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Cisco Secure Email vs SonicWall Email Security 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

Cloudflare One
Sponsored
Ranking in Email Security
20th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
23
Ranking in other categories
Secure Web Gateways (SWG) (13th), Data Loss Prevention (DLP) (22nd), Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB) (13th), Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection (9th), 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) (9th), Remote Browser Isolation (RBI) (3rd)
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 (9th)
SonicWall Email Security
Ranking in Email Security
25th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
15
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2026, in the Email Security category, the mindshare of Cloudflare One is 1.7%, up from 1.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Cisco Secure Email is 4.7%, down from 6.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SonicWall Email Security is 0.9%, up from 0.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Email Security Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Cisco Secure Email4.7%
Cloudflare One1.7%
SonicWall Email Security0.9%
Other92.7%
Email Security
 

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.
Swapnil Kulkarni - PeerSpot reviewer
System Administrator at Ador Powertron Ltd.
Has consistently supported security needs for mid-sized teams with affordable deployment
I do not work with Cloud Secure Edge, CSE, or SMA apart from SonicWall NSA. I am not satisfied with phishing protection, as it falls completely under the email domain security. The customizable policy configuration does not help to tailor email security overall because our systems are not integrated with SonicWall Email Security. We are not using reporting and analytics because it requires completely different software. While all required features are available in SonicWall Email Security for SMBs and startups, we lack analytics features. They provide an option to purchase a complete separate product for analytics, but despite initially having purchased the paper license, due to technical limitations or changes, we cannot use that product. Now they require additional fees to access the analytics feature.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Cloudflare Access is part of the Zero Trust philosophy."
"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 blocking feature is very good."
"Enables me to work from two locations."
"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."
"It will take the blow rather than our applications should an attack occur."
"Cloudflare Access is a stable solution."
"Introducing Cisco Secure Email Gateway systems was a set change for us and reduced the number of unwanted emails by a huge factor, a benefit that has continued from when we first got the devices until today."
"The most valuable features of the Cisco ESA have to do with the intelligence they provide us, as they respond quickly to any phishing attacks and threats on the system."
"The logs are easily readable and help diagnose problems, although they can be difficult to find initially. The solution addresses our email security, but for the rest of our security, we would use multiple vendors. It covers everything through email, like antivirus, IDS, and IPS."
"The tool has a DLP solution which we can implement. Its database is updated regularly."
"It saves a lot of time wasting, for example, phishing attacks distract a user's attention and forged emails waste a lot of time, and this solution helps protect user data."
"Administration of the email domains and custom filters are easily done via the web interface."
"This solution provides some benefits, like comfortable access to TAC support. You get prompt support when working directly with Cisco."
"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."
"There are no wasted extras and the interface is really simple, so even if you don't have an IT background you can understand the working procedure and how systems are monitored."
"The most valuable features are the anti-spam, anti-phishing, anti-virus, and anti-spoofing."
"The anti-spam aspect of the solution is its most valuable feature."
"SonicWall Email Security uses multi-layer cloud security."
"This solution has been really good for us and I recommend using it."
"SonicWall Email Security has benefited the company by preventing attacks, protecting us from threats such as ransomware and phishing, and notifying the IT team when phishing emails have been blocked."
"Behind the reason we chose SonicWall for my company is it has excellent packet analysis of normal and SSL encrypted traffic, application intelligence visualization and control, multiple Gigabit Ethernet LAN and WAN ports, flexible configuration and redundancy options."
"The most valuable feature of SonicWall Email Security is the blocking of emails using keywords. If there are any particular keywords in the subject, that we want to block from receiving from a particular person we can do it. Additionally, the blocking of emails is easy. we can release that one and we can block some of the keywords also like that."
 

Cons

"From a logging perspective, it is still a bit difficult to see exactly what users are being blocked with the current views."
"The initial onboarding was causing us some confusion."
"For the topic of improvement, providing some training material is one of my suggestions."
"Feedback could be enhanced."
"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."
"The free plan has limitations. For example, I can only set up three rules, and the application firewall is unavailable."
"They don't have a person to provide support for customers using the solution under their free plan."
"Cloudflare Zero Trust Platform needs to improve its documentation. It took time to do the implementation."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"The tool's pricing can be improved."
"The user interface of the Email Security Gateway should be improved."
"We have occasionally had hardware problems because we are using an appliance-based solution, but that might change. We may consider going to virtual systems."
"I am not satisfied with the solution's reporting and logging."
"Cisco Email Secure's pricing needs to be less. We have vendors who provide cheaper solutions with the same features."
"We would like to see more information on a dashboard about what is happening when it comes to spamming and malware."
"The platform's control panel needs enhancement."
"Policy deployment could be time consuming and represents an area for improvement in SonicWall Email Security."
"The technical support from the company is not always very good at solving issues, but they offer access to a good community of users where problems are easily solved."
"Overall, this is a solution that provides good security but at a very high cost."
"I am not satisfied with phishing protection, as it falls completely under the email domain security."
"Updates could be released more frequently."
"A lot of spoofed emails are still coming to the end-user, so the configuration for this option needs to be improved."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The prices are slightly expensive."
"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 pricing is somewhere in the middle. I would rate the pricing a seven out of ten."
"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 price tag is no longer $200,000, but rather $300,000 to $400,000. It's twice."
"The solution's pricing lacks transparency."
"The solution is not that expensive."
"Cloudflare Zero Trust Platform's pricing is good."
"Pricing depends on your environment and which model you want to buy."
"Compared to Cisco's on-prem service, the cost is the same, but you don't have to pay for the hardware and you don't have to maintain the system, as far as upgrades and hardware failures are concerned. It is cheaper to operate on their cloud service than it is to operate with their on-prem service."
"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."
"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."
"We do annual licensing for Cisco Secure Email Gatewayand SMA together, and possibly SmartNet support. Packaged together, the cost is just under $38,000."
"At times, we feel the pricing is a bit too high, but then, there is also room for discounts. We enjoy a lot of discounts, and that is why we are still with them. There are no costs in addition to the standard licensing fees."
"Cisco Secure Email is not expensive, and licensing costs are yearly."
"The licensing was all transferred."
"The platform offers a yearly license."
"Our customers purchase the solution's yearly license."
"We have a two-year license subscription and the price is very high."
"The overall price of SonicWall Email Security should be reduced and there should be an option to purchase one or two licenses more instead of their current policy of bulk increases only. There should be more flexibility in the licensing model. Each license cost approximately $33 annually."
"When compared with Cisco, it is very well priced. Cisco is very expensive."
"I rate the application’s pricing a five out of ten."
"The cost is cheaper than Sophos. I would rate it as five out of ten."
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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
12%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
7%
Outsourcing Company
7%
Construction Company
17%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Computer Software Company
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 Enterprise27
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business12
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise3
 

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 needs improvement with SonicWall Email Security?
Policy deployment could be time consuming and represents an area for improvement in SonicWall Email Security.
What is your primary use case for SonicWall Email Security?
SonicWall Email Security was used for security purposes, which aligns with the product's core function.
 

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
Dell SonicWALL Email Security Platform, SonicWall Hosted Email Security
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

23andMe
SUNY Old Westbury, CoxHealth, City of Fullerton, Indra
Star Kay White, Locala Community Partnerships
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco Secure Email vs. SonicWall Email Security and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
905,526 professionals have used our research since 2012.