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Cisco Secure Email vs Webroot Advanced Email Encryption powered by Zix comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
62
Ranking in other categories
Email Security (6th), Cisco Security Portfolio (7th)
Webroot Advanced Email Encr...
Average Rating
7.0
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
Secure Email Gateway (SEG) (13th)
 

Mindshare comparison

While both are Messaging and Collaboration solutions, they serve different purposes. Cisco Secure Email is designed for Email Security and holds a mindshare of 5.1%, down 7.1% compared to last year.
Webroot Advanced Email Encryption powered by Zix, on the other hand, focuses on Secure Email Gateway (SEG), holds 1.2% mindshare, up 0.9% since last year.
Email Security Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Cisco Secure Email5.1%
Microsoft Defender for Office 3659.1%
Proofpoint Email Protection8.1%
Other77.7%
Email Security
Secure Email Gateway (SEG) Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Webroot Advanced Email Encryption powered by Zix1.2%
Microsoft Defender for Office 36521.4%
Proofpoint Email Protection20.9%
Other56.5%
Secure Email Gateway (SEG)
 

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.
John Zupancic - PeerSpot reviewer
Vice President / Branch Manager / Senior Technician at Aperion Information Technologies, Inc.
Inexpensive, with good email security, but the technical support could be improved
We don't have as many problems with email security. They have some areas that could be improved. For example, we also use this solution for email encryption, which was clunky and could be improved, but the email security itself has been excellent. The web interface works well but the Outlook plug-in has been problematic. We've had to uninstall/reinstall it. On some Outlook clients (including mine), it causes Outlook to stop responding. I disabled the Outlook plug-in and only use the web interface.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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."
"It's flexible. There are a lot of rules and policies that can be easily applied for certain employees or certain mailboxes."
"Administration of the email domains and custom filters are easily done via the web interface."
"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."
"The strong point of the solution is that we hardly get any spam emails because of Cisco Secure Email."
"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."
"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 product's initial setup phase was easy."
"They do a better job of determining what's real and what's not than most of the other solutions we have tried, and it's been very painless to use."
 

Cons

"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."
"There are some concerns in the way the architecture is set up, making it an area where improvements are required."
"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."
"We would like to see more options for the customization of content filters."
"The product's GUI for the dashboard needs improvement."
"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."
"The Forged Email Detection feature needs improvement, particularly with domain. The sensors are not that good and the rules sets are unclear."
"In some cases, detection is missed, leading to false positives where genuine emails are flagged as spam."
"They have some areas that could be improved. For example, we also use this solution for email encryption, which was clunky and could be improved, but the email security itself has been excellent."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is expensive. I would rate it 2 out of 10, where 1 is the most expensive and 10 is the cheapest."
"It is not that costly. We pay for the solution through a contractor and pay an annual fee."
"I rate the pricing a ten out of ten on a scale where one means it is less cost-effective, and ten means it is the most cost-effective solution."
"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."
"In addition to the standard licensing, there is a cost for SMARTnet as well."
"The price is significantly high."
"Cisco Secure Email and the support are priced well. It's not cheap, but there are other solutions that offer less and cost so much. For example, Microsoft is more expensive than Cisco."
"As per market availability, this solution is more expensive than other vendors."
"In terms of pricing, I believe they provide excellent value."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
16%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Comms Service Provider
5%
No data available
 

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...
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Also Known As

Cisco Email Security, IronPort, Cisco Email Security, ESA, Email Security Appliances
Zix Email Encryption, ZixEncrypt
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

SUNY Old Westbury, CoxHealth, City of Fullerton, Indra
Erie County of Pennsylvania’s Human Services Department, Justice Federal Credit Union, STAR Financial Group, Chisago County, Minn., The National Banks of Central Texas, Kentucky Retirement Systems (KRS), Frankfort, Ky, Athletico Physical Therapy, District of Columbia Retirement Board (DCRB), CIBM Bank
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft, Proofpoint, Check Point Software Technologies and others in Email Security. Updated: January 2026.
881,455 professionals have used our research since 2012.