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Fortinet FortiMail vs Microsoft Defender for Office 365 comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 8, 2024
 

Categories and Ranking

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
Microsoft Defender for Offi...
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)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2024, in the Email Security category, the mindshare of Fortinet FortiMail is 7.2%, down from 8.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Defender for Office 365 is 15.9%, down from 20.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Email Security
 

Featured Reviews

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.
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It has a very high level of security through special licensing with solutions like FortiGuard, sandboxing solutions in the cloud, and URL rewriting solutions."
"They have a feature called CDR, Content Disarm, Reconstruction, click protection, and DLP for encryption purposes."
"The GUI isn't hard to use. When we do a demo and explain the features of Fortinet products to our customers, they understand very quickly. They can easily manage their systems without us."
"The most valuable features of this solution are anti-spam, sender reputation, and antivirus."
"FortiMail possesses notable strengths, and one key feature is its store-and-forward concept."
"The anti-spam functionality is good and works well."
"Fortinet’s support services are good."
"Clean user interface and good sandbox."
"The product's scalability is good."
"The two main features that prove most beneficial for us are URL scanning and attachment scanning."
"It’s easy to handle integrations, and we don't need a lot of people in our IT team."
"Microsoft Defender for Office 365's most valuable feature is its performance."
"The deployment capability is a great feature."
"The most valuable feature of Microsoft Defender for Office 365 is the ease of use."
"The solution is very easy to use. All you have to do is to assign the license to the end-user and it's done. The customer will only have the feature activated, and the solution will monitor the emails to determine if they are a threat or not."
"The initial setup is straightforward. You just add the license, click it, and then you can set up the rules. It is quite simple."
 

Cons

"I think they need to look into it and improve their signatures. This will help with blocking incoming spam emails."
"ortiMail has some latency issues and sometimes takes time to receive emails."
"Sometimes, authentic emails get blocked by the solution's firewall."
"The solution is user-friendly to a degree but the dashboard needs improvement."
"My customers frequently ask to have detailed documentation for FortiMail and FortiWeb as they have in FortiGate. What they currently have is not enough."
"I think the security of the product could improve."
"The solution could be improved by providing a virtual machine facility with a complete set of options in the VM setup."
"The product's cybersecurity features could be better."
"The custom alerts have to improve a lot."
"Microsoft Defender for Office 365 should be more proactive."
"They have moved features from one console to another. Things have been moved around in the interface and it takes me time to find where certain features are."
"Configuration requires going to a lot of places rather than just accessing one tab."
"There is room for improvement with the UI."
"The company should focus on adding threats that the solution is currently unable to detect."
"Microsoft wants its well-paying customers to finish testing some of its half-baked products, find bugs, and report bugs back to Microsoft's team, which is a little frustrating for those who have to manage it and roll it up to thousands of people across the organization."
"The product must provide better malware detection."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"You need to pay additional fees for premium support."
"Pricing is straight-forward and renewable without complicated pricing structures."
"The solution is reasonably priced compared to one of its competitors."
"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."
"There is either an annual or six-month charge to use this solution. Fortinet FortiMail is cheaper than Proofpoint or Cisco Security, or other email security appliances."
"The licensing model for this solution is better because it is based on the box and not the number of users."
"If you don't need the full bundle that includes everything, you have options for the small or medium enterprise environments."
"9,000 Euro per annum for Fortinet Mail and sandbox."
"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."
"Compared to other brands, Microsoft Defender for Office 365's pricing is competitive."
"For large enterprise organizations, they can definitely afford it, but for small and medium organizations, they might struggle to cover the expenses."
"It is much more expensive than using another solution because we have had to include some options and upgrade our license."
"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."
"Microsoft Defender for Office 365 comes with Microsoft Windows. It is free with the operating system."
"The pricing has become expensive."
"Microsoft Defender for Office 365 is an add-on to the Office license. Many customers are purchasing this solution."
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Top Industries

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

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

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 appliances. Header inspection and containerization, like on-prem premises sandboxing, nee...
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 various email campaigns, pinpointing where they emanate from, and identifying the indi...
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 detection capabilities. We also need alerting features for abnormal actions like unus...
 

Also Known As

FortiMail
MS Defender for Office 365
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

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