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Fortinet FortiMail vs Sophos Email comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 3, 2024
 

Categories and Ranking

Microsoft Defender for Offi...
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Ranking in Email Security
1st
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
47
Ranking in other categories
Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) (1st), Microsoft Security Suite (10th)
Fortinet FortiMail
Ranking in Email Security
5th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
61
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Sophos Email
Ranking in Email Security
11th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
30
Ranking in other categories
Office 365 Protection (3rd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of December 2024, in the Email Security category, the mindshare of Microsoft Defender for Office 365 is 15.8%, down from 20.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Fortinet FortiMail is 7.1%, down from 7.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Sophos Email is 3.1%, down from 3.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Email Security
 

Featured Reviews

Jamie LeClair - PeerSpot reviewer
File-sharing options and ease of collaboration or meetings allow for quick collaborations and chats
I work in my company's IT department, so I use all of the products under Office 365 daily, including Microsoft Word, Microsoft PowerPoint, Microsoft Teams, and all the other components in the product. My company can't make it through a day or go by without using the products offered under Office 365. Some of our manufacturing workers may use Office 365 a lot less, but it is still necessary for things like Microsoft Outlook and Exchange. I found Microsoft Teams to be the most valuable feature of the solution, along with all of the products and features offered under Office 365. My organization has remote workers, and we can't run the company without meetings organized with the help of Microsoft Teams.
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.
NaveedAli - PeerSpot reviewer
Provides good identity proxy features, but sandboxing and spam control features could be improved
Sophos gives you a feature set to manage your on-premises firewall on the cloud. I just integrated my on-premises firewall into the cloud, and I can manage the tool through the cloud as well if needed. I recommend using Sophos Email as a proxy. For email gateways, I advise choosing mature products with rich feature sets, like Trend Micro or CrowdStrike. The solution's integration with other tools is very simple. I easily integrated Sophos Email with my Active Directory. My organization needs a WAF with a limited feature set, which we use through Sophos. Purchasing additional WAF will be costly, but I get sandboxing and WAF features free of cost with Sophos, which is included in the license. Overall, I rate the solution a seven out of ten.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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."
"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."
"The most valuable aspect of Microsoft Defender for Office 365 is its ability to protect us from malware."
"The risk level notifications are most valuable. We get to know what kind of intrusion or attack is there, and we can fix a problem on time."
"Since we have started using the solution, there have been fewer compromises."
"I would say that 90% of the spam and phishing attack emails get blocked right off the bat."
"The product's scalability is good."
"The deployment capability is a great feature."
"Fortinet FortiMail is easy to use and the detection rate is very good. You can customize content filters and profiles are done easily. Additionally, there is a sandbox integration feature that is good."
"The most valuable features are the endpoint defense features, it is very secure."
"I am satisfied with both the scalability and the stability of this solution."
"It has a very high level of security through special licensing with solutions like FortiGuard, sandboxing solutions in the cloud, and URL rewriting solutions."
"After implementing FortiMail, the spam, and malicious emails we receive have significantly reduced, making it much simpler to manage."
"FortiMail is extremely flexible and very easy to learn. Compared to other email security products that we've tried, it is mainly the ease of configuration that makes FortiMail valuable to us."
"The most valuable features of Fortinet FortiMail are its virus outbreak prevention and FortiSandbox integration."
"The spam filtering is great."
"The tool's most valuable feature is the anti-spam detection filter. Its threat email intelligence features help to identify email data."
"The filtering capabilities are precious and far superior to others I've used. It's intuitive in what it pushes to quarantine, and users can quickly review, free, or delete items without needing an administrator, making it ideal for a multi-user environment."
"It is a stable solution...It is a scalable solution."
"The most significant aspect is the response filtering concerning attachments and links."
"The feature of Sophos Email that we find most effective for detecting suspicious emails is primarily based on their signatures."
"The deployment is very easy. It's quite straightforward."
"The most valuable feature of Sophos Email is the sandbox. We're able to scan the file, isolate it, and look at it before it is delivered. It is highly effective."
"The most valuable feature is its email security."
 

Cons

"The XDR dashboard has room for improvement."
"The pre-sales cost calculations could be more transparent."
"You should be able to deploy Defender for every subscription without the need to add servers."
"I'd like some additional features any product can give me to protect our environment in a better way."
"Microsoft Defender for Office 365 must improve the overall management style, including the GUI. It also needs to change the filters so that it is easy to whitelist and blacklist data."
"There's room for improvement regarding the time frame for retrieving emails."
"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."
"Microsoft security solutions work as expected. They are constantly updating the solutions to make them better. At the same time, the changes can impact a customer's environment, and we need to adjust settings. Sometimes we aren't aware of the changes, and nothing is pushed from the backend automatically."
"Issues with the current email search functionality."
"The only drawback to this solution is that the firmware is frequently updated, and each update results in downtime."
"Fortinet FortiMail's pricing could be improved."
"Fortinet FortiMail should allow more flexibility with the content rules."
"My customers frequently ask to have detailed documentation for FortiMail and FortiWeb as they have in FortiGate. What they currently have is not enough."
"It would be nice if we could manage the solution from the cloud so I could handle things off-site if necessary."
"Sometimes, the tool flags legitimate incoming traffic as spam."
"It's difficult for me to talk about areas for improvement in Fortinet FortiMail because I'm the general manager of the company and I'm an engineer with knowledge about the solution, but I'm not deeply involved in its implementation. As I mentioned previously, Fortinet FortiMail is also being used within the company, and I'm happy with its functionality, but sometimes, attacks pass and avoid the Fortinet FortiMail filters, but those could be very sophisticated attacks. There could still be an improvement in the filtering feature of the solution, though the security of Fortinet FortiMail is okay for me because I believe you can't implement one hundred percent security in any solution. The initial setup for the solution also needs improvement. The setup is supposed to be simple, but then the customer starts to complain that some of the false positive emails are reaching quarantine, so my team has to configure it again. There have been instances when Fortinet FortiMail rejects valid emails because some of the service partners of the customer have not been configured accurately, so the system considered valid mails as attacks to be quarantined, so aside from improving the filters, there should also be an improvement in the categorization of emails in the server. My team has to modify the configuration so that valid emails could pass and for Fortinet FortiMail to correctly filter the SPAM traffic. A feature that could be added to Fortinet FortiMail in its next release is advanced AI, so it can analyze and decide accurately on which mail is valid and which mail is SPAM."
"Servicing and support are areas with shortcomings where the solution needs to improve."
"The tool's integration becomes an issue when the internet connection is weak."
"The security of the solution could improve."
"Sophos Email could improve DLP features."
"Sophos Email could better detect fake emails, especially when the domain names are similar. It needs to improve spotting spoofed domains, like when one letter differs in a domain name. It also needs to incorporate AI detection. Barracuda detects suspicious emails better. However, malware scanning is better in Sophos Email."
"Sophos Email needs to increase the number of promos."
"Their technical support is slow to respond."
"Sophos Email can improve security."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"The license is expensive because the cost is based on the number of users."
"The product is very expensive."
"The solution could be better by simplifying the business model of their licensing. It was hard to figure out how to get the licensing done for the environment, initially."
"Microsoft Defender for Office 365 is an add-on to the Office license. Many customers are purchasing this solution."
"Defender for 365 comes in various plans and licenses, along with other Microsoft security solutions. Purchasing this kind of package or security bundle gives good value for money, and that's what I recommend."
"The pricing is normal. Considering its popularity, it's not overpriced."
"It's a user-base subscription."
"You need to pay additional fees for premium support."
"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 fees for Fortinet FortiMail can be complicated. However, overall the pricing is fair."
"The solution is reasonably priced compared to one of its competitors."
"It is a fairly priced product, considering what it does. The product offers good value for the money users spend on it."
"The pricing is on the higher side."
"There is a license required for this solution."
"The tool is very expensive."
"Licensing is paid on a yearly basis."
"The pricing could improve by having additional discounts. For example, when customers buy have more than 50 or more users, there should be additional discounts."
"The platform is inexpensive. It offers a cost-effective licensing model. We purchase its yearly license."
"It is an expensive solution. On a scale of one to ten, where one is low price, and ten is high price, I rate the pricing a seven."
"Sophos Email is neither cheap nor expensive."
"It falls somewhere in the middle—it's not excessively expensive nor very cheap."
"The pricing is fair."
"Most of our clients are on a perpetual license. If there is a budget issue, they can choose a subscription. However, most of the clients choose the perpetual license."
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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
50%
Computer Software Company
8%
Government
5%
Financial Services Firm
4%
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Retailer
7%
Healthcare Company
7%
 

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?
Microsoft needs to broaden its global support presence by establishing teams of subject-matter experts in all regions.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Fortinet FortiMail?
Pricing can be expensive. The cost can range from fifty thousand to one hundred thousand dollars, depending on the ap...
What needs improvement with Fortinet FortiMail?
The main area for improvement is the pricing. The configuration is good and easy to use, however, the renewal cost is...
What do you like most about Sophos Email?
The solution's identity proxy feature is very good and reliable.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Sophos Email?
The pricing is affordable, so I’d rate it around a four out of ten on the pricing scale. We pay about fifty pounds a ...
What needs improvement with Sophos Email?
However, the setup was tricky, particularly with the DNS routing between Microsoft Exchange Online and Sophos cloud s...
 

Also Known As

MS Defender for Office 365
FortiMail
Sophos Email Security
 

Learn More

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Overview

 

Sample Customers

Microsoft Defender for Office 365 is trusted by companies such as Ithaca College.
Magromer Cueros y Pieles S.A.
Del Monte Foods, Terra Verde, spicerhaart, RIVERLITE, Dataprise, SureBridge, Reed's School, Sayfol International School
Find out what your peers are saying about Fortinet FortiMail vs. Sophos Email and other solutions. Updated: December 2024.
824,053 professionals have used our research since 2012.