Check Point Email Security (formerly Harmony Email &amp; Collaboration) vs Microsoft Defender for Office 365 comparison

Check Point Email Security (formerly Harmony Email & Collaboration) vs. Microsoft Defender for Office 365

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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

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2026, in the Email Security category, the mindshare of Cloudflare One is 1.5%, down from 1.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Check Point Email Security (formerly Harmony Email & Collaboration) is 4.7%, down from 4.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Defender for Office 365 is 7.3%, down from 13.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Email Security Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
Microsoft Defender for Office 365	7.3%
Check Point Harmony Email & Collaboration	4.7%
Cloudflare One	1.5%
Other	86.5%

Email Security

Featured Reviews

Cobe Van Coller

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.

Read full review

Nasseer Qureshi

Pre Sales Consultant at Redington Group

Email security effectively detects a wide range of threats and improves productivity

Since we have been using Check Point Harmony Email & Collaboration for a year, we haven't encountered significant challenges. However, it would be beneficial if it could support other email security services beyond Microsoft and Google. Integration with other platforms would enhance its appeal since the features are commendable. While the analytics are commendable, they don't provide deep dive insights. They show the overall counts of malware, phishing, and business compromise emails, but there isn't a robust ability to dive deeper into those categories to see specifics. Analytics should allow us to explore which users received malware emails the most or trends among departments. Currently, we have to sift through manually, which is not ideal. A more profound analytical capability would elevate the tool to become the complete email security solution for any user.

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Emeka Ndulu

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.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The solution has different options that can be used to differentiate DDoS attacks."

"This solution is easy to understand and easy to configure."

"It is a stable solution."

"We mostly use Cloudflare WAF, and gets basic Cloudflaire DDoS, caching as extra bonus . We like the factor these features are all integrated into 1 console, simple to manage."

"The tool also offers good scalability, and the dashboard, along with real-time analytics, is very good."

"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."

"Enables me to work from two locations."

"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."

More Cloudflare One pros

"The combination of smooth integration and advanced detection has made it feel like a strong layer of protection in our overall security stack."

"This DLP is very useful, as it gives our users additional protection."

"The advanced phishing protection is proactive in catching threats before users even see them; it does not just block obvious spam, it can spot subtle impersonation attempts and suspicious links that appear legitimate at first glance."

"The most valuable feature is the sandboxing feature. It provides a sandboxing environment where you can open links and see where they lead. You can see what is presented in the link after opening it."

"The email security solution boasts an exceptional success rate in filtering out junk, spam, and phishing emails while ensuring that legitimate emails reach their intended recipients. The setup process is straightforward and user-friendly"

"Check Point's technical support is very good."

"The feature I find to be most valuable is very much the zero-touch provisioning. I was able to be up, operational, and 100 percent functional in less than a half an hour."

"Getting reports and finding threats in the console is easy."

More Check Point Email Security (formerly Harmony Email & Collaboration) pros

"One of our clients didn't have the budget to invest in a SOC team, but we deployed the solution for them, and they now run a SOC with only one analyst."

"Overall, I would rate Microsoft Defender for Office 365 at a ten."

"The benefit that stands out to me is the ability for multiple individuals to collaborate simultaneously within the same document. Additionally, there is the option to save the document directly in the integrated OneDrive or SharePoint."

"The feature of Microsoft Defender for Office 365 that I like the most is probably the email features specifically, because those are the ones that a typical end user will accidentally click on a link not knowing what it is, and it'll catch it, and then it'll feed it over to Defender and stop the attack from happening before it actually can."

"I would say that 90% of the spam and phishing attack emails get blocked right off the bat."

"It definitely is a must for email protection and O365 app DLP, and combined with Microsoft Defender for Endpoint, Microsoft Defender for Identity, and MCAS, it provides a holistic solution for threat protection, email protection, O365 apps protection, and DLP for both internal and external risks."

"The solution is very easy to use. All you have to do is to assign the license to the end-user and it's done. The customer will only have the feature activated, and the solution will monitor the emails to determine if they are a threat or not."

"The risk level notifications are most valuable. We get to know what kind of intrusion or attack is there, and we can fix a problem on time."

More Microsoft Defender for Office 365 pros

Cons

"The onboarding process can be improved a little bit."

"The initial onboarding was causing us some confusion."

"When there are any dynamic changes in complex applications, the tool takes a lot of time, making its analytics-related area a major matter of concern where improvements are needed."

"For the topic of improvement, providing some training material is one of my suggestions."

"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 pricing is an area that can be improved. Pricing, as far as I recall, was the source of our problems."

"I would like them to include a VPN feature to provide a secure connection to the data center."

"From a logging perspective, it is still a bit difficult to see exactly what users are being blocked with the current views."

More Cloudflare One cons

"Although it has good characteristics, it should improve the graphical interface and the latency that it sometimes presents."

"After updates, the internet connection fails, and I have to restart my desktop to resume initial functionalities."

"I need to go to Check Point's admin portal if I want to see the license list and the details of the users of the tool, making it an area of concern where some ease of process should be provided from an improvement perspective."

"During the East Coast server outage with Amazon service this week, mail was delivered and then pulled back because Harmony wasn't working properly and needed to scan it."

"If Check Point finds something to be described as a clean email, it should have the option to automatically release it to the user. At the moment, we don't have that option."

"A phishing simulator would be helpful as a user training module."

"We still get some false positives. There are times when legitimate stuff gets flagged and it could be that somebody is expecting a very important email but they don't end up getting it. On the flip side, when we alert Check Point about stuff like this, it is corrected, so they are improving. That's a plus."

"The documentation is a little unintuitive, and I make an additional effort for the first deployment."

More Check Point Email Security (formerly Harmony Email & Collaboration) cons

"Its price should be improved. Its cost is a major concern for us."

"It is not up to the mark in comparison with Wiz or Palo Alto."

"There is room for improvement in terms of reporting."

"The visibility for the weaknesses in the system and unauthorized access can be improved."

"From a development point of view, if I wanted to do development on my actual machine where Defender is, the organization can set certain policies or Defender makes that prohibitive."

"I'd like some additional features any product can give me to protect our environment in a better way."

"Microsoft Defender for Office 365 should improve the troubleshooting tools. It's unclear whether the device is blocked at the firewall level or at the device itself. The granularity needed for troubleshooting is currently lacking. From my perspective, Microsoft should address this issue to benefit many users who likely share the same sentiment."

"There's room for improvement regarding the time frame for retrieving emails."

More Microsoft Defender for Office 365 cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."

"The prices are slightly expensive."

"The solution is not that expensive."

"The price tag is no longer $200,000, but rather $300,000 to $400,000. It's twice."

"The solution's pricing lacks transparency."

"The pricing is somewhere in the middle. I would rate the pricing a seven out of ten."

"Cloudflare Zero Trust Platform's pricing is good."

"Check Point is more expensive. That's the honest truth. So far, it's a good value for the money."

"The pricing is in the middle. Check Point's pricing is not the highest in the competitive market."

"The pricing is competitive."

"The difference between [Check Point and its competitors] boiled down to money. Price-wise, Check Point was very good, it was very competitive."

"One of the nice features is that the licensing model is elastic, so if you go over your license count, you can add users during your billing cycle and true-up later."

"You can get CloudGuard as part of Infinity. When you do the solution through Infinity, it's a per user type of license cost."

"The product is expensive."

"Being able to keep the phishing campaigns out of my company has been ROI for me."

More Check Point Email Security (formerly Harmony Email & Collaboration) pricing and cost advice

"The product is very expensive."

"I know that the product is incredibly expensive."

"It is much more expensive than using another solution because we have had to include some options and upgrade our license."

"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."

"The pricing has become expensive."

"It's a user-base subscription."

"From the pricing point of view, like any other product in the market, there is scope for negotiation."

More Microsoft Defender for Office 365 pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Construction Company

21%

Comms Service Provider

10%

Financial Services Firm

Manufacturing Company

Computer Software Company

12%

Financial Services Firm

Manufacturing Company

Construction Company

Computer Software Company

12%

Financial Services Firm

Manufacturing Company

Comms Service Provider

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	10
Midsize Enterprise	2
Large Enterprise	11

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	63
Midsize Enterprise	27
Large Enterprise	30

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	25
Midsize Enterprise	11
Large Enterprise	31

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, ...

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Check Point Harmony Email & Office?

I am not the person to say what cost Check Point has for their products. However, for partners like us, if we could g...

What is your primary use case for Check Point Harmony Email & Office?

We are working with Check Point Harmony Email & Collaboration not only for Harmony, but also for their SaaS solut...

What needs improvement with Check Point Harmony Email & Office?

Check Point must develop one mobile app for iPhone users, Android phone users, and Windows phone users or at least fo...

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Microsoft Defender for Office 365?

My experience with pricing, setup, and licensing is that it's actually quite reasonable even on the licensing side as...

What needs improvement with Microsoft Defender for Office 365?

I think Microsoft Defender for Office 365 can be improved by creating more educational pieces about not just looking ...

What is your primary use case for Microsoft Defender for Office 365?

My main use cases for Microsoft Defender for Office 365 include email hygiene.

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Product Reports

Cloudflare One

Download Cloudflare One product report

Check Point Email Security (formerly Harmony Email & Collaboration)

Download Check Point Email Security (formerly Harmony Email & Collaboration) product report

Check Point Email Security (formerly Harmony Email & Collaboration) report

Microsoft Defender for Office 365

Download Microsoft Defender for Office 365 product report

Microsoft Defender for Office 365 report

Also Known As

Cloudflare Area 1 Email Security, Cloudflare Bot Management, Cloudflare Gateway, Cloudflare Zero Trust Platform, Cloudflare DDoS, Cloudflare SASE & SSE Platform

Check Point CloudGuard, Check Point CloudGuard SaaS , Check Point Harmony Email & Office

MS Defender for Office 365

Overview

Cloudflare One is a comprehensive platform for security, performance, and connectivity. It provides features like rate limiting, DDoS protection, and application access, tailored to enhance user experience while securing internet access and accelerating communications.

Designed to integrate security measures with ease of use and scalability, Cloudflare One offers a secure web gateway and zero trust network access. These features ensure seamless setup and operation, making connectivity reliable and protected. Users appreciate its integrated console, intuitive interface, and the ability to manage risk effectively. It offers straightforward deployment, improves latency, and boasts cost-effectiveness. While its onboarding process and documentation need enhancement, its value in content delivery and application shielding is notable. Despite challenges in integrating Cloudflare Access with existing VPNs and the need for better automation and support, it remains vital for DNS and infrastructure protection.

What features make Cloudflare One stand out?

Rate Limiting: Controls the traffic rate to prevent abuse.
DDoS Protection: Shields applications from distributed denial-of-service attacks.
Secure Web Gateway: Provides secure internet access with seamless operation.
Zero Trust Network Access: Ensures secure, application-based connectivity without relying on traditional VPNs.
Access for Connectivity: Facilitates access to internal applications securely.

What benefits should users look for in reviews?

Security: Robust measures for DNS and browsing protection.
Performance: Enhanced site accessibility and communication speed.
Cost-Effectiveness: Offers competitive pricing for its features.
Ease of Deployment: Straightforward and efficient setup process.

In industries like finance, retail, and technology, Cloudflare One is crucial for enabling secure remote access and protecting web applications against dynamic threats. It supports compliance access policies and enhances content delivery, playing a key role in safeguarding digital infrastructure.

Cloudflare

Check Point Harmony Email & Collaboration provides AI-powered security features for email and collaboration platforms, integrating with Microsoft 365 for comprehensive protection against phishing and malware threats.

Designed for seamless deployment, Check Point Harmony Email & Collaboration offers advanced protection with minimal false positives. Users benefit from real-time alerts, granular threat analysis, and intuitive operation. It supports API-based email security, ensuring safe communication channels and data protection. While it integrates smoothly with Microsoft 365, improvements in dashboard usability, stability, false positive reduction, and expanded integrations with non-Microsoft platforms can enhance the experience.

What are the key features of Check Point Harmony Email & Collaboration?

AI-Powered Threat Intelligence: Utilizes machine learning to detect and prevent emerging threats.
Seamless Office 365 Integration: Offers easy deployment and integration with Microsoft's suite.
Zero-Day Attack Prevention: Protects against unknown vulnerabilities with advanced sandboxing.
Robust Phishing Protection: Employs comprehensive techniques to block phishing attempts.
Advanced Sandboxing: Analyzes potential threats in a controlled environment to prevent breaches.
Comprehensive Dashboards: Provides insights with real-time threat monitoring and analysis.

What benefits or ROI should be considered?

Ease of Deployment: Simple setup process with minimal disruption to operations.
Cost-Effective Security: Reduces potential breach costs with proactive threat prevention.
Reduced False Positives: Minimizes unnecessary alerts, allowing teams to focus on real threats.
Enhanced Threat Visibility: Real-time analytics offer deeper understanding of security landscape.

In finance, healthcare, and education industries, Check Point Harmony Email & Collaboration is deployed to safeguard sensitive information and ensure unrestricted communication flow. These sectors value its ability to block suspicious emails, prevent data loss, and maintain compliance with industry regulations.

Check Point Software Technologies

Microsoft Defender for Office 365 offers real-time email security, enhancing threat detection through integration within the Microsoft ecosystem. Its user-friendly interface and central management streamline operations, providing robust protection against phishing, ransomware, and malware.

Defender for Office 365 is focused on efficiently securing email communication by safeguarding against phishing, malware, and spam threats. With its strong integration with other Microsoft services, it is tailored to improve endpoint security and identity protection. Its centralized management tools simplify threat prioritization, while the automated threat response capabilities ensure swift actions against potential risks. Organizations leverage its capabilities to efficiently manage their cybersecurity efforts, particularly in remote work environments, while maintaining a secure system across Office 365 applications and Azure-hosted services.

What are the key features?

Real-time Email Protection: Continuously monitors and protects email communications.
Safe Attachments and Links: Scans attachments and links for potential threats.
Anti-Phishing Measures: Provides tools to detect and block phishing attempts.
Integration with Microsoft Services: Seamlessly connects with other Microsoft applications for enhanced security.
Automated Threat Responses: Activates immediate responses to detected threats.

What benefits should users expect from reviews?

Time Savings: Automates processes to reduce manual threat management efforts.
Improved Cybersecurity: Strengthens organizational defenses against various cyber threats.
Efficient Remote Work: Enhances protection for remote teams and virtual collaborations.
Comprehensive Coverage: Extends protection across Office 365 and Azure services.

Implementations of Defender for Office 365 vary across industries, optimizing email security for sectors such as finance, healthcare, and education. In finance, it aids in protecting sensitive financial data from phishing and fraud. Healthcare benefits from secure communications, ensuring patient data privacy. Educational institutions use it to maintain secure virtual learning environments against cyber threats.

Microsoft

Sample Customers

23andMe

Helvetia, Denham Capital, Daymark Solutions, Neopharm Group

Microsoft Defender for Office 365 is trusted by companies such as Ithaca College.

Check Point Email Security (formerly Harmony Email & Collaboration) vs. Microsoft Defender for Office 365