensing is expensive and a bit complex with the new approach Cisco has taken. It is considered more complicated...
What needs improvement with Cisco Secure Email?
The primary areas for improvement are the pricing and the complexity of deployment. The pricing is considered expensi...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Fortinet FortiMail?
Pricing can be expensive. The cost can range from fifty thousand to one hundred thousand dollars, depending on the ap...
What needs improvement with Fortinet FortiMail?
The main area for improvement is the pricing. The configuration is good and easy to use, however, the renewal cost is...
 

Also Known As

MS Defender for Office 365
Cisco Email Security, IronPort, Cisco Email Security, ESA, Email Security Appliances
FortiMail
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Microsoft Defender for Office 365 is trusted by companies such as Ithaca College.
SUNY Old Westbury, CoxHealth, City of Fullerton, Indra
Magromer Cueros y Pieles S.A.
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco Secure Email vs. Fortinet FortiMail and other solutions. Updated: December 2024.
824,053 professionals have used our research since 2012.