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Avanan vs Fortinet FortiMail comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Feb 8, 2026

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) (13th), Data Loss Prevention (DLP) (20th), Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB) (12th), Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection (7th), 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)
Avanan
Ranking in Email Security
21st
Average Rating
9.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.8
Number of Reviews
18
Ranking in other categories
Data Loss Prevention (DLP) (41st)
Fortinet FortiMail
Ranking in Email Security
4th
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 May 2026, in the Email Security category, the mindshare of Cloudflare One is 1.7%, up from 1.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Avanan is 2.3%, down from 3.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Fortinet FortiMail is 3.2%, down from 4.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Email Security Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Fortinet FortiMail3.2%
Cloudflare One1.7%
Avanan2.3%
Other92.8%
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.
Robert Melendez - PeerSpot reviewer
Vice President Information Technology at Makeready
Enhances email security and has a very simple and easy-to-use UI
Spam protection is the most valuable feature. We have implemented the tool to enhance our email security. It helps prevent phishing attacks. The anomaly detection capabilities are baked into the security platform. The product integrates wonderfully with Microsoft 365. It's built right on a cloud platform and works almost natively. The solution has a very simple and easy-to-use UI. The tool appears extremely powerful and has a good solid feature set. It catches things that are bad for my environment. The user interface is good the way it is. If the solution continues down that path, I see no problems with the way it is going. It feels like a mature product.
Abhimanyu Das - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Associate at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
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

"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."
"The simplicity of the solution is its valuable features as almost no effort was needed to learn the configurations. It is also one of the cheapest firewalls available in this category."
"It's the endpoint exposition. We don't need to expose our VPN server to the internet and need a zero-test solution. I can apply some conditional access to the endpoint that's connecting to our network to check their security policies or the security condition of their workstation. Once the workstation is trying to connect to my internal network, then I would like to check the discrete condition of these endpoints that are trying to access my internal network. We created some conditional access. We have CrowdStrike, to check if the CrowdStrike is installed, to check if it's updated, and to check for Windows updates. We created some conditional policies to check it."
"Cloudflare Access is a stable solution."
"For Cloudflare Access, I am using the free plan...The most valuable feature is their protection."
"The capabilities of the software are strong enough for me to do what it's supposed to do. For me, we don't need to do a lot of configuration on our site. We just enable it and monitor it."
"Cloudflare DDoS is better than its competitors for its security, deployment, and scalability."
"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."
"Easy to use for non-technical users."
"The most valuable feature of Avanan is its effectiveness; when scanning incoming emails for threats it can, in an automated fashion, quarantine suspicious attachments."
"The threat detection tools enable us to ascertain malware and phishing messages across the email network infrastructure."
"Email encryption enhances end to end security of any data before it passes through the networking system."
"Overall, compared to features, the cost is very reasonable and output of this tool is very good."
"This software has kept the company information systems very secure for a long period, and we are proud of that."
"We are grateful for the solution and its great advances in connecting teams under a secure environment that cybercriminals cannot compromise."
"When we don't understand some functionalities, the customer support staff responds fast to our calls and provides immediate action."
"I think the spamming feature is very valuable."
"It is one of the most efficient solutions in our environment. We have more than nine hundred users. All of these users are protected by Fortinet FortiMail."
"Both logging and reporting are very good, as well as the antivirus profiles, content emails, content profile, and application profile."
"It has a very high level of security through special licensing with solutions like FortiGuard, sandboxing solutions in the cloud, and URL rewriting solutions."
"One major benefit of the Fortinet FortiMail product is its ease of management."
"A full-featured email gateway solution that contains security threats reliably."
"FortiMail effectively filters all emails coming to our mail server, blocking malicious ones automatically."
"We compared it to Sophos, but it is more for users that aren't IT experts."
 

Cons

"Cloudflare Zero Trust Platform needs to improve its documentation. It took time to do the implementation."
"From a logging perspective, it is still a bit difficult to see exactly what users are being blocked with the current views."
"For the topic of improvement, providing some training material is one of my suggestions."
"Our customers no longer use Cloudflare because its service is subpar."
"The initial onboarding was causing us some confusion."
"Cloudflare DDoS has poor technical support."
"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."
"The customer service team could come up with clear tutorials on how to use this platform to help new teams."
"The response to new threats is sometimes slow and can lead to data compromise."
"The system could be designed to give corporate emails first priority due to demands."
"It should also offer a quick backup in case any email is wrongly quarantined or deleted to ensure no data loss."
"There are some things that they can't remediate. The honest thing is nobody can right now because of the nature of how some of the secure email platforms work."
"Frequent updates should be made on time to keep the system running effectively."
"The system response in a slow computing device affects performance when sending and receiving emails."
"Integration with various SaaS offerings, who are leading in the SaaS market. Examples include: SNOW (ServiceNow), Salesforce.com"
"I believe there is room for enhancement in content and web security features."
"I think they need to look into it and improve their signatures. This will help with blocking incoming spam emails."
"I have faced issues from one of the customers that they received spam emails. I think they need to look into it and improve their signatures."
"I will not give good marks on their support team."
"The logging information is sometimes not clear or easy to understand."
"For example, there was malware in some emails that weren't detected in some of the Fortinet FortiMail sessions, but it should have been configured from my company's end to better catch scam emails, but overall, the solution is okay."
"The product's price is an area with shortcomings, making it an area where improvements are required."
"Fortinet FortiMail can be improved in terms of its dashboard, which is small and not visually appealing, making deeper investigations difficult."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution is not that expensive."
"The solution's pricing lacks transparency."
"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."
"The pricing is somewhere in the middle. I would rate the pricing a seven out of ten."
"The prices are slightly expensive."
"The price tag is no longer $200,000, but rather $300,000 to $400,000. It's twice."
"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."
"Cloudflare Zero Trust Platform's pricing is good."
"Avanan’s price is comparable to Barracuda."
"Good pricing arrangement as an SaaS offering."
"The pricing of Avanan is reasonable."
"Having the flexibility and modeling to do the pricing that best fits the needs of the organization is incredibly ideal. That is what Avanan does. They know exactly how many users are using it, etc. We can tune the invoicing associated with how we are using the product so we can charge it back to the shows appropriately."
"The product is not the cheapest in the market."
"Pricing is based on initial license purchase and use volume."
"If you don't need the full bundle that includes everything, you have options for the small or medium enterprise environments."
"Pricing is straight-forward and renewable without complicated pricing structures."
"The fees for Fortinet FortiMail can be complicated. However, overall the pricing is fair."
"There is a license required for this solution and it is on an annual basis. I am satisfied with the price."
"The price is acceptable for the support license it includes."
"It's not as that expensive with the competitive different brands. The products sell a lot."
"The pricing is good."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Construction Company
20%
Comms Service Provider
11%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Computer Software Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Construction Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Computer Software Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Construction Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business10
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise11
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business7
Midsize Enterprise8
Large Enterprise6
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business32
Midsize Enterprise23
Large Enterprise15
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Cloudflare Access?
Cloudflare Access has strong integration with Microsoft, among other platforms. However, when it comes to Kaspersky, ...
What is your primary use case for Cloudflare Access?
Cloudflare Access provides secure access to internal applications for employees, external members of the organization...
What advice do you have for others considering Cloudflare Access?
Cloudflare Access is one of the best integrations available. While about two hundred vendors offer similar services, ...
Ask a question
Earn 20 points
What needs improvement with Fortinet FortiMail?
I think they should improve Fortinet FortiMail on-premises by enhancing its user interface. Additional features they ...
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

Cloudflare Area 1 Email Security, Cloudflare Bot Management, Cloudflare Gateway, Cloudflare Zero Trust Platform, Cloudflare DDoS, Cloudflare SASE & SSE Platform
No data available
FortiMail
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

23andMe
Bethel School District, ServiceSource, Capital Caring
Magromer Cueros y Pieles S.A.
Find out what your peers are saying about Avanan vs. Fortinet FortiMail and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.
893,221 professionals have used our research since 2012.