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Avanan vs Fortra's Clearswift Secure Email Gateway 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

Avanan
Ranking in Email Security
23rd
Average Rating
9.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.8
Number of Reviews
18
Ranking in other categories
Data Loss Prevention (DLP) (41st)
Fortra's Clearswift Secure ...
Ranking in Email Security
31st
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
0
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2026, in the Email Security category, the mindshare of Avanan is 1.8%, down from 2.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Fortra's Clearswift Secure Email Gateway is 1.4%, up from 1.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Email Security Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Avanan1.8%
Fortra's Clearswift Secure Email Gateway1.4%
Other96.8%
Email Security
 

Featured Reviews

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.
PC
Systems Administrator at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees
Stable, but malware needs improvement and customer support is poor
They need to improve the malware in the product. I am not satisfied with Clearswift because of the lack of customer support. The support is poor, the supplier takes a lot of time and it's expensive. We have some issues here when I contact the supplier, it takes a lot of time for them to get back to us but there's no solution. I am now looking at Symantec as a possible alternative.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"If we look at four to five years ago, we had close to six or eight people click a link in an email per month. Now, we are probably down to about five or six clicks a year, if not less."
"The threat detection tools enable us to ascertain malware and phishing messages across the email network infrastructure."
"Easy to use for non-technical users."
"In the overall experience, I have come to conclude that Avanan has the best email management tools that can prevent cyber attacks."
"Avanan has been an everlasting security solution for our email and messaging applications."
"When we don't understand some functionalities, the customer support staff responds fast to our calls and provides immediate action."
"Avanan Cloud Email Security has empowered teams with modern data security management knowledge and provided enough awareness that helps employees to prepare for any outcomes."
"I like Avanan's SmartDLP module. It's seamless, and the administrative overhead is low. We aren't a very sophisticated operation. We just want to reduce our exposure, so we find ThreatCloud helpful. Avanan's acquisition by Check Point was beneficial for them."
"We use a few features for web proxy, and another feature is the email content filter and malware for our internal policy in the email content."
"Go for it! I think it's an excellent product with great technical support."
"A stable solution."
"Ability to create your own content-filtering policies with relative ease."
 

Cons

"They should come up with a mobile application so that it can be more flexible."
"When sending bulky emails, the system slows down and takes a long time before it responds effectively to our requests."
"They need a little bit of improvement in AI logic, as sometimes, it quarantines frequent mailers as spam or suspects."
"Being cloud first and because we are in the movie business, we use a lot of Macintoshes. So, there is absolutely no reason for us to have Active Directory whatsoever. However, if you are using Office 365, you must have Active Directory in order to reset passwords. Even though we have a single sign-on provider, we must have Azure Active Directory for Office 365, which is really stupid. As a cloud application, you would think that I don't need Active Directory, which I don't need for anything else except Office 365. We have one server inside that space to help us manage Active Directory just for Office 365. This is a very sore point, but it is what it is."
"The response to new threats is sometimes slow and can lead to data compromise."
"The email filtration system is not well set since it sometimes blocks useful emails that are safe."
"The user experience must be improved."
"There are times when we have false positives."
"Malware needs improvement."
"I am not satisfied with Clearswift because of the lack of customer support."
"FTP server and TRUST Manager functionality."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Good pricing arrangement as an SaaS offering."
"Avanan’s price is comparable to Barracuda."
"The product is not the cheapest in the market."
"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 pricing of Avanan is reasonable."
Information not available
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Construction Company
10%
Outsourcing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Construction Company
12%
Retailer
11%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Comms Service Provider
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business7
Midsize Enterprise8
Large Enterprise6
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Bethel School District, ServiceSource, Capital Caring
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about Avanan vs. Fortra's Clearswift Secure Email Gateway and other solutions. Updated: November 2026.
920,769 professionals have used our research since 2012.