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Fortinet FortiMail vs Mimecast Email Security comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 8, 2024
 

Categories and Ranking

Microsoft Defender for Offi...
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Average Rating
8.2
Number of Reviews
45
Ranking in other categories
Email Security (1st), Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) (1st), Microsoft Security Suite (10th)
Fortinet FortiMail
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
60
Ranking in other categories
Email Security (4th)
Mimecast Email Security
Average Rating
8.0
Number of Reviews
28
Ranking in other categories
Office 365 Protection (5th), Secure Email Gateway (SEG) (4th)
 

Featured Reviews

Luis-Brown - PeerSpot reviewer
Aug 8, 2023
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.
Andras Solt - PeerSpot reviewer
Dec 12, 2022
Reasonable pricing and good spam filtering but does not offer robust gatekeeping
The solution is primarily for mail security. We use it primarily for incoming and outgoing emails. We also use other products which are quite new for us. We just invested in GFI, and we use it also for the incoming email traffic to check with more antivirus monitoring The spam filtering is great.…
Frank Rawson - PeerSpot reviewer
May 26, 2023
It gives clients peace of mind and helps them educate their users about threats
A few years ago, our team found the implementation to be somewhat challenging. It has gotten easier as we've grown more experienced. The difficulty depends on the expertise of the person doing it. I don't work with Mimecast every day, so it might be more difficult for me than it is for one of my techs who regularly does Mimecast implementations. It requires some specific in-depth product knowledge and an understanding of email solutions. The deployment time varies. In South Africa, it depends on who you use to deploy it. If you use one of Mimecast's local partners, it can take up to two weeks because of their process. However, it's only about four to eight hours of work. After deployment, there isn't much maintenance aside from supporting and educating your customers. Users require constant education on how to use the Mimecast client and release an email that has been blocked.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The email protection is excellent, especially in terms of anti-phishing policies."
"The two main features that prove most beneficial for us are URL scanning and attachment scanning."
"Defender enables us to secure all 365-related activity from a single place. It gives us visibility into everything happening in Outlook, protecting us against phishing and other email-based threats. Defender helps us detect any suspicious behaviors."
"Microsoft Defender for Office 365's most valuable features are safe attachments and safe links."
"I like its investigation capabilities, as that is what is most important to me. It is fairly simple with a user-friendly interface."
"Threat Explorer is one of the features that I very much like because it is a real-time report that allows you to identify, analyze, and trace security attacks."
"The most valuable feature is the integration. It's a single console, so we don't have to switch around between multiple products. Another valuable feature is the ease of operations and maintenance."
"The initial setup was easy."
"Fortinet FortiMail has a lot of valuable features. It works great. It also has an antivirus feature. Support for Fortinet FortiMail was also great when my team wanted to block some geographic IPs, but couldn't figure out how to do it. The support team provided clear communication on how to resolve that issue. Another valuable feature of Fortinet FortiMail is SPAM filtering which tells you how many spammy emails you've received. Based on my current use cases, I'm happy with Fortinet FortiMail."
"FortiMail is a stable product."
"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."
"The solution is very reliable and very stable."
"Troubleshooting is very simple because you can see where the email was not delivered and why it would be considered as spam."
"The product's initial setup phase was very easy."
"Fortinet’s support services are good."
"The solution can scale."
"The platform's most valuable features are journaling and email archiving, effectively stopping phishing attacks."
"It's good, it keeps the spam out."
"Mimecast certainly helped my customers reduce phishing emails."
"The setup was easy."
"The product is good. To date, we have not faced any challenges."
"URL inspection works pretty well."
"The most valuable feature is the DMARC Analyzer."
"The solution is pretty straightforward to use and easy to set up."
 

Cons

"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 custom alerts have to improve a lot."
"There needs to be an improvement in integrating the product to work across multiple operating systems, and to have better support for non-Microsoft file types."
"Configuring the default strategies and policies in Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps generates a lot of noise and false positives."
"The GUI is sometimes slow to fetch the device report and could be improved."
"The UI needs to be more user-friendly."
"We need a separate license and we don't know how to get the license that is required."
"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."
"Fortinet FortiMail should allow more flexibility with the content rules."
"I need a stable update in the product that stays for a long time instead of having to deal with frequent updates."
"The only drawback to this solution is that the firmware is frequently updated, and each update results in downtime."
"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."
"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."
"The Ui isn't that intuitive."
"The solution doesn't scale easily."
"What's missing in Fortinet FortiMail is some sandbox information for some of the emails. It's probably configuration-based, where it could be configured on some emails. For example, there was malware in some emails that weren't detected in some of the Fortinet FortiMail sessions, but it should have been configured from my company's end to better catch scam emails, but overall, the solution is okay. At the moment, my company is okay with the current Fortinet FortiMail offerings, but in the past, because of a lack of understanding, my team wasn't able to quickly implement the geographical IP blocking feature. It was time-consuming to implement that feature, but that wasn't a fault of Fortinet FortiMail. The issue was from my team's end, but just by emailing the support team, that issue was resolved, so right now, there isn't any additional feature I'd like added to Fortinet FortiMail."
"The solution is complex and not easy to use."
"While it's quick and easy, the initial setup could be more user-friendly."
"The tool can be challenging because it relies on rule-based configurations, especially for addressing impersonation threats. This approach requires setting up numerous rules to ensure filtering. It should work based on behavior-based analytics."
"The solution is very expensive."
"The installation is not so straightforward."
"The detection rates are an area for improvement."
"Their support should be improved. They are notorious for sending you to knowledge-based articles rather than actually talking to you, but that is, unfortunately, kind of becoming a trend with everything. In terms of features, I haven't had any complaints. However, I don't like the fact they moved to a paid training subscription model. They used to have a lot of free webinars for training, but they have started to charge for them in the past year."
"Mimecast need to ensure that the body text format is correctly handled and that images are properly embedded in the body text."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I know that the product is incredibly expensive."
"The pricing has become expensive."
"Microsoft Defender for Office 365 is an add-on to the Office license. Many customers are purchasing this solution."
"The pricing is normal. Considering its popularity, it's not overpriced."
"Defender is a little bit more expensive as compared to others. We are in the manufacturing environment. So, we don't have a high budget for all of our endpoint devices. Its cost is a major concern for us."
"The product is very expensive."
"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."
"It is much more expensive than using another solution because we have had to include some options and upgrade our license."
"It is a fairly priced product, considering what it does. The product offers good value for the money users spend on it."
"The licensing model for this solution is better because it is based on the box and not the number of users."
"The price is acceptable for the support license it includes."
"I have no information on pricing for the competition because right now, my company is working only with Fortinet, but I can say that in general, the price for Fortinet FortiMail was accepted by the customers easily. The POC is also important when a customer is buying a solution. The customer wants to see how the product runs, and as Fortinet FortiMail is a stable product that runs without big issues, it has a bigger chance of getting chosen by customers over its competitors, even if its price may be a little higher. Pricing for the solution is competitive. Sometimes it's less, sometimes it's a little bit higher, but it isn't far from what other solutions charge."
"It's not as that expensive with the competitive different brands. The products sell a lot."
"This is a good solution and value for the money."
"In the future I would like it if there's a possibility to lower the price of the bandwidth and UTM. It is quite expensive."
"I find Fortinet FortiMail pricing reasonable. There's no additional cost apart from its standard licensing fees."
"The solution is expensive."
"We pay monthly fees to our provider."
"It is a bit expensive."
"The product has good pricing in terms of return on investment."
"The licensing costs are per-user for the product that you get with them."
"There are additional costs beyond the standard licensing fee."
"Compared to the other solutions in the market, Mimecast Email Security with Targeted Threat Protection's pricing is fine."
"For what it is, the product is overpriced."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
17%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
6%
Educational Organization
49%
Computer Software Company
9%
Government
5%
Financial Services Firm
4%
Computer Software Company
16%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Retailer
6%
 

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 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...
What do you like most about Mimecast Email Security with Targeted Threat Protection?
The interface of this solution is very easy to navigate and user-friendly. There is no delivery in email and other co...
What needs improvement with Mimecast Email Security with Targeted Threat Protection?
The product's interface could be improved to be more user-friendly.
 

Also Known As

MS Defender for Office 365
FortiMail
Mimecast Email Security with Targeted Threat Protection
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Microsoft Defender for Office 365 is trusted by companies such as Ithaca College.
Magromer Cueros y Pieles S.A.
Azizi Developments, Affinity Credit Union, Aftercare, Al Abbar Group
Find out what your peers are saying about Fortinet FortiMail vs. Mimecast Email Security and other solutions. Updated: January 2024.
815,854 professionals have used our research since 2012.