Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

Cisco Secure Email vs Fortra's Clearswift Secure Email Gateway comparison

 

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
62
Ranking in other categories
Cisco Security Portfolio (6th)
Fortra's Clearswift Secure ...
Ranking in Email Security
39th
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 January 2026, in the Email Security category, the mindshare of Cisco Secure Email is 5.2%, down from 7.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Fortra's Clearswift Secure Email Gateway is 1.0%, up from 0.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Email Security Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Cisco Secure Email5.2%
Fortra's Clearswift Secure Email Gateway1.0%
Other93.8%
Email Security
 

Featured Reviews

BD
Chief Information Security Officer at Abcl
Threat intelligence with fast attack detection enables comprehensive email protection
In some cases, detection is missed, leading to false positives where genuine emails are flagged as spam. This could result in users not opening genuine emails. We have highlighted this to Cisco because sometimes phishing or marketing campaigns, which are genuine, are incorrectly flagged as spam. The solution should better analyze the actual content rather than only focusing on the email header or origin.
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

"Users were able to do a check by themselves on quarantined emails. They could check if a valid email had been stopped, if it matched up with the SPF certification."
"It does a great job of preventing spam, malware, and ransomware. I can only go by what people have told me and what I've seen, but I have not seen spam in a year and a half to two years in my own company mailbox. And there are not a lot of catches where it's catching something that should have gotten through, either."
"It provides good IT assistance."
"My favorite feature of Cisco Secure Email is the threat intelligence capabilities, particularly its integration with Cisco Talos."
"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."
"It's a bit easy to handle Cisco Secure Email; it's not that difficult. For the logs, which are in PDF format, it's not hard to read them. We don't need Wireshark much to analyze the logs."
"It blocks bulk marketing messages, graymail, spam, and provides advanced malware protection."
"It provided a platform to sell a service to customers."
"A stable solution."
"Ability to create your own content-filtering policies with relative ease."
 

Cons

"It would be nice to have an easier way to check on the health of the system, how stressed these appliances are. Sure, you can do it, but it would be helpful to have an easier way to do it, maybe even at a glance."
"I would rate the stability a six out of ten. We had multiple issues with the stability."
"Many smaller businesses opt for more cost-effective solutions, such as Gmail or Hotmail accounts, instead of investing in Cisco Secure Email, given its higher cost."
"The management features of the product are not up to date."
"There are some concerns in the way the architecture is set up, making it an area where improvements are required."
"The solution does not have a strong outbound service. It should also integrate DLP."
"The interface is dated. It has looked pretty much the same for 15 years or so. It would be helpful to be able to do everything from one spot. The centralized quarantine and reporting are completely separate from policy administration."
"My opinion on the licensing of this solution is that it is a mess that needs sorting out. I am not particularly bothered by pricing as I administer it and make recommendations for people to buy or not to buy."
"FTP server and TRUST Manager functionality."
"Malware needs improvement."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"There were no other costs in addition to the standard licensing fees."
"Pricing depends on your environment and which model you want to buy."
"Cisco Secure Email is expensive, but we get what we pay for."
"As per market availability, this solution is more expensive than other vendors."
"I rate the product price as six on a scale of one to ten, where one means it is a very expensive tool."
"In my previous organization, avoiding four instances of CryptoLocker within an estimated six month period is approximately $600,000 in lost time and effort. Our five year cost was about a million dollars, and the four outages that we had equated to 65 percent of that five year cost."
"Cisco Secure Email is not expensive, and licensing costs are yearly."
"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."
Information not available
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Email Security solutions are best for your needs.
880,745 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
17%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Comms Service Provider
5%
Computer Software Company
12%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Educational Organization
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business22
Midsize Enterprise18
Large Enterprise25
No data available
 

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...
Ask a question
Earn 20 points
 

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: December 2025.
880,745 professionals have used our research since 2012.