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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

"The technical support from Cisco is perfect."
"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."
"I can customize the configuration and policies."
"Spam controls are excellent because they are a powerful feature that operates almost effortlessly."
"The most valuable features are protection against ransomware and spam."
"It provided a platform to sell a service to customers."
"The user interface was quite friendly, it was quite easy to use, unlike some other Cisco products. Anybody could use it. You don't have to be familiar with IT to be able to handle navigating it."
"The filtering is definitely better at catching both spam and malicious messages, and there's a lot of extremely granular ability for setting up rules. You can do it the way you want to. The Microsoft solution tends to be pretty limited in how it allows some of that to be done."
"The product is easy to manage in terms of configurations."
"Beside a few issues with specificity in the email protection controls, this product is very good at handling email security."
"There are no wasted extras and the interface is really simple."
"Setup was easy. It took about 30 minutes."
"It is a very scalable solution."
"The most valuable features are the anti-spam, anti-phishing, anti-virus, and anti-spoofing."
"SonicWall Email Security uses multi-layer cloud security."
"We always get ROI from the product we are using; it is completely flexible and acceptable according to our security requirements over the last four years and currently."
 

Cons

"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 initial setup was complex because I have two sites with physical clusters."
"The user interface needs massive improvement. While the device works fine and it's not complicated to write policies, renaming menu items and showing policy flow in conjunction with the application could help."
"The discontinuation of physical hardware solutions is a significant area for improvement in Cisco Email Security Appliance. This decision has posed challenges as virtual appliances are now the only option, which may not be suitable for all industries. The uncertainty regarding the future of the hardware aspect of the solution is a notable concern."
"In future releases, I would like to see two main improvements come to mind. First, the current solution requires maintaining two separate operating systems for FTD, which can be cumbersome. I'd love to see a single operating system for the FTD box."
"Cisco Email Secure's pricing needs to be less. We have vendors who provide cheaper solutions with the same features."
"The configuration UI should be made more intuitive. Currently, it takes a while to understand how to do the basic configurations."
"There could be additional DLP functionality for it."
"The reporting needs improvement."
"The pricing could be improved."
"Policy deployment could be time consuming and represents an area for improvement in SonicWall Email Security."
"Updates could be released more frequently."
"They need well-trained partners in Nigeria."
"The platform's control panel needs enhancement."
"SonicWall Email Security could improve by making the file blocking and the release feature easier to use"
"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

"Cisco Secure Email is expensive, but we get what we pay for."
"It is expensive. I would rate it 2 out of 10, where 1 is the most expensive and 10 is the cheapest."
"I would rate the pricing a ten out of ten, where one is cheap, and ten is expensive."
"The price is significantly high."
"The solution is expensive."
"It is a reasonably priced solution."
"In addition to the standard licensing, there is a cost for SMARTnet as well."
"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."
"Our customers purchase the solution's yearly license."
"We have a two-year license subscription and the price is very high."
"The cost is cheaper than Sophos. I would rate it as five out of ten."
"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."
"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."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
18%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Comms Service Provider
5%
Computer Software Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Construction Company
8%
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.
879,927 professionals have used our research since 2012.