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Cisco Secure Email vs Fortinet FortiMail Cloud comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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

Cloudflare One
Sponsored
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
23
Ranking in other categories
Email Security (20th), Secure Web Gateways (SWG) (12th), Data Loss Prevention (DLP) (21st), Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB) (13th), Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection (8th), Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) Solutions (12th), Access Management (11th), Bot Management (3rd), ZTNA as a Service (9th), ZTNA (4th), Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) (10th), Remote Browser Isolation (RBI) (3rd)
Cisco Secure Email
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
63
Ranking in other categories
Email Security (4th), Cisco Security Portfolio (6th)
Fortinet FortiMail Cloud
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
24
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Email (4th), Secure Email Gateway (SEG) (8th)
 

Mindshare comparison

Email Security Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Cisco Secure Email4.5%
Proofpoint Email Protection6.8%
Microsoft Defender for Office 3656.3%
Other82.4%
Email Security
Cloud Email Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Fortinet FortiMail Cloud3.6%
SendGrid8.1%
Amazon WorkMail7.7%
Other80.6%
Cloud Email
 

Featured Reviews

CV
Network Architect at IP Dimension
Cloud security has improved remote access and has reduced costs for smaller client sites
I have used Cloudflare One's Identity-Aware Proxy, and it is quite straightforward from what I have seen so far. The app registration on the Azure side integrates fully into Cloudflare, and I am very satisfied with that part because it is easy to set up. The integration of Cloudflare One's Secure Web Gateway and Zero Trust Network Access works without any issues. That part is pretty automatic, and if you complete the rest of the setup, it comes together by itself with no issues from my side. What makes it nice is that we can actually start replacing on-site firewalls at this stage for the smaller clients because it does not matter if they go to a coffee shop or work from home; they are still secured by the same connection. The hops get shorter and you get better latency. We have done testing to see if it is better. One thing that we did notice with our proof of concept with our current client is that they have people connecting from the UK. When they used their previous VPN solution, uploading CAD drawings and other files to the server took a long time. They mentioned that it is much quicker on Cloudflare One's solution. I definitely believe that is part of the improved performance, and I am satisfied with that as well. What is nice about Cloudflare One is that it makes the setup easier and also easier to train technicians to maintain it. Compared to legacy systems, we do not need to get fancy firewalls in place that are costly. That is definitely also a cost-saver with Cloudflare One.
KS
Technical Associate Network Security at Valuepoint Systems
Email security has protected financial data and provides clear tracking for every branch message
The areas of Cisco Secure Email that could be improved or enhanced are the slowness in the console. I don't think it was a database error or something, but we feel some slowness in configuring DLP and other content filters compared to other consoles. It may have been due to on-premises, but it was much noisy at some times while configuring DLP. When we tried to configure a DLP policy, the console became much slower. In that case, we cannot see what had happened in the mail which was blocked at that time. It may take nearly an hour to get back to normal while configuring policies. That is the major issue in the product.
HR
Senior Network Security Engineer at Vibs
Provides solid functionality and allows room for enhancing content management and support services
They can improve their CDR content profile and some anti-spam features. They don't have any direct script to run to add personalization, and we have to do it manually one by one. There are many tasks which we have to complete individually. We can't import files into the Fortinet FortiMail Cloud sensors. That's a drawback, as they need to provide a feature to import files. We can make the format, but we cannot import the file into Fortinet FortiMail Cloud. Additionally, in Fortinet FortiMail Cloud, not in FortiSandbox, they need to improve the block and allow list functionality to block URLs and allow specific types of URLs or regex.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The capabilities of the software are strong enough for me to do what it's supposed to do. For me, we don't need to do a lot of configuration on our site. We just enable it and monitor it."
"Cloudflare is simple to use."
"It is a stable solution."
"Clover is the best product globally."
"It's the endpoint exposition. We don't need to expose our VPN server to the internet and need a zero-test solution. I can apply some conditional access to the endpoint that's connecting to our network to check their security policies or the security condition of their workstation. Once the workstation is trying to connect to my internal network, then I would like to check the discrete condition of these endpoints that are trying to access my internal network. We created some conditional access. We have CrowdStrike, to check if the CrowdStrike is installed, to check if it's updated, and to check for Windows updates. We created some conditional policies to check it."
"The blocking feature is very good."
"We mostly use Cloudflare WAF, and gets basic Cloudflaire DDoS, caching as extra bonus . We like the factor these features are all integrated into 1 console, simple to manage."
"The solution has different options that can be used to differentiate DDoS attacks."
"The filtering is definitely better at catching both spam and malicious messages, and there's a lot of extremely granular ability for setting up rules. You can do it the way you want to. The Microsoft solution tends to be pretty limited in how it allows some of that to be done."
"Apart from the improvement needed to the filters, it was all good."
"Cisco Secure Email Cloud Gateway has allowed our users to be able to concentrate on the emails that they do receive."
"The product blocks spam emails."
"Comparing Microsoft Defender and Cisco's Email Secure service, partners have noted that while Microsoft Defender offers email security, the tool's additional layer of protection provides further defense against threats like spam and phishing emails."
"It is doing its work. It is doing what it was actually designed to do. It has ensured we don't have business email compromises, and it has also ensured that our brand Galaxy is unique all year round."
"There is a huge return compared to if we didn't have a gateway appliance, as far as blocking malicious emails."
"The tech engineers are very knowledgeable."
"Fortinet FortiMail Cloud has had a positive effect on our organization since we can classify each email coming to our organization."
"One of the most beautiful benefits is its integration, as it can seamlessly integrate with any third-party email servers."
"The return on investment for us was achieved since we did not have similar incidents again in our environment."
"The encryption features are most valuable to us."
"Fortinet is good at providing security beyond our email solution assets."
"This is a solid email monitoring and security system that learns and maintains a two-way dialog with email system administrators."
"It has the best feature for processed mail analysis."
"I love FortiMail."
 

Cons

"Cloudflare DDoS has poor technical support."
"The onboarding process can be improved a little bit."
"Our subscription plan for the solution has a limitation of bot signatures."
"Our customers no longer use Cloudflare because its service is subpar."
"There are premium tier live service and lower tier live service, so we opted for the lower tier. But there is no medium tier where we pay a little extra and get a bit more service. So if that can be improved."
"Operating and tuning the product is difficult."
"Feedback could be enhanced. While I work efficiently with Clover as a partner in Mexico City, sometimes the information and requests are easier to manage with more concrete solutions."
"Feedback could be enhanced."
"Don't neglect that because if you just try to rely on Cisco support you're going to notice pretty consistent slowdowns."
"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."
"The solution needs to improve its advanced phishing filters. It is very good at filtering things which have bad reputations. However, when phishing or malicious emails are new or coming from a legitimate source, we don't feel that the solution is working."
"The Forged Email Detection feature needs improvement, particularly with domain. The sensors are not that good and the rules sets are unclear."
"Cisco is not good in dealing proactively or even reactively, so we end up relying on partners."
"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."
"Scalability has certain shortcomings and needs to be improved because there are service providers who provide better scalability.v"
"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 slightly difficult to configure FortiMail in the cloud with Exchange on-premise, especially the quarantine mailbox access for end-users."
"There are no specific new features I would suggest at this moment."
"This solution is expensive, so the pricing could be improved to be more competitive."
"I can't see the feedback to the FortiMail gateway."
"This ease of use and user-friendliness is something we believe could be improved in FortiMail."
"FortiMail needs to develop further, particularly in integrating AI features, to keep up with rapidly advancing technology."
"The price is relatively expensive."
"Fortimail Cloud should include more advanced AI features that can analyze every traffic type."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing of the solution is cheap. The licensing cost is also very low. I rate the cost and pricing a three out of ten."
"The solution's pricing lacks transparency."
"The price tag is no longer $200,000, but rather $300,000 to $400,000. It's twice."
"Cloudflare Zero Trust Platform's pricing is good."
"The prices are slightly expensive."
"My company has to make yearly payments towards the licensing costs attached to the solution. There are no hidden charges apart from the licensing costs of the solution."
"The pricing is somewhere in the middle. I would rate the pricing a seven out of ten."
"The solution is not that expensive."
"In addition to the standard licensing, there is a cost for SMARTnet as well."
"The licensing is a mess and needs sorting out. I am not really concerned about the pricing because I only make recommendations, not buying decisions."
"Cisco Secure Email and the support are priced well. It's not cheap, but there are other solutions that offer less and cost so much. For example, Microsoft is more expensive than Cisco."
"Cisco Secure Email is not expensive, and licensing costs are yearly."
"It is expensive. I would rate it 2 out of 10, where 1 is the most expensive and 10 is the cheapest."
"Cisco Secure Email is more expensive than other products. I rate it a five out of ten. There are no additional costs. You only need to pay the subscription amounts."
"You're going to get what you pay for. If you're not willing to pay the price of Cisco, you're not going to get a product that's as good as Cisco. I don't think Cisco is overpriced, because for the last two years I've been comparing it to Microsoft and Cisco has been cheaper and given us more features."
"I don't have the insights into it, but compared to different products, it seems to have a medium level of pricing."
"A license for our company using FortiMail and FortiCare (filtering and support) was $4000."
"When we're talking about pricing, other products have about the same price. That is normal."
"It should cost around $60,000. We bought it as a bundle, so everything comes together in the license. That is standard."
"I rate the price of Fortinet FortiMail Cloud a five on a one to ten scale, where one is the low price, and ten is the high price. It is an averagely priced product."
"The pricing depends on various factors, including the type of licenses and subscriptions you have procured"
"It's on a subscribed basis."
"The price of this solution could be more competitive."
"You only have to purchase one license for multiple participants."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Construction Company
19%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
8%
Outsourcing Company
6%
Financial Services Firm
9%
University
8%
Computer Software Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business10
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise12
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business22
Midsize Enterprise18
Large Enterprise26
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business16
Midsize Enterprise8
Large Enterprise2
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Cloudflare Zero Trust Platform?
In my opinion, Cloudflare One can be improved mainly through compatibility, as the integration should be much simpler...
What is your primary use case for Cloudflare Zero Trust Platform?
Cloudflare One's primary use case for my organization is to protect servers and to provide remote access with the VPN...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Cisco Secure Email?
The pricing structure is good as it is user-based or email client-based, which is positive for clients.
What needs improvement with Cisco Secure Email?
The areas of Cisco Secure Email that could be improved or enhanced are the slowness in the console. I don't think it ...
What is your primary use case for Cisco Secure Email?
We are using Cisco Secure Email to monitor the outgoing and incoming mail traffic in our financial institute. We have...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Fortinet FortiMail Cloud?
The price of Fortinet FortiMail Cloud in Egypt is very competitive against other products, including the setup cost a...
What needs improvement with Fortinet FortiMail Cloud?
The improvement in Fortinet FortiMail Cloud can be made regarding the classification process itself because it has so...
What is your primary use case for Fortinet FortiMail Cloud?
I have experience working with Fortinet FortiMail Cloud as a mail gateway, not a firewall, and we have been using it ...
 

Also Known As

Cloudflare Area 1 Email Security, Cloudflare Bot Management, Cloudflare Gateway, Cloudflare Zero Trust Platform, Cloudflare DDoS, Cloudflare SASE & SSE Platform
Cisco Email Security, IronPort, Cisco Email Security, ESA, Email Security Appliances
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

23andMe
SUNY Old Westbury, CoxHealth, City of Fullerton, Indra
Black Gold Regional Schools, Amadeus Hospitality, Jefferson County, Chunghwa Telecom, City of Boroondara, Dimension Data
Find out what your peers are saying about Proofpoint, Microsoft, Check Point Software Technologies and others in Email Security. Updated: June 2026.
900,125 professionals have used our research since 2012.