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Cisco Secure Email vs Fortra's Clearswift Secure Email Gateway 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

Cisco Secure Email
Ranking in Email Security
5th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
63
Ranking in other categories
Cisco Security Portfolio (6th)
Fortra's Clearswift Secure ...
Ranking in Email Security
31st
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
0
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2026, in the Email Security category, the mindshare of Cisco Secure Email is 4.6%, down from 5.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Fortra's Clearswift Secure Email Gateway is 1.3%, up from 0.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Email Security Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Cisco Secure Email4.6%
Fortra's Clearswift Secure Email Gateway1.3%
Other94.1%
Email Security
 

Featured Reviews

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.
PC
Systems Administrator at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees
Stable, but malware needs improvement and customer support is poor
They need to improve the malware in the product. I am not satisfied with Clearswift because of the lack of customer support. The support is poor, the supplier takes a lot of time and it's expensive. We have some issues here when I contact the supplier, it takes a lot of time for them to get back to us but there's no solution. I am now looking at Symantec as a possible alternative.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"This is a great product with wonderful support."
"I can customize the configuration and policies."
"IronPort allows visibility into the problem and an easy way to pinpoint policy offenders."
"We like the in-built features, like the email filtering based on the IP and domain, and Cisco has its own blacklisted domains and IPs, which is very good because this filters around 70 percent of emails from spam and we are seeing fewer false positives with this."
"The strong point of the solution is that we hardly get any spam emails because of Cisco Secure Email."
"The tech engineers are very knowledgeable."
"You are never secure without some solution from Cisco."
"I love the Advanced Malware Protection feature. It works very well... The appliance has more security such as SDF, DKIM, DMARC, and encryption."
"A stable solution."
"Go for it! I think it's an excellent product with great technical support."
"Ability to create your own content-filtering policies with relative ease."
"We use a few features for web proxy, and another feature is the email content filter and malware for our internal policy in the email content."
 

Cons

"Don't neglect that because if you just try to rely on Cisco support you're going to notice pretty consistent slowdowns."
"I would like to see sandboxing for email, where suspicious emails received by the system are analyzed through online services."
"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."
"I would like to see features like AI since it is currently an area that the product lacks."
"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 pricing needs to be reconsidered or enhanced."
"It is not user-friendly, and it is quite complicated. So, it should be more user-friendly."
"While Cisco offers excellent solutions and innovations, the pricing may not be suitable for everyone. The cost of the software is relatively high. In the current market, there are numerous competitive alternatives that focus on security, enterprise networks, and various other aspects. Cisco, being a comprehensive provider, extends its expertise across data, servers, storage, and security, making them a preferred choice for many enterprises. However, when it comes specifically to security solutions, there are other vendors that specialize solely in this domain, offering competitive options."
"FTP server and TRUST Manager functionality."
"Malware needs improvement."
"I am not satisfied with Clearswift because of the lack of customer support."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is not that costly. We pay for the solution through a contractor and pay an annual fee."
"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."
"I would rate the pricing a ten out of ten, where one is cheap, and ten is expensive."
"It is expensive. I would rate it 2 out of 10, where 1 is the most expensive and 10 is the cheapest."
"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 price is significantly high."
"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."
Information not available
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Outsourcing Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Construction Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Retailer
10%
Comms Service Provider
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business22
Midsize Enterprise18
Large Enterprise27
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

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 was a database error or something, but we feel some slowness in configuring DLP ...
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 nearly 900 branches all over India. We have an on-premises mail server in which...
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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
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco Secure Email vs. Fortra's Clearswift Secure Email Gateway and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
918,614 professionals have used our research since 2012.