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Cloudflare SASE & SSE Platform vs Fortinet FortiMail comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary
 

Categories and Ranking

Microsoft Defender for Offi...
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Ranking in Email Security
1st
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
45
Ranking in other categories
Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) (1st), Microsoft Security Suite (10th)
Cloudflare SASE & SSE Platform
Ranking in Email Security
13th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
19
Ranking in other categories
Secure Web Gateways (SWG) (8th), Data Loss Prevention (DLP) (8th), Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB) (7th), Distributed Denial of Service (DDOS) Protection (5th), Access Management (5th), Bot Management (3rd), ZTNA as a Service (4th), ZTNA (2nd), Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) (8th), Remote Browser Isolation (RBI) (2nd)
Fortinet FortiMail
Ranking in Email Security
4th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
60
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Featured Reviews

Luis-Brown - PeerSpot reviewer
Allows for easy reporting of problems, valuable anti-phishing, and anti-malware support
Microsoft Defender for Office 365 lacks proactivity in assisting us with preparing for potential threats before they occur. While they employ a substantial amount of threat intelligence to preemptively prevent incidents, their effectiveness diminishes when it comes to delivering proactive threat intelligence alerts from Microsoft. Their focus primarily revolves around managing the internal environment. On the other hand, my other vendor, Check Point, along with my membership in MS-ISAC, supplements me with this type of information. The phishing and spam filters could use some improvement. It is adequate, but it doesn't match the quality of Proofpoint or Mimecast. However, it comes close in effectiveness. Plus, if we're obtaining it for free, investing in the other products seems impractical.
Leandro Soares Costa - PeerSpot reviewer
Replaces traditional VPN and enables endpoint exposition
It's the endpoint exposition. We don't need to expose our VPN server to the internet and need a zero-test solution. I can apply some conditional access to the endpoint that's connecting to our network to check their security policies or the security condition of their workstation. Once the workstation is trying to connect to my internal network, then I would like to check the discrete condition of these endpoints that are trying to access my internal network. We created some conditional access. We have CrowdStrike, to check if the CrowdStrike is installed, to check if it's updated, and to check for Windows updates. We created some conditional policies to check it.
Andras Solt - PeerSpot reviewer
Reasonable pricing and good spam filtering but does not offer robust gatekeeping
It's mainly suited for mid-size companies, not for bigger companies like us. We are more than 1,000 people. In fact, we're over 2000 users, so that's why we investigated some other products, and Clearswift, for example. We likely won't increase usage. We're looking at GFI in a year or so.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The good part is that you don't have to configure it, which is very convenient."
"Microsoft Defender for Office 365 is a stable solution."
"The benefit that stands out to me is the ability for multiple individuals to collaborate simultaneously within the same document. Additionally, there is the option to save the document directly in the integrated OneDrive or SharePoint."
"The initial setup was easy."
"Defender for 365 is a comprehensive cloud-based solution. The value of the cloud is that you aren't alone. Threat intelligence and analytics are shared in the cloud. We don't have to find the solution alone. If you face an unknown threat with traditional solutions like Trend Micro and Symantec, you need to open a case and send your information to them to analyze forensically and identify the source of the attack."
"Microsoft Defender for Office 365 helps people to work remotely. It is a secure solution. We don't need to use our company's computers or get VPN connections to the networks. I can control how they share screens and what they send to the devices. It keeps our organizations confidential and sensitive information safe."
"Defender is a SaaS platform, so it offers more flexibility. Managing the permissions is easier. The solution's automated detection and response features are scalable."
"The most valuable feature of Microsoft Defender for Office 365 is the ease of use."
"Cloudflare Access is part of the Zero Trust philosophy."
"The solution has different options that can be used to differentiate DDoS attacks."
"Cloudflare DDoS mitigates DDoS attacks."
"For Cloudflare Access, I am using the free plan...The most valuable feature is their protection."
"Cloudflare, in my opinion, was easy to implement."
"The tool also offers good scalability, and the dashboard, along with real-time analytics, is very good."
"The best feature is rate limiting. If I'm expecting 500 visits per hour, Cloudflare will limit the requests if I suddenly get 50,000."
"It will take the blow rather than our applications should an attack occur."
"It is a scalable solution."
"A full-featured email gateway solution that contains security threats reliably."
"Technical support is great. They are able to look at their patches and offer quick responses. We even have an account manager in the Middle East. They are very good."
"Fortinet FortiMail's most valuable features are its performance and security."
"The solution has a user-friendly interface. It is easy to deploy and handle. You can easily troubleshoot the issues of the solution."
"This excellent email gateway minimizes spam, inspects suspicious emails and isolates infected attachments with little administrative effort."
"Fortinet FortiMail's most valuable features are antispam, antivirus, database, and data loss prevention (DLP)."
"The most valuable features are the endpoint defense features, it is very secure."
 

Cons

"Microsoft Defender for Office 365 should improve the troubleshooting tools. It's unclear whether the device is blocked at the firewall level or at the device itself. The granularity needed for troubleshooting is currently lacking. From my perspective, Microsoft should address this issue to benefit many users who likely share the same sentiment."
"We noticed that from time to time, Microsoft's stability does have problems. Sometimes the service goes up and down. Sometimes they change without prior notice."
"There is room for improvement in terms of reporting."
"The visibility for the weaknesses in the system and unauthorized access can be improved."
"The pre-sales cost calculations could be more transparent."
"Microsoft sometimes has downtime, and we'll get several incidents coming in back to back. We have a huge backlog of notifications, many of which may be false positives. However, there might be serious alerts, so we can't risk dismissing all of them at once."
"This product's effectiveness could be improved, in terms of detecting unwanted spam or even malware between the emails, compared to other products."
"The UI needs to be more user-friendly."
"The response time for support must be reduced."
"When there are any dynamic changes in complex applications, the tool takes a lot of time, making its analytics-related area a major matter of concern where improvements are needed."
"Cloudflare Zero Trust Platform needs to improve its documentation. It took time to do the implementation."
"Our subscription plan for the solution has a limitation of bot signatures."
"The onboarding process can be improved a little bit."
"They don't have a person to provide support for customers using the solution under their free plan."
"The free plan has limitations. For example, I can only set up three rules, and the application firewall is unavailable."
"Our customers no longer use Cloudflare because its service is subpar."
"There are features that other solutions have that this one is lacking, such as reporting options. I hope in future releases they advance their features list."
"An additional feature that could be added is a pop-up screen notifying you that an email has been blocked, without having to double click on it to take you there it could provide you with a summary explaining why it was on hold or why was it spam when you hover over it with your cursor."
"I have little to say about possible improvements, but the configuration for content blocking could be better. So, for example, if the email includes the line "You have a Bitcoin", I would like it to be easier to block it before it enters an inbox. Fortinet could maybe offer better or simpler help on how to do this properly."
"I don't know if it is possible, but I would like to see Artificial Intelligence and machine learning introduced."
"The logging information is sometimes not clear or easy to understand."
"The web console management interface could be improved."
"FortiMail's dashboard is somewhat complex and could be made simpler."
"The support could be faster because we've been receiving complaints from customers, they say that when they raise a ticket, it doesn't take 24 hours to respond, sometimes the support responds after three days. This is a lot of time."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Microsoft Defender is expensive. I typically recommend it only if clients have the budget. Otherwise, I would suggest an alternative."
"The product is expensive."
"The product is very expensive."
"The pricing has become expensive."
"For licensing, it's usually a yearly package for customers who are subscribed to Office 365, but they can also pay on a monthly basis."
"While Microsoft Defender for Office 365 necessitates pricier E3 or E5 subscriptions, the extensive functionality offered by these licenses across various Microsoft products justifies the investment."
"The solution saves money so we have seen a return on investment."
"I know that the product is incredibly expensive."
"The solution is not that expensive."
"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 solution's pricing lacks transparency."
"The prices are slightly expensive."
"The price tag is no longer $200,000, but rather $300,000 to $400,000. It's twice."
"The pricing is somewhere in the middle. I would rate the pricing a seven out of ten."
"Cloudflare Zero Trust Platform's pricing is good."
"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."
"Fortinet FortiMail is inexpensive."
"There is a license required for this solution and it is on an annual basis. I am satisfied with the price."
"We paid approximately $30,000 for the solution. It is less expensive than some other solutions. We have one license that carries all the features that we wanted."
"In terms of licensing, we are using a virtual machine license for the single virtual server which it runs on. Doing it this way enables us to cut costs by only licensing FortiMail for our exact use case. If you need to expand in future, you can later buy extra licenses per virtual machine."
"The pricing is on the higher side."
"The price is acceptable for the support license it includes."
"Pricing is based on initial license purchase and use volume."
"Fortinet FortiMail has an annual license agreement."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
17%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
6%
Computer Software Company
17%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Educational Organization
49%
Computer Software Company
9%
Government
5%
Financial Services Firm
4%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Microsoft Defender for Office 365?
Threat Explorer is an invaluable tool for me, and it plays a crucial role in helping me discern the origins of variou...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Microsoft Defender for Office 365?
The pricing is reasonable since it comes integrated with our Office 365 license.
What needs improvement with Microsoft Defender for Office 365?
Sometimes, phishing emails manage to pass through the filter, so the system needs to enhance its phishing email detec...
What do you like most about Cloudflare Access?
The tool also offers good scalability, and the dashboard, along with real-time analytics, is very good.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Cloudflare Access?
The price of Cloudflare Access is the same as compared to Akamai, but I get better performance from Cloudflare. My co...
What needs improvement with Cloudflare Access?
Cloudflare Access has strong integration with Microsoft, among other platforms. However, when it comes to Kaspersky, ...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Fortinet FortiMail?
Barracuda is less expensive compared to FortiMail. FortiMail is mid-range, and Cisco is priced higher.
What needs improvement with Fortinet FortiMail?
There are multiple areas for improvement, such as user visibility, which is less compared to Cisco's secure appliance...
 

Also Known As

MS Defender for Office 365
Cloudflare Area 1 Email Security, Cloudflare Bot Management, Cloudflare Gateway, Cloudflare Zero Trust Platform, Cloudflare DDoS
FortiMail
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Microsoft Defender for Office 365 is trusted by companies such as Ithaca College.
23andMe
Magromer Cueros y Pieles S.A.
Find out what your peers are saying about Cloudflare SASE & SSE Platform vs. Fortinet FortiMail and other solutions. Updated: October 2024.
816,636 professionals have used our research since 2012.