Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

Abnormal Security vs Check Point Anti-Spam and Email Security Software Blade comparison

Sponsored
 

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

Microsoft Defender for Offi...
Sponsored
Ranking in Email Security
1st
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
52
Ranking in other categories
Email Archiving (1st), Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) (1st), Microsoft Security Suite (11th), Secure Email Gateway (SEG) (1st)
Abnormal Security
Ranking in Email Security
4th
Average Rating
9.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.9
Number of Reviews
10
Ranking in other categories
Secure Email Gateway (SEG) (3rd)
Check Point Anti-Spam and E...
Ranking in Email Security
12th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
38
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Email Security category, the mindshare of Microsoft Defender for Office 365 is 12.9%, down from 18.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Abnormal Security is 7.5%, up from 3.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Check Point Anti-Spam and Email Security Software Blade is 0.8%, up from 0.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Email Security
 

Featured Reviews

Tolu Omolaja - PeerSpot reviewer
Great URL scanning and attachment scanning, but I would like more proactive threat analysis
The two main features that prove most beneficial for us are URL scanning and attachment scanning. URL scanning involves an automatic scan of links and emails. When a user clicks on a link within an email, the system promptly checks the link's safety. If the link is deemed safe, access is granted automatically. However, if it is flagged as unsafe, we receive feedback and notification to caution us about the potentially harmful link. At this point, we are presented with the option to proceed or return. I have personally witnessed the system identify a few unsafe links, making this the primary advantage of using the solution. The second crucial aspect is the scanning of attachments. When an email containing an attachment arrives, we receive a notification of the new email, along with information that the attachment is being scanned for threats. This additional layer of security provides peace of mind for our organization. While Microsoft Defender for Office 365 offers numerous features, these two stand out as particularly impressive and valuable to us.
William Schellhaas - PeerSpot reviewer
Provides comprehensive email security management, effective in detecting a wide range of email threats
The ideal scenario would be for Abnormal Security to work in tandem with Microsoft to analyze incoming emails. This means Abnormal Security would assess emails before they reach my inbox, even if it happens slightly after Microsoft's initial scan. Currently, the process isn't seamless. Microsoft analyzes emails and delivers legitimate ones to my inbox. Abnormal Security then scans these delivered emails, and if flagged as malicious, they disappear. This creates a problem for our ticketing system mailbox, which is a third-party service. Emails sent to the ticketing system address are automatically forwarded by Microsoft. However, if these emails are malicious, Abnormal Security only cleans them from my Outlook mailbox after they've been forwarded. Since we primarily rely on the ticketing system and not the Outlook mailbox, these malicious emails still reach the ticketing system.
Dushyant Trivedi - PeerSpot reviewer
Effectively secures data centers against various threats, including spam emails and provides policy-based control
It is a stable solution. We implemented the solution in HA. This is because the solution is highly available and can withstand hardware failures and software upgrades. Once the solution is implemented, there is no need for any further downtime for the Check Point server. Because once we change any policy, we can break the High Availability (HA) session and define the new policy on the Check Point Security Gateway (SGW) in isolation. This allows us to test the new policy without affecting the production traffic. Once the new policy is tested and active, we can then activate it on the HA pair and bring the HA session back up. This process ensures that we can make changes to the policy without any interruption to the user experience. It is a really stable solution. I would rate the stability a ten 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 deployment capability is a great feature."
"Microsoft Defender has a feature to protect each and every attachment. Even if it's an encrypted attachment, it will check for any potential threats."
"Does a thorough job of examining email and URLs for malicious content."
"Microsoft Defender for Office 365's most valuable features are safe attachments and safe links."
"The most valuable feature of Microsoft Defender for Office 365 is data backups that we can provide through ticket requests."
"Microsoft Defender for Office 365 is a stable solution."
"It gives us visibility into threats and, for endpoints, it helps us to prioritize threats. We used to have a lack of visibility, but now our time to detect and respond has decreased."
"The initial setup was easy."
"One of the things that I love about them is that the setup and installation are super easy. All you do is give them access to your Microsoft 365 tenant, and through APIs, they are able to do their work. They are doing all this through APIs, so you do not have to install the software and take a month to get it all set up to even see the value of the solution. You could be up and running in less than an hour."
"The features that appeal to me most are the combination of auto-remediation and Detection 360."
"Ease of use is undoubtedly one of the most valuable features of Abnormal Security."
"I would recommend Abnormal Security."
"I have never encountered any stability issues with Abnormal."
"Initial auto-remediation allows us to auto-remediate before the email lands in the end user's inbox for a split second."
"Their ability to take things out of the mailbox and catch things much faster than users is excellent."
"It does some really cool stuff that other tools aren't doing. We found it to be really effective, and the AI/ML functionality is really what differentiates them."
"It does a better job of recognizing spammers."
"Check Point offers us flexibility when it comes to customizing the configurations that we want to manage, thus allowing us to meet the specific needs of our company."
"One of the standout features of the product is a significant reduction in false positives, achieved through the implementation of artificial intelligence for detecting malware, phishing attempts, and spam emails."
"It refreshes the dynamic database regularly to ensure IP addresses that no longer misbehave are not blocked by mistake."
"Advanced Spam Filtering to identify and block unwanted email messages."
"The functionality is better."
"The policies and port blocking are the most valuable features. We have a significant amount of spam emails passing through our network."
"Due to its technology, monitoring, and manufacturer features, we have been able to reduce the intrusion of spam and other threats that can be uploaded via email."
 

Cons

"Sometimes, phishing emails manage to pass through the filter, so the system needs to enhance its phishing email detection capabilities."
"Microsoft Defender for Office 365 could improve by giving customers information on techniques to prevent threats. For example, information about best practices on how to protect their own devices against hackers and scammers, such as educational information or training. This would help others have a better understanding of cyber security. Additionally, there can be more security features added."
"I am generally satisfied with how it currently is. If I could improve anything, I would reduce the cost."
"In the areas of improvement for Microsoft Defender for Office 365, the console is the biggest challenge for me."
"Specifically, within Microsoft Defender for Office 365, I want it to improve the DLP capabilities."
"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."
"The visibility for the weaknesses in the system and unauthorized access can be improved."
"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 could be room for improvement in enhancing integration with other cybersecurity tools."
"There could be more selectable options and more granular selections available."
"I would like to have the ability to customize the auto-remediation feature."
"When we're working on something as engineers, and we find an idea or a method of doing something that would be greatly improved by doing it another way, there should be an ability for me to click the ideas button, type in an idea that I have, and submit it to a product review team or developers to have them think through the process a little bit more."
"There could be more selectable options and more granular selections available."
"The biggest pain point for us is the lack of support for on-premise email systems."
"Abnormal should add more automatic reports. I have an open request to our account team for more notification and report types that can be sent automatically. For example, they have an awesome report that gets sent weekly, and I also want them monthly, so I don't need to do so much adding up when my director wants numbers over time."
"I, as such, do not have anything that I do not like or would like to add, but you could argue that because they are doing it API-based, there is a chance that something could slip through temporarily before they are able to pull it out. In theory, it could happen just because of the nature of the system. They are not in line with the delivery of the mail. They are kind of asynchronous, which is a pro as well as a con. If it is synchronous, then I know it would always stop them, but because it is asynchronous, things could get through temporarily or because of some system issues on the Microsoft side or their side. It is the nature of the beast, but it is a little bit of a con."
"I can say that the solution's price level is a problematic area that needs to be considered for improvement."
"The solution could be improved by reducing false positives."
"I would like this solution to be more integrated into other applications that Check Point has so that it could be managed quickly and safely from the Infinity Portal."
"The support language is only English."
"AI-based threat detection could be enhanced to improve security."
"The anti-spam features could be upgraded to be able to detect unnoticeable spam."
"I think that the pricing for the Check Point products should be reconsidered, as we found it to be quite expensive to purchase and to maintain."
"The pattern used to filter emails could be improved"
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing is normal. Considering its popularity, it's not overpriced."
"The product is very expensive."
"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."
"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."
"For large enterprise organizations, they can definitely afford it, but for small and medium organizations, they might struggle to cover the expenses."
"Microsoft Defender for Office 365 comes with Microsoft Windows. It is free with the operating system."
"I was working in the government and it was too expensive for us to use our Microsoft products."
"The license is based on the user count, so the number of users that have an email address in the organization."
"Overall, we'd certainly prefer lower pricing, but Abnormal Security doesn't seem unreasonable compared to similar offerings in the market."
"Abnormal Security, on the other hand, provides the same level of functionality for just over $60,000 – that's half the price!"
"The pricing appears fair, and they demonstrate a genuine willingness to work with us on it."
"I rate the pricing as an eight on a scale of one to ten, where one is cheap and ten is expensive."
"I rate the product pricing a seven out of ten."
"Choosing the correct set of licenses is essential because, without the additional software blade licenses, the Check Point gateways are just a stateful firewall."
"Reasonably priced solution."
"This is a simple system with a very low cost and basic functions, which surely is ideal for a small company."
"For licensing, my company makes yearly payments, which is expensive."
"The cost is competitive with other security products on the market."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Email Security solutions are best for your needs.
851,604 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
16%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
6%
Computer Software Company
16%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Government
7%
Security Firm
23%
Computer Software Company
16%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Educational Organization
5%
 

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?
Microsoft is quite affordable with a lot of features available for any size organization.
What needs improvement with Microsoft Defender for Office 365?
Microsoft could improve by offering recommendations for domain spoofing attacks, especially scenarios where DNS recor...
What do you like most about Abnormal Security?
The features that appeal to me most are the combination of auto-remediation and Detection 360.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Abnormal Security?
I find the pricing to be favorable, but I did not disclose the exact cost.
What needs improvement with Abnormal Security?
There could be more selectable options and more granular selections available.
What needs improvement with Check Point Anti-Spam and Email Security Software Blade?
Regarding Checkpoint, I would suggest an easier interface to understand. With time and practice, users can get a bett...
What is your primary use case for Check Point Anti-Spam and Email Security Software Blade?
My primary use case is to mitigate any spoofing or phishing attempts related to the intake of emails and outbound ema...
 

Also Known As

MS Defender for Office 365
No data available
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Microsoft Defender for Office 365 is trusted by companies such as Ithaca College.
Foot Lcoker, Xerox, Liberty Mutual, Mattel, Boston Scientific
SF Police Credit Union (SFPCU)
Find out what your peers are saying about Abnormal Security vs. Check Point Anti-Spam and Email Security Software Blade and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
851,604 professionals have used our research since 2012.