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Cisco Secure Email vs Fortinet FortiMail Cloud comparison

 

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

Cisco Secure Email
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
62
Ranking in other categories
Email Security (5th), Cisco Security Portfolio (6th)
Fortinet FortiMail Cloud
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
23
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Email (6th), Secure Email Gateway (SEG) (7th)
 

Mindshare comparison

While both are Messaging and Collaboration solutions, they serve different purposes. Cisco Secure Email is designed for Email Security and holds a mindshare of 6.2%, down 8.5% compared to last year.
Fortinet FortiMail Cloud, on the other hand, focuses on Cloud Email, holds 3.4% mindshare, up 1.8% since last year.
Email Security
Cloud Email
 

Featured Reviews

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.
Pravin Mandlik - PeerSpot reviewer
Provides enhanced email security with potential agent compatibility issues
There are definitely features that Fortinet should work on. I'm not the right person to implement those features. For a portable cloud solution, a customer has more affinity towards a solution where endpoint security is already in place. In endpoint security, they are not at the latest quadrant. That is why a customer with existing endpoint security solutions like Trend Micro might prefer a main security solution from that vendor. If we go for FortiMail Cloud and have a separate endpoint security solution, there are two agents that have to sit on a customer endpoint. From that perspective, Fortinet policies add an extra load to the endpoint. Maybe other solutions have an advantage when it comes to Fortinet.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The added value of it is that every migration to a new version is initiated by the Cisco version itself, so that is a bunch of work that you don't have to do on the Cisco ESA system on-premise. As it becomes a safe platform, you don't need to invest anything in your own data center or in your upgrade path."
"Cisco Secure Email is part of Cisco's extensive efforts and investments in technology, especially in the realm of cyber security. The product is one among many security solutions offered by Cisco."
"The most valuable feature is the different content filters we are using, such as DKIM."
"It's flexible. There are a lot of rules and policies that can be easily applied for certain employees or certain mailboxes."
"The strong point of the solution is that we hardly get any spam emails because of Cisco Secure Email."
"My favorite feature of Cisco Secure Email is the threat intelligence capabilities, particularly its integration with Cisco Talos."
"What I find the most valuable about Cisco Secure Email is that the logs are not that difficult to see even if you're not used to them. The logs are reasonably readable and diagnosing the problem is not too hard with them."
"The most valuable features are protection against ransomware and spam."
"The quarantine feature of FortiMail is the most valuable, as it quarantines emails based on my policies."
"The most valuable features are email ATB and Malware Analysis."
"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."
"This solution is easy to install. The deployment takes about forty-five minutes."
"The implementation was very professional. There are a lot of features I can get through Fortinet and FortiMail, such as security. FortiGuard is the most reliable and professional mitigation center to handle incidents and risk that I have to face."
"Fortinet's support is really good."
"It has the best feature for processed mail analysis."
 

Cons

"The solution does not have a strong outbound service. It should also integrate DLP."
"We have Microsoft and we have the E5 licenses, they have more EDR responses on certain emails. That's something that Cisco ESA on the cloud doesn't have. They don't do anything about MITRE attacks. They only detect if there is a malicious email or a threat and they remove it."
"The user interface could be updated."
"Typically, in a phishing email, they try to use a name everybody's going to recognize, like the CEO's name or the CFO's name... With this appliance, the way it's designed at the moment, for us to really stop that with any level of confidence, we have to build a dictionary of all the names of the people we want it to check, and all the ways they could be spelled. My name would be in there as Phillip Collins, Phillip D. Collins, Phillip Dean Collins, Phil Collins, Phil D. Collins. There could be eight or 10 variations of my name that we'd have to put in the dictionary. There's no artificial intelligence to say "Phil Collins" could be all these other things, and to stop phishing from coming through in that way."
"The discontinuation of physical hardware solutions is a significant area for improvement in Cisco Email Security Appliance. This decision has posed challenges as virtual appliances are now the only option, which may not be suitable for all industries. The uncertainty regarding the future of the hardware aspect of the solution is a notable concern."
"The graphical user interface is not user-friendly like other vendors. I find it very difficult at times to find some options on the UI."
"The Forged Email Detection feature needs improvement, particularly with domain. The sensors are not that good and the rules sets are unclear."
"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."
"I would like to see more advanced sandbox features, where you can actually download to a machine where you can test."
"I've not been able to use more than two domains in the back end. I like to view logs for the different domains. If I add any other domain I'm not able to get a proper cPanel for that domain. I am talking about the login factors. I'm not able to see logs for different domains in a different Window. Basically, it's an issue in the login process."
"The setup of the rules can be improved. I think it should be simplified and would be the best improvement in the system."
"Email sorting is missing from this solution."
"They could look at strengthening anti-spam with the newly observed domains."
"The dashboard could use improvement."
"I can't see the feedback to the FortiMail gateway."
"There are no specific new features I would suggest at this moment."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing for the Cisco Email Security Appliance involves recurring costs for licenses based on the contracted time frame, such as one year, three years, or five years. Renewals are required after the license expires."
"The price is significantly high."
"Licensing costs depend on how many users there are. It could range between $5 and $7 per month, per user."
"There are additional fees for adding features."
"As per market availability, this solution is more expensive than other vendors."
"I would rate the pricing a ten out of ten, where one is cheap, and ten is expensive."
"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."
"It is expensive. I would rate it 2 out of 10, where 1 is the most expensive and 10 is the cheapest."
"The price of this solution could be more competitive."
"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."
"You only have to purchase one license for multiple participants."
"The pricing depends on various factors, including the type of licenses and subscriptions you have procured"
"It should cost around $60,000. We bought it as a bundle, so everything comes together in the license. That is standard."
"It's on a subscribed basis."
"The licensing is for three years. In the beginning, we did not pay monthly, it was paid once for three years."
"When we're talking about pricing, other products have about the same price. That is normal."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
21%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Educational Organization
9%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Computer Software Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
7%
University
6%
Hospitality Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

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 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 user interface of the Email Security Gateway ( /products/security-gateway-reviews ) should be improved. It would be beneficial to have the functionality of the Email Threat Defense integrated i...
What do you like most about Fortinet FortiMail Cloud?
Content disarming and analysis are essential features in our email security setup
What needs improvement with Fortinet FortiMail Cloud?
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 tas...
 

Also Known As

Cisco Email Security, IronPort, Cisco Email Security, ESA, Email Security Appliances
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

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 Cisco Secure Email vs. Fortinet FortiMail Cloud and other solutions. Updated: January 2024.
861,524 professionals have used our research since 2012.