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Abnormal Security vs Cisco Secure Email 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
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
23
Ranking in other categories
Secure Web Gateways (SWG) (12th), Data Loss Prevention (DLP) (21st), Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB) (13th), Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection (8th), Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) Solutions (12th), Access Management (11th), Bot Management (3rd), ZTNA as a Service (9th), ZTNA (4th), Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) (10th), Remote Browser Isolation (RBI) (3rd)
Abnormal Security
Ranking in Email Security
7th
Average Rating
9.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
11
Ranking in other categories
Secure Email Gateway (SEG) (4th)
Cisco Secure Email
Ranking in Email Security
4th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
63
Ranking in other categories
Cisco Security Portfolio (6th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2026, in the Email Security category, the mindshare of Cloudflare One is 1.6%, up from 1.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Abnormal Security is 4.1%, down from 7.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Cisco Secure Email is 4.5%, down from 6.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Email Security Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Cisco Secure Email4.5%
Abnormal Security4.1%
Cloudflare One1.6%
Other89.8%
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.
reviewer2251509 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Director, Information Technology at a insurance company with 51-200 employees
AI has helped classify threat types more accurately but product ownership can improve
Ease of use is important, and Abnormal Security's responsiveness and ability to deliver solutions when issues arise are crucial. However, there is always room for improvement, as achieving a perfect 10 means there is no more room for enhancement. For Abnormal Security, it's about leveraging AI even more, which they are already working on in their roadmap.
KS
Technical Associate Network Security at Valuepoint Systems
Email security has protected financial data and provides clear tracking for every branch message
The areas of Cisco Secure Email that could be improved or enhanced are the slowness in the console. I don't think it was a database error or something, but we feel some slowness in configuring DLP and other content filters compared to other consoles. It may have been due to on-premises, but it was much noisy at some times while configuring DLP. When we tried to configure a DLP policy, the console became much slower. In that case, we cannot see what had happened in the mail which was blocked at that time. It may take nearly an hour to get back to normal while configuring policies. That is the major issue in the product.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It is a stable solution."
"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."
"For Cloudflare Access, I am using the free plan...The most valuable feature is their protection."
"Cloudflare is simple to use."
"Cloudflare Zero Trust Platform removes the risk of exposing the applications to the public."
"The solution has different options that can be used to differentiate DDoS attacks."
"Cloudflare One has assisted in securing my remote workforce through a SASE solution with Cloudflare One and the Workers part, although I am not currently using the Workers component."
"Cloudflare DDoS mitigates DDoS attacks."
"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."
"What I like about Abnormal Security is that it notifies me if any of my partners or suppliers are experiencing a security breach by analyzing their database and identifying potential cyber threats."
"Abnormal Security's AI capabilities are what we like most, as they can categorize and classify the emails, and based on the context of the email, understand if it's a graymail, a bulk mail, or a phish."
"Their ability to take things out of the mailbox and catch things much faster than users is excellent."
"I like Abnormal's threat protection with auto-remediation, but I also love its abuse mailbox feature, which automatically responds to the end user. That feature has a super-valuable security component and helps improve the user experience."
"I would recommend Abnormal Security."
"Ease of use is undoubtedly one of the most valuable features of Abnormal Security."
"The features that appeal to me most are the combination of auto-remediation and Detection 360."
"It blocks bulk marketing messages, graymail, spam, and provides advanced malware protection."
"We like the in-built features, like the email filtering based on the IP and domain, and Cisco has its own blacklisted domains and IPs, which is very good because this filters around 70 percent of emails from spam and we are seeing fewer false positives with this."
"Spam controls are excellent because they are a powerful feature that operates almost effortlessly."
"The product's initial setup phase was easy."
"The system enables end users to manage their own whitelists/blacklists."
"Email service is one of the services that we offer at Galaxy, and Cisco ESA has improved our business so much that our customers want to maintain their business with us for email security, with over 500 domains on our email platform and improved profitability in everything."
"The Cisco Secure Email Gateway, in my opinion, is a really good device."
"The Cisco Email Security Appliance has enabled us to reduce spam by at least 30% compared to our previous solution."
 

Cons

"Our subscription plan for the solution has a limitation of bot signatures."
"They don't have a person to provide support for customers using the solution under their free plan."
"Our customers no longer use Cloudflare because its service is subpar."
"Feedback could be enhanced. While I work efficiently with Clover as a partner in Mexico City, sometimes the information and requests are easier to manage with more concrete solutions."
"The software has automated alerts, but the automated alerts are not available in the mobile app."
"Cloudflare One is not very powerful, but for what we require, it is basic and sufficient."
"From a logging perspective, it is still a bit difficult to see exactly what users are being blocked with the current views."
"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."
"The ideal scenario would be for Abnormal Security to work in tandem with Microsoft to analyze incoming emails."
"The biggest pain point for us is the lack of support for on-premise email systems."
"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."
"There could be more selectable options and more granular selections available."
"One feature I'd love to see is outbound scanning."
"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 room for improvement in enhancing integration with other cybersecurity tools."
"I have some frustrations with the user experience in the interface, specifically with regard to making a list of people for whom I want to allow email access."
"There are some concerns in the way the architecture is set up, making it an area where improvements are required."
"The hardware is not up to the mark. Two to three times a year we have complete downtime."
"Cisco is already providing a very good environment with the IronPort solution, but there could be some more integration with other products. For instance, an integration with the EDR solution could be there to raise an alert."
"I use the search all the time. Sometimes, it is hard to search for things and things are hard to find."
"If you are not a technical guy, it is hard to maneuver, but as soon as you work on it, it gets better and better. If there was a better way to know how to do things or how to find things, it would be good."
"We cannot manage multiple devices from a single UI."
"Scalability has certain shortcomings and needs to be improved because there are service providers who provide better scalability.v"
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The prices are slightly expensive."
"The solution is not that expensive."
"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."
"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."
"Cloudflare Zero Trust Platform's pricing is good."
"The price tag is no longer $200,000, but rather $300,000 to $400,000. It's twice."
"The pricing is somewhere in the middle. I would rate the pricing a seven out of ten."
"The pricing appears fair, and they demonstrate a genuine willingness to work with us on it."
"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 license is based on the user count, so the number of users that have an email address in the organization."
"The licensing was all transferred."
"I rate the product price as six on a scale of one to ten, where one means it is a very expensive tool."
"It is a reasonably priced solution."
"Cisco Secure Email is more expensive than other products. I rate it a five out of ten. There are no additional costs. You only need to pay the subscription amounts."
"It's adapted to the market. It's similar to other vendors. We at least don't have many problems regarding that because Cisco is adaptable on that side. When we present the solutions to the customers, we tend to achieve the goals that the customer has in terms of the budget for such implementations."
"As per market availability, this solution is more expensive than other vendors."
"It is not that costly. We pay for the solution through a contractor and pay an annual fee."
"The pricing for the Cisco Email Security Appliance involves recurring costs for licenses based on the contracted time frame, such as one year, three years, or five years. Renewals are required after the license expires."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Construction Company
19%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
6%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
8%
Outsourcing Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business10
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise12
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business1
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise8
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business22
Midsize Enterprise18
Large Enterprise26
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Cloudflare Zero Trust Platform?
In my opinion, Cloudflare One can be improved mainly through compatibility, as the integration should be much simpler...
What is your primary use case for Cloudflare Zero Trust Platform?
Cloudflare One's primary use case for my organization is to protect servers and to provide remote access with the VPN...
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?
Ease of use is important, and Abnormal Security's responsiveness and ability to deliver solutions when issues arise a...
What is your primary use case for Abnormal Security?
The main use case for Abnormal Security is as a spam filter and for mail hygiene. This use case is for the finance in...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Cisco Secure Email?
The pricing structure is good as it is user-based or email client-based, which is positive for clients.
What needs improvement with Cisco Secure Email?
The areas of Cisco Secure Email that could be improved or enhanced are the slowness in the console. I don't think it ...
What is your primary use case for Cisco Secure Email?
We are using Cisco Secure Email to monitor the outgoing and incoming mail traffic in our financial institute. We have...
 

Also Known As

Cloudflare Area 1 Email Security, Cloudflare Bot Management, Cloudflare Gateway, Cloudflare Zero Trust Platform, Cloudflare DDoS, Cloudflare SASE & SSE Platform
No data available
Cisco Email Security, IronPort, Cisco Email Security, ESA, Email Security Appliances
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

23andMe
Foot Lcoker, Xerox, Liberty Mutual, Mattel, Boston Scientific
SUNY Old Westbury, CoxHealth, City of Fullerton, Indra
Find out what your peers are saying about Abnormal Security vs. Cisco Secure Email and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
900,747 professionals have used our research since 2012.