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Cisco Secure Email vs MetaDefender Email Security Solutions 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)
MetaDefender Email Security...
Ranking in Email Security
29th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
Secure Email Gateway (SEG) (10th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the Email Security category, the mindshare of Cisco Secure Email is 5.6%, down from 7.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of MetaDefender Email Security Solutions is 0.4%, up from 0.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Email Security Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Cisco Secure Email5.6%
MetaDefender Email Security Solutions0.4%
Other94.0%
Email Security
 

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.
Aaron Alornyenu - PeerSpot reviewer
Helps us stay compliant, has excellent malware detection, and is stable
The solution helped our organization stay 100 percent compliant with industry standards. MetaDefender Email Security can be set to be very aggressive for identifying attacks. This can be done based on how we want it. If we set it to this level, most of our emails will be blocked because the system will block anything that looks suspicious. We will also need to set the spam severity. This is the severity of everything, including phishing, spoofing, and other types of attacks. I would give the solution's ability to identify attacks a nine out of ten. MetaDefender helps us improve our spam catch rate. Any spam we receive is usually due to user subscriptions. We can specify rules of exclusion to meet our requirements as well. It also detects and blocks the links with suspicious codes. MetaDefender Email Security's multi-scanning capabilities for malware detection work based on how we set the parameters. The solution perfectly detects malware. MetaDefender can identify and disarm emails in zero-day attacks.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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."
"It sends us reports, where we can see if there have been attacks, e.g. DDoS. If so, we can switch to a clean IP."
"The tool comes with AI features. It is good for clients who already use Cisco products due to integration."
"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."
"It is a user-friendly product."
"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."
"I love the Advanced Malware Protection feature. It works very well... The appliance has more security such as SDF, DKIM, DMARC, and encryption."
"It has an intuitive, clear graphical interface where you can deploy your policies and understand the overall flow. There are a lot of things that you cannot handle on the graphic interface, like message filters. For this, you need to go to a lower level where you have more power, like command line interface. So, this solution has the best of both worlds. There are not a lot of bells and whistles. It is more practical with access to most features that you can configure."
"The most valuable feature of MetaDefender Email Security is the CDR. Customers purchase this solution specifically for data communication, as the other features can be obtained through other technologies that most customers already possess. Therefore, data communication serves as the foundation for the platform."
"The most valuable feature is called summary reconstruction which is used to deliver encrypted files to users."
"The sanitization is very good."
 

Cons

"The user interface of the Email Security Gateway should be improved."
"There could be additional DLP functionality for it."
"The initial setup was complex because I have two sites with physical clusters."
"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."
"Better dashboards and more interactive overviews would be nice, but the current functionality is sufficient."
"If you are not a technical guy, it is hard to maneuver, but as soon as you work on it, it gets better and better. If there was a better way to know how to do things or how to find things, it would be good."
"We didn't get any malware, but a few phishing emails, maybe one or two, slipped in."
"Cisco Secure Email can be improved from the administrator's point of view. Usually, you have to work with different areas, and they can try to make it easy for the administrator to use different functions."
"The DLP should be upgraded and has room for improvement."
"Although the number of AV engines is good, it could be better."
"They offer a feature called SmartLink neutralization. I have tried it before. It seemed to work most of the time; however, I had a few users for whom it just wouldn't work. Whenever they click on a link, it stays on the MetaDefender page, saying that it's scanning it and never moves forward."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I would rate the pricing a ten out of ten, where one is cheap, and ten is expensive."
"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."
"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."
"I don't have the insights into it, but compared to different products, it seems to have a medium level of pricing."
"The licensing was all transferred."
"We were using Proofpoint and then we switched to Cisco... reportability was one of the main reasons we switched, but the biggest one was cost. If you can get an equivalent functionality for a better price it's wise to do so. That's what our primary decision came down to: We could get equivalent functionality at a lower price point."
"Pricing depends on your environment and which model you want to buy."
"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."
"According to our customers, the price of MetaDefender is high and it continues to increase by almost 15 percent each year."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
19%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
6%
Comms Service Provider
15%
Educational Organization
14%
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
7%
 

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...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for MetaDefender Email Security Solutions?
We paid for a three-year agreement. The cost is kind of high. For smaller companies, it may be outside of their budget. However, for us, management knows how important this product is. It's worth t...
What needs improvement with MetaDefender Email Security Solutions?
They offer a feature called SmartLink neutralization. I have tried it before. It seemed to work most of the time; however, I had a few users for whom it just wouldn't work. Whenever they click on a...
 

Also Known As

Cisco Email Security, IronPort, Cisco Email Security, ESA, Email Security Appliances
OPSWAT MetaDefender Email Security, MetaDefender Email Gateway Security, MetaDefender Email Security
 

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. MetaDefender Email Security Solutions and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.
872,008 professionals have used our research since 2012.