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Cisco Secure Email Threat Defense vs Fortinet FortiMail comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 3, 2024

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
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
22
Ranking in other categories
Secure Web Gateways (SWG) (16th), Data Loss Prevention (DLP) (21st), Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB) (11th), Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection (7th), Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) Solutions (13th), Access Management (11th), Bot Management (3rd), ZTNA as a Service (8th), ZTNA (2nd), Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) (10th), Remote Browser Isolation (RBI) (3rd)
Cisco Secure Email Threat D...
Ranking in Email Security
22nd
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
16
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Fortinet FortiMail
Ranking in Email Security
5th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
67
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2026, in the Email Security category, the mindshare of Cloudflare One is 1.4%, down from 1.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Cisco Secure Email Threat Defense is 1.1%, up from 1.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Fortinet FortiMail is 3.3%, down from 5.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Email Security Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Fortinet FortiMail3.3%
Cloudflare One1.4%
Cisco Secure Email Threat Defense1.1%
Other94.2%
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.
reviewer2541525 - PeerSpot reviewer
Principal Cyber Prevent and Defense Engineer at a comms service provider with 1,001-5,000 employees
Clawback feature performs well but analytics and integration capabilities need improvement
The integration capability with other threat intelligence platforms is not optimal, as I have experienced difficulty in sending logs to our SIEM. Cisco Secure Email Threat Defense's flexibility could be enhanced while it mostly integrates with cloud solutions, but not on-premise. The behavioral analysis capability of Cisco Secure Email Threat Defense is not particularly helpful for identifying new, evolving threats within my company, as it keeps flagging legitimate emails as malicious. Regarding room for improvement, the significant number of false positives should be addressed. The solution does not adapt to behavioral analytics and does not make changes when it sees a pattern.
Abhimanyu Das - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Associate at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Using Cloudflare One makes my work quite easy because for DDoS protection, all I need to do is understand the OSI model and click; it makes it easier than trying to write a command line or use a Linux command."
"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'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."
"The tool also offers good scalability, and the dashboard, along with real-time analytics, is very good."
"Clover is the best product globally."
"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 blocking feature is very good."
"For Cloudflare Access, I am using the free plan...The most valuable feature is their protection."
"Secure Email Threat Defense's scalability is good."
"It's very easy to deploy and configure."
"It has an efficient email filtering feature."
"The advanced threat analytics and URL filtering in threat detection are good features that are working well."
"The solution is stable."
"The ability to see east-west traffic is its most valuable feature. Traditionally, email defense focuses on north-south, inbound-outbound, egress-ingress traffic. With Cisco Secure Email Cloud Mailbox, it's able to quickly identify, track, tag, and categorize emails that are internal. That can typically give us visibility into if there's an internal compromised account (for example). Someone can then use that internal compromised account to email additional accounts with either malicious software or links, but internal within that Office tenant. Effectively, that email message never leaves the tenant. Any of the mail gateways really do not have any method or way of seeing this traffic since it's not leaving the environment."
"I highly recommend it as one of the best choices."
"I would say it's very comprehensive, with multiple antivirus OEMs, virus encrypt features, encryption, and more."
"I would rate Fortinet FortiMail ten out of ten overall."
"The integration with FortiSandbox is good, and something that we utilize often."
"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 key benefits of this solution are its user-friendly interface and clear instructions, as well as the wealth of online resources and helpful health community available for support. These features make it easy for users to navigate and utilize the solution effectively."
"Fortinet FortiMail is rated an eight for the protection and features it provides in the on-premises setup."
"One major benefit of the Fortinet FortiMail product is its ease of management."
"For me, Fortinet FortiMail is the best solution I have ever tried."
"Troubleshooting is very simple because you can see where the email was not delivered and why it would be considered as spam."
 

Cons

"The software has automated alerts, but the automated alerts are not available in the mobile app."
"The onboarding process can be improved a little bit."
"There are premium tier live service and lower tier live service, so we opted for the lower tier. But there is no medium tier where we pay a little extra and get a bit more service. So if that can be improved."
"For the topic of improvement, providing some training material is one of my suggestions."
"Operating and tuning the product is difficult."
"Cloudflare DDoS has poor technical support."
"Feedback could be enhanced."
"They don't have a person to provide support for customers using the solution under their free plan."
"The learning curve shows that in the beginning, there are numerous false positives. For one month, we had to reclassify the false positives manually until the system learned."
"The solution is a bit expensive."
"The behavioral analysis capability of Cisco Secure Email Threat Defense is not particularly helpful for identifying new, evolving threats within my company, as it keeps flagging legitimate emails as malicious."
"There is still room for improvement in terms of integrations with other Cisco tools and non-Cisco tools. There is also some room for improvement needed in terms of the reporting."
"This solution could be improved by integration with Sandbox."
"The tool gives false positives and it needs to be more accurate. I would like to see AI as a new feature."
"Customers will benefit greatly from monthly billing because the majority of customers today use the cloud, be it Office 365, or Google Cloud."
"We encounter issues while searching for missing emails."
"The product could incorporate even more artificial intelligence to enhance the functionality, but it is a competetive and intelligent product as it."
"Improving the upgrade process, making it more user-friendly, and simplifying the management of hardware components could enhance the overall user experience and appeal of Fortinet's email security solution."
"The infrastructure could be improved."
"The tool needs to improve its pricing policy. Also, it needs to be more user-friendly. I would want it to improve email security as well."
"The web console management interface could be improved."
"The product's price is an area with shortcomings, making it an area where improvements are required."
"Maybe FortiMail's integration could be better."
"The Ui isn't that intuitive."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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 solution is not that expensive."
"The price tag is no longer $200,000, but rather $300,000 to $400,000. It's twice."
"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 pricing of the solution is cheap. The licensing cost is also very low. I rate the cost and pricing a three out of ten."
"The prices are slightly expensive."
"The feedback from vendors and customer is that it is expensive."
"Cisco Secure Email Cloud Mailbox does not have any competition with Sophos, Trend Micro, or other vendors of the world. However, there is a pricing premium for the solution. One has to look at it from that angle that while they are buying Cisco, there will be a premium, and Cisco justifies that premium value. That's why they're charging a high price."
"The solution’s pricing is manageable."
"It is expensive compared to other vendors."
"This is a good solution and value for the money."
"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."
"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."
"Fortinet Fortimail has reasonable 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 price is acceptable for the support license it includes."
"The fees for Fortinet FortiMail can be complicated. However, overall the pricing is fair."
"Fortinet FortiMail has an annual license agreement."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
12%
Comms Service Provider
11%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Computer Software Company
12%
Marketing Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Computer Software Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business10
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise10
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business4
Midsize Enterprise6
Large Enterprise7
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business32
Midsize Enterprise22
Large Enterprise15
 

Questions from the Community

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 primary use case for Cloudflare Access?
Cloudflare Access provides secure access to internal applications for employees, external members of the organization...
What advice do you have for others considering Cloudflare Access?
Cloudflare Access is one of the best integrations available. While about two hundred vendors offer similar services, ...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Secure Email Threat Defense?
Comparatively with other products, the pricing of Cisco Secure Email Threat Defense is normal. As a technical guide, ...
What needs improvement with Secure Email Threat Defense?
We have deployed Cisco Secure Email Threat Defense in two customer environments. It is still in development as a new ...
What is your primary use case for Secure Email Threat Defense?
We are working with Cloud Mail Gateway and on-premise mail gateways. We have worked with Cisco Secure Email Threat De...
What needs improvement with Fortinet FortiMail?
In my opinion, points for improvement for Fortinet FortiMail include sometimes the speed and fine-tuning the false po...
 

Also Known As

Cloudflare Area 1 Email Security, Cloudflare Bot Management, Cloudflare Gateway, Cloudflare Zero Trust Platform, Cloudflare DDoS, Cloudflare SASE & SSE Platform
Cisco Secure Email Cloud Mailbox, Cisco CMD, Cisco Cloud Mailbox Defense
FortiMail
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

23andMe
Luiss University, Lone Star College, T-Systems, Magyar Telekom
Magromer Cueros y Pieles S.A.
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco Secure Email Threat Defense vs. Fortinet FortiMail and other solutions. Updated: February 2026.
882,410 professionals have used our research since 2012.