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Cisco Secure Email vs SonicWall Email Security 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)
SonicWall Email Security
Ranking in Email Security
30th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
15
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 SonicWall Email Security is 0.6%, up from 0.5% 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%
SonicWall Email Security0.6%
Other94.2%
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.
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

"It has the ability to tell us, after an email has been delivered, where else it went, once it got inside. Maybe it's something we wanted it to stop and it didn't stop it, but it notified us later that it was something that it should have stopped. It can give us a trajectory of all the other places that it went internally and it can tell us what files were transferred as well."
"Cisco Secure Email is a budget-friendly solution."
"The security features are valuable."
"Cisco Secure Email Cloud Gateway has allowed our users to be able to concentrate on the emails that they do receive. Previously, our users had to deal with nine million additional emails across the organization, which is nearly 1,000 emails per user to have to deal with a month. That's a massive amount for our staff to deal with and probably several hours of their time. We have a lot of clinical staff, being a hospital. We want to make our staff as productive as possible. By removing a lot of that spam and phishing type emails, this allows them to do their job."
"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."
"Cisco's Secure Email integrates with Cisco Firewalls, utilizing the AMP as their anti-malware engine, which allows for information sharing between devices."
"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."
"Beside a few issues with specificity in the email protection controls, this product is very good at handling email security."
"SonicWall Email Security uses multi-layer cloud security."
"According to our customers, the product's most valuable feature is the ability to detect spam and reduce phishing emails."
"SonicWall Email Security uses multi-layer cloud security."
"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."
"There are no wasted extras and the interface is really simple."
"It is a very scalable solution."
"The anti-spam aspect of the solution is its most valuable feature."
 

Cons

"We didn't get any malware, but a few phishing emails, maybe one or two, slipped in."
"The initial setup was complex because I have two sites with physical clusters."
"I have some frustrations with the user experience in the interface, specifically with regard to making a list of people for whom I want to allow email access."
"Cisco is already providing a very good environment with the IronPort solution, but there could be some more integration with other products. For instance, an integration with the EDR solution could be there to raise an alert."
"Better dashboards and more interactive overviews would be nice, but the current functionality is sufficient."
"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 user interface needs some improvement to become more user-friendly. The graphics could be better. It's designed more for a technical user rather than a business user."
"The Forged Email Detection feature needs improvement, particularly with domain. The sensors are not that good and the rules sets are unclear."
"SonicWall Email Security could improve by making the file blocking and the release feature easier to use"
"They should integrate the solution with third-party platforms."
"A lot of spoofed emails are still coming to the end-user, so the configuration for this option needs to be improved."
"They need well-trained partners in Nigeria."
"The pricing could be improved."
"The platform's control panel needs enhancement."
"There could be definition updates included in the subscription."
"The pricing could be improved."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is a relatively expensive option compared to other alternatives."
"There are additional fees for adding features."
"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."
"Licensing costs depend on how many users there are. It could range between $5 and $7 per month, per user."
"Cisco Secure Email is not expensive, and licensing costs are yearly."
"Cisco Secure Email is expensive, but we get what we pay for."
"The licensing was all transferred."
"The price is significantly high."
"The platform offers a yearly license."
"I rate the application’s pricing a five out of ten."
"When compared with Cisco, it is very well priced. Cisco is very expensive."
"The cost is cheaper than Sophos. I would rate it as five out of ten."
"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."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
17%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Comms Service Provider
6%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Computer Software Company
10%
Construction Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business22
Midsize Enterprise18
Large Enterprise25
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business11
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise3
 

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 SonicWall Email Security?
According to our customers, the product's most valuable feature is the ability to detect spam and reduce phishing emails.
What needs improvement with SonicWall Email Security?
Policy deployment could be time consuming and represents an area for improvement in SonicWall Email Security.
 

Also Known As

Cisco Email Security, IronPort, Cisco Email Security, ESA, Email Security Appliances
Dell SonicWALL Email Security Platform, SonicWall Hosted Email Security
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

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: December 2025.
881,082 professionals have used our research since 2012.