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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

Cisco Secure Email Threat D...
Ranking in Email Security
23rd
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
6th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
68
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2026, in the Email Security category, 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 2.6%, down from 3.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Email Security Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Fortinet FortiMail2.6%
Cisco Secure Email Threat Defense1.1%
Other96.3%
Email Security
 

Featured Reviews

NM
Enginner at Millennium Information Technologies
Has faced challenges with configuration, taking actions, and learning curve but benefits from centralized management and good technical support
We have deployed Cisco Secure Email Threat Defense in two customer environments. It is still in development as a new product. Some customer requirements, such as sending logs to a Syslog server, are limited as ETD only supports sending audit logs. Customers have requirements for other system logs as well, which should be developed from their side. Another customer request is to restrict the IPs that can log in, which cannot be done from Cisco Secure Email Threat Defense yet. Any user with login details can log in. We can restrict the IPs in Cloud Mail Gateways, but not from Cisco Secure Email Threat Defense. It would be beneficial to improve this feature. Cisco Secure Email Threat Defense can take actions, such as requesting O365 to quarantine mail. In that case, the customer requires notification to the recipient from Cisco Secure Email Threat Defense. This option would be valuable if available. The real-time threat intelligence of Cisco Secure Email Threat Defense is an AI-based classification. It took one to two months to optimize the classification, but we still experience some false positives. Reducing the learning period would be beneficial. 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. Reducing the learning time would be much better. Additional features desired in the next release include IP restrictions and user logging IP restrictions, ensuring only the customer environment can log in to Cisco Secure Email Threat Defense. Logs forwarding needs improvement as currently it only has audit logs. In Cloud Mail Gateway, we can create an IPsec tunnel to forward logs. However, in Cisco Secure Email Threat Defense, there is no option, and we must do API integration to send logs. Only SIM can get logs; Syslog cannot retrieve them.
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Cisco's technical support is very good."
"Cisco Cloud Mailbox is used for copying emails, anti-spamming, and securing the company's email, and we really enjoy the anti-spamming capabilities as well as the rejecting of bulk emails, which we can customize by adjusting the variables, and it is very user-friendly."
"The advanced threat analytics and URL filtering in threat detection are good features that are working well."
"Currently, the ease of deployment is the low-hanging fruit for Cisco email security."
"On ease of use, it rates very high. It's something that I was able to get into without really looking at any documentation. I wanted to see what it felt like before I started looking at any documentation on how to use it, and it was very easy to use. It works very smoothly. The user experience is very intuitive. They did an amazing job on that."
"This solution is easy to use."
"Cisco Secure Email Threat Defense's best features include user management of graymail, enhancing security awareness by allowing users to manage cold calls, sales-based items, and ensuring email compliance."
"The features and functionalities are much better than Microsoft's in-built Defender plan, and this product has helped us to protect our organization from any malware attack in the past."
"The most valuable features of this solution are anti-spam, sender reputation, and antivirus."
"The deployment is simple and once up and running it is easy to manage."
"It is a scalable solution."
"The user quarantine feature in the solution is good...It is a stable solution."
"Fortinet FortiMail is a complete product addressing mail security concerns. It helps to know spam subscriptions and create restriction policies."
"This solution has protected us from email spam and from phishing."
"The number of false positives is minimal."
"Fortinet FortiMail's most valuable features are its performance and security."
 

Cons

"The pricing could always be better."
"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."
"I wouldn't recommend Cisco to others because I think Fortinet is better."
"The product's complexity at times results in redundant rule sets that are difficult to untangle, highlighting the need for streamlined management systems and a more user-centric approach to system configuration."
"The solution is a bit expensive. It could be cheaper."
"Cisco's multiple product lines and verticals made this just one of their many verticals, and we could see a shift in focus."
"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."
"The search area has room for improvement."
"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."
"The infrastructure could be improved. The data leak prevention could also be better."
"Sometimes, the tool flags legitimate incoming traffic as spam."
"Fortinet FortiMail can be improved in terms of its dashboard, which is small and not visually appealing, making deeper investigations difficult."
"Fortinet FortiMail should allow more flexibility with the content rules."
"In my opinion, points for improvement for Fortinet FortiMail include sometimes the speed and fine-tuning the false positive problems, especially with the signed PDF attachments and the whitelist and blacklist."
"Such kinds of things, raised from the point from the objective actually, we are using Fortinet FortiMail. We don't find any kinds of challenge or difficulties, but Fortinet FortiMail is more efficient and more effective for us. I don't know for other client, but for us, Fortinet FortiMail is very effective Like, for instance, if it is possible, let's say some kind of high threat is actually encountered if it could be possible to SMBs in our smartphone, or mobile apps, kinds of thing, if Fortinet FortiMail is available to monitor the thing using from our mobile phone from our smartphone. If such kinds of things are truly included, it will be more or good for us."
"The only drawback to this solution is that the firmware is frequently updated, and each update results in downtime."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"The feedback from vendors and customer is that it is expensive."
"It is expensive compared to other vendors."
"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."
"FortiMail is not cheap."
"FortiMail has extra charges for installation, configuration, and project management."
"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."
"If you don't need the full bundle that includes everything, you have options for the small or medium enterprise environments."
"Fortinet Fortimail has reasonable pricing."
"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."
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Top Industries

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

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business4
Midsize Enterprise6
Large Enterprise7
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business33
Midsize Enterprise23
Large Enterprise14
 

Questions from the Community

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, I am not very aware of the pricing details.
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 product. Some customer requirements, such as sending logs to a Syslog server, ar...
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 Defense.
What needs improvement with Fortinet FortiMail?
I think they should improve Fortinet FortiMail on-premises by enhancing its user interface. Additional features they could have in the future would include advanced analytics capabilities. I do thi...
What is your primary use case for Fortinet FortiMail?
I do have a partnership with Fortinet. I have been both a partner and reseller.
 

Also Known As

Cisco Secure Email Cloud Mailbox, Cisco CMD, Cisco Cloud Mailbox Defense
FortiMail
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

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: August 2026.
911,952 professionals have used our research since 2012.