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Fortinet FortiMail vs Microsoft Exchange Online Protection (EOP) comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Feb 8, 2026

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

Cloudflare One
Sponsored
Ranking in Email Security
20th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
23
Ranking in other categories
Secure Web Gateways (SWG) (13th), Data Loss Prevention (DLP) (22nd), Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB) (13th), Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection (9th), Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) Solutions (12th), Access Management (11th), Bot Management (3rd), ZTNA as a Service (9th), ZTNA (4th), Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) (9th), Remote Browser Isolation (RBI) (3rd)
Fortinet FortiMail
Ranking in Email Security
4th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
68
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Microsoft Exchange Online P...
Ranking in Email Security
7th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
42
Ranking in other categories
Anti-Malware Tools (13th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2026, in the Email Security category, the mindshare of Cloudflare One is 1.7%, up from 1.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Fortinet FortiMail is 2.9%, down from 4.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Exchange Online Protection (EOP) is 3.2%, down from 6.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Email Security Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Fortinet FortiMail2.9%
Microsoft Exchange Online Protection (EOP)3.2%
Cloudflare One1.7%
Other92.2%
Email Security
 

Featured Reviews

CV
Network Architect at IP Dimension
Cloud security has improved remote access and has reduced costs for smaller client sites
I have used Cloudflare One's Identity-Aware Proxy, and it is quite straightforward from what I have seen so far. The app registration on the Azure side integrates fully into Cloudflare, and I am very satisfied with that part because it is easy to set up. The integration of Cloudflare One's Secure Web Gateway and Zero Trust Network Access works without any issues. That part is pretty automatic, and if you complete the rest of the setup, it comes together by itself with no issues from my side. What makes it nice is that we can actually start replacing on-site firewalls at this stage for the smaller clients because it does not matter if they go to a coffee shop or work from home; they are still secured by the same connection. The hops get shorter and you get better latency. We have done testing to see if it is better. One thing that we did notice with our proof of concept with our current client is that they have people connecting from the UK. When they used their previous VPN solution, uploading CAD drawings and other files to the server took a long time. They mentioned that it is much quicker on Cloudflare One's solution. I definitely believe that is part of the improved performance, and I am satisfied with that as well. What is nice about Cloudflare One is that it makes the setup easier and also easier to train technicians to maintain it. Compared to legacy systems, we do not need to get fancy firewalls in place that are costly. That is definitely also a cost-saver with Cloudflare One.
Abhimanyu Das - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Cybersecurity Engineer at Kyndryl
Targeted email filtering has reduced spam and phishing and now saves significant investigation time
The best features of Fortinet FortiMail include its techniques and tactics, which are highly effective compared to other solutions such as Microsoft 365. Although Fortinet FortiMail may not be as advanced in some aspects, it is well recognized for its strong performance in handling spam and phishing. It performs thorough mail scanning and also offers a sandboxing feature that enhances protection. Fortinet FortiMail has had a positive impact on my organization by significantly reducing unwanted email activities such as spam and phishing. It provides accurate detection and generates results that often exceed what can be achieved through manual analysis. Since deploying Fortinet FortiMail, I have observed a reduction in investigation time by at least 20 to 30 percent.
NancyHartman - PeerSpot reviewer
Business Process Manager/ Educational Technologist at a educational organization with 1,001-5,000 employees
Layered email security has protected sensitive research and still flags phishing in real time
The valuable features of Microsoft Exchange Online Protection (EOP) include providing an additional layer of protection, as it builds on the basic Exchange level of security that allows us to get our work done. Another feature I appreciate is the ability to question things, as our Exchange server allows us to identify in real-time if an email is a phishing email or spam email. It really helps us identify risks, especially through our external exchanges via email or through our cloud-based platforms. Our Exchange system blocks any embedded AI from all our applications and products, so we cannot use embedded AI in our daily work from our official laptops because we have secure information. The system is quite locked down.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Clover is the best product globally."
"The blocking feature is very good."
"Enables me to work from two locations."
"Cloudflare Access is a stable solution."
"Cloudflare DDoS mitigates DDoS attacks."
"Cloudflare Zero Trust Platform removes the risk of exposing the applications to the public."
"What makes it nice is that we can actually start replacing on-site firewalls at this stage for the smaller clients because it does not matter if they go to a coffee shop or work from home; they are still secured by the same connection."
"The solution has different options that can be used to differentiate DDoS attacks."
"The technical support is excellent."
"It is a very reliable program and it works great."
"One major benefit of the Fortinet FortiMail product is its ease of management."
"We do have, as of late, spam outbreaks, and this solution has been pretty reliable in dealing with them."
"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."
"At the end of the day, they look at the performance and the price, and Fortinet covers all the bases."
"The number of false positives is minimal."
"A full-featured email gateway solution that contains security threats reliably."
"The solution uses artificial intelligence and machine learning, so you don't need train it to detect something. The detection and response times are short. It's an excellent product."
"The simplicity and the easy deployment ensure that anybody who has worked on Exchange can easily work on this."
"We use the solution to receive emails. We do not use the calendar function as our clients are slow adaptors to the latest features."
"I like the product's ZAP feature."
"You can use the product to create special accounts."
"It is an easy solution."
"It provides security to both on-premises and Azure infrastructures."
"With Microsoft Exchange Online Protection, if malware is attached to a mailer, it's very easy to go into the incident alert and find out what's happening with that identity and the mail."
 

Cons

"The free plan has limitations. For example, I can only set up three rules, and the application firewall is unavailable."
"Feedback could be enhanced."
"The tool should provide on-premise versions. Currently, all versions are cloud-based."
"The onboarding process can be improved a little bit."
"Operating and tuning the product is difficult."
"From a logging perspective, it is still a bit difficult to see exactly what users are being blocked with the current views."
"Automation could be improved where you can easily add a TLS and SSL certificate to an application or web app if the developer did not include it."
"They don't have a person to provide support for customers using the solution under their free plan."
"The main area for improvement is the pricing."
"In the Latin America market, some spam messages use Portuguese language. Some clearly spam messages would be better identified by the anti-spam if not for the language."
"I would like it if the solution could be more affordable."
"I'll rate it higher when it can be easier to configure or connect to the cloud to report on the attachments."
"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."
"Sometimes it takes a little bit too long to determine if an email is good or not. If they could shorten that time span, it'd be so much better. It does delay our email, which does not make users happy. That said, I would have to say we have not been blacklisted for quite a while now."
"The sandboxing features are not well done in Fortinet FortiMail, making it an area of improvement."
"The product's cybersecurity features could be better."
"The product needs more granularity. Some features, like encryption, are not available."
"Microsoft has some training portals, but more could be developed."
"The security compliance features need to be improved. Sometimes, a client's mailbox becomes full because of retained information and not because of mail. I would like to see improvement in block rules as well."
"It wasn't easy or intuitive enough for me to start using it. So, the reason was that the solution changed."
"The solution must improve the user experience."
"Some of the searchability when looking for specifics in Exchange logs is tedious."
"I would like to get reports about vulnerable connections from our clients with information about domains, public IPs, etc. That would be highly useful."
"The solution lacks to elaborate on its spam policies."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Cloudflare Zero Trust Platform's pricing is good."
"The solution is not that expensive."
"The solution's pricing lacks transparency."
"The pricing is somewhere in the middle. I would rate the pricing a seven out of ten."
"The prices are slightly expensive."
"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."
"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 price tag is no longer $200,000, but rather $300,000 to $400,000. It's twice."
"FortiMail is not cheap."
"Price-wise, you get what you pay for in Fortinet FortiMail. Apart from the licensing costs, no additional expenses are attached to the solution's pricing."
"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."
"The product's licensing part depends on the number of mailboxes and the hard disk needed by customers. The cost of the license depends on the number of mailboxes and the number of emails."
"The price is acceptable for the support license it includes."
"The tool is very expensive."
"Compared to its competitors, Fortinet's products are available at a higher price range."
"The pricing is good."
"The solution is priced high and could be less expensive compared to other solutions."
"The solution's pricing is subscription-based rather than a yearly licensing cost. Pricing is based on the size of the environment and company and can be expensive."
"On a scale of one to ten, where one is cheap, and ten is very expensive, I rate the pricing a six. For licensing, we can make monthly or yearly payments. Right now, we pay 5 USD per month to secure a person's license."
"Online Protection is fairly expensive."
"Microsoft Exchange Online Protection's pricing is a little bit more because its price has recently increased."
"Microsoft Exchange Online Protection is a good solution at an affordable price. It is a good investment."
"The solution should reduce the cost."
"The solution falls on the higher or more expensive side of the spectrum."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Construction Company
18%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Outsourcing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Construction Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Computer Software Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
8%
Government
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business10
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise12
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business32
Midsize Enterprise23
Large Enterprise15
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business24
Midsize Enterprise7
Large Enterprise11
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Cloudflare Zero Trust Platform?
In my opinion, Cloudflare One can be improved mainly through compatibility, as the integration should be much simpler...
What is your primary use case for Cloudflare Zero Trust Platform?
Cloudflare One's primary use case for my organization is to protect servers and to provide remote access with the VPN...
What needs improvement with Fortinet FortiMail?
I think they should improve Fortinet FortiMail on-premises by enhancing its user interface. Additional features they ...
What is your primary use case for Fortinet FortiMail?
I do have a partnership with Fortinet. I have been both a partner and reseller.
What needs improvement with Microsoft Exchange Online Protection?
From an end-user point of view, I am quite happy with Microsoft Exchange Online Protection (EOP) because my favorite ...
What is your primary use case for Microsoft Exchange Online Protection?
Microsoft Exchange Online Protection (EOP) serves as the main use case for my company because, as a research company,...
What advice do you have for others considering Microsoft Exchange Online Protection?
My experience with Microsoft Exchange Online Protection (EOP) is from an end-user perspective, and I do not have admi...
 

Also Known As

Cloudflare Area 1 Email Security, Cloudflare Bot Management, Cloudflare Gateway, Cloudflare Zero Trust Platform, Cloudflare DDoS, Cloudflare SASE & SSE Platform
FortiMail
Microsoft EOP, MS Exchange Online Protection
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

23andMe
Magromer Cueros y Pieles S.A.
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about Fortinet FortiMail vs. Microsoft Exchange Online Protection (EOP) and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
906,852 professionals have used our research since 2012.