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Fortra's Agari vs Microsoft Defender for Office 365 comparison

 

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

Fortra's Agari
Ranking in Email Security
38th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
4
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Microsoft Defender for Offi...
Ranking in Email Security
1st
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
60
Ranking in other categories
Email Archiving (1st), Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) (2nd), Microsoft Security Suite (10th), Secure Email Gateway (SEG) (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Email Security category, the mindshare of Fortra's Agari is 0.6%, up from 0.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Defender for Office 365 is 9.6%, down from 13.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Email Security Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Microsoft Defender for Office 3659.6%
Fortra's Agari0.6%
Other89.8%
Email Security
 

Featured Reviews

Tom Foal - PeerSpot reviewer
CTO at Klaatu IT Security Ltd
Helps to detect and generate reports on phishing emails and saves from email compromises
We use the solution for marketing and brand protection.  I am impressed with the tool's discovery capabilities which help me find out who is sending the emails on the company's behalf. I also find the ability to detect and generate reports on phishing emails a valuable feature.  The product's…
Emeka Ndulu - PeerSpot reviewer
Cloud Solutions Architect at a tech services company with 201-500 employees
Improves threat visibility and response while reducing manual tasks and training users against phishing
I appreciate the attack simulation feature whereby I get to train users and educate them on how to identify phishing emails and spam emails, as well as the anti-spam protection. It gives me visibility into my threat environment and threat landscape to ensure that I am one step ahead of any likelihood of threats within my environment. I get to detect it and respond, so the threat intelligence is very effective. Microsoft security solutions save my time. It saves money because once I protect my environment, I don't lose money. It has decreased my detection time and my time to respond.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"I am impressed with the tool's discovery capabilities which help me find out who is sending the emails on the company's behalf. I also find the ability to detect and generate reports on phishing emails a valuable feature."
"It is really important for large companies to have the brand protection that is provided by Agari."
"If spam or some kind of malicious email gets past Mimecast and gets into our email environment, we can go into Agari and we can search for it."
"It comes with a lot of helpful tips for complicated areas."
"At the moment we are satisfied with this product. It's a stable, scalable, and resilient solution for us."
"The two main features that prove most beneficial for us are URL scanning and attachment scanning."
"Microsoft Defender for Office 365 saves me time; it does save a lot of time, especially with the automation."
"The ability to respond to threats if very important."
"The insights provided with Microsoft Defender for Office 365 are helpful because it comes with the E5 license, and by default, we can use a lot of capabilities."
"The insights provided with Microsoft Defender for Office 365 are helpful because it comes with the E5 license, and by default, we can use a lot of capabilities."
"One of the best features of the tool is its capability to aggregate insights from different workloads, basically from the Office 365 and endpoints part."
"Defender for Office 365 has helped eliminate having to look at multiple dashboards and that is the aspect I like most about it. It is simpler, effective, and convenient. The users like the process efficiency."
 

Cons

"The protocol is quite complicated, which may not be something that could be improved, but it would be better if it was simplified."
"The product's user interface is clunky. We have difficulty in finding what we need. I would also like to see automation in the onboarding processes."
"Some customers in the financial sector do not like the cloud solution because they don't want data to be transferred to a US-based cloud."
"The inbuilt analysis of false positives can be faster. It's not slow, but it can be faster."
"One area for improvement is integration. For example, when it comes to external SaaS platforms, we were not able to get a lot of information on integrations with such apps for security and authentication."
"The UI needs to be more user-friendly."
"We need to be able to whitelist data at the backend."
"About eight months ago, we started to measure the quantity of phishing and spam that we have been receiving, and it has been increasing a lot. That means that protection for our email is not as good as we were expecting."
"Microsoft sometimes has downtime, and we'll get several incidents coming in back to back. We have a huge backlog of notifications, many of which may be false positives. However, there might be serious alerts, so we can't risk dismissing all of them at once."
"To improve Microsoft Defender for Office 365, it would be nice to have more accessibility for users to see on their end what they are doing that could cause a threat."
"The pre-sales cost calculations could be more transparent."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The tool is not expensive and I would rate its pricing a four out of ten."
"The pricing depends on the number of users; per how many mailboxes you have, but they're pretty negotiable with that, too."
"The price of the licensing is based on the volume of email."
"For large enterprise organizations, they can definitely afford it, but for small and medium organizations, they might struggle to cover the expenses."
"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 license is expensive because the cost is based on the number of users."
"The product is very expensive."
"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."
"Microsoft Defender for Office 365 is an add-on to the Office license. Many customers are purchasing this solution."
"Microsoft Defender for Office 365 comes with Microsoft Windows. It is free with the operating system."
"It is much more expensive than using another solution because we have had to include some options and upgrade our license."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
18%
Computer Software Company
9%
Retailer
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business23
Midsize Enterprise10
Large Enterprise31
 

Questions from the Community

Ask a question
Earn 20 points
What needs improvement with Microsoft Defender for Office 365?
The inbuilt analysis of false positives can be faster. It's not slow, but it can be faster.
What is your primary use case for Microsoft Defender for Office 365?
My use case for Microsoft Defender for Office 365 is for email protection, safe links, protection of links, documents, protecting my documents, and protecting attachments. I also use it to conduct ...
 

Also Known As

No data available
MS Defender for Office 365
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

NACHA
Microsoft Defender for Office 365 is trusted by companies such as Ithaca College.
Find out what your peers are saying about Fortra's Agari vs. Microsoft Defender for Office 365 and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.
881,082 professionals have used our research since 2012.