Cisco Secure Email Threat Defense vs Kiteworks comparison

Cisco Secure Email Threat D...

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 2, 2025

Kiteworks and Cisco Secure Email Threat Defense are competing products in the cybersecurity landscape, each offering solutions for secure communications. Cisco Secure Email Threat Defense often has the upper hand with its robust security features that make it a compelling choice despite higher pricing.

Features: Kiteworks focuses on secure file sharing, email encryption, and compliance enhancement. It features a user-friendly interface with integrated antivirus protection and two-factor authentication for added security. Cisco Secure Email Threat Defense offers advanced threat protection, including phishing defense, behavioral analysis, and URL filtering. Its integration with Cisco Talos provides up-to-date threat intelligence to identify and mitigate risks.

Room for Improvement: Kiteworks could enhance its administrative control options and expand its mobile app capabilities. The user authentication process might also be streamlined to improve user experience. Cisco Secure Email Threat Defense could improve its analytics and reporting, offer more granular reporting options, and simplify backend controls for better user management. A more intuitive configuration interface would enhance ease of use.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Kiteworks offers straightforward deployment with accessible customer support, making it suitable for varied IT environments. Cisco Secure Email Threat Defense, while more complex, benefits from a well-established deployment system with dedicated support. Kiteworks is praised for quick implementation, whereas Cisco's extensive support is beneficial for in-depth security solutions.

Pricing and ROI: Kiteworks is known for its competitive pricing and favorable ROI for smaller to medium businesses. Cisco Secure Email Threat Defense presents a higher setup cost, but the investment is justified by the superior protection features, offering significant ROI to organizations prioritizing email security. Kiteworks appeals to budget-conscious buyers, while Cisco justifies its premium with advanced capabilities.

To learn more, read our detailed Cisco Secure Email Threat Defense vs. Kiteworks Report (Updated: February 2026).

Cisco Secure Email Threat Defense vs. Kiteworks

February 2026

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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

Cisco Secure Email Threat D...

Ranking in Email Security

22nd

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

6.7

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Kiteworks

Ranking in Email Security

29th

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

6.9

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Enterprise Content Management (16th), Managed File Transfer (MFT) (5th), Content Collaboration Platforms (13th), Secure Email Gateway (SEG) (10th)

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2026, in the Email Security category, the mindshare of Cisco Secure Email Threat Defense is 1.1%, up from 1.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Kiteworks is 0.6%, up from 0.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Email Security Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Cisco Secure Email Threat Defense	1.1%
Kiteworks	0.6%
Other	98.3%

Email Security

Featured Reviews

reviewer2541525

Principal Cyber Prevent and Defense Engineer at a comms service provider with 1,001-5,000 employees

Clawback feature performs well but analytics and integration capabilities need improvement

The integration capability with other threat intelligence platforms is not optimal, as I have experienced difficulty in sending logs to our SIEM. Cisco Secure Email Threat Defense's flexibility could be enhanced while it mostly integrates with cloud solutions, but not on-premise. The behavioral analysis capability of Cisco Secure Email Threat Defense is not particularly helpful for identifying new, evolving threats within my company, as it keeps flagging legitimate emails as malicious. Regarding room for improvement, the significant number of false positives should be addressed. The solution does not adapt to behavioral analytics and does not make changes when it sees a pattern.

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KishoreT-Review

Associate Consultant at a tech consulting company with 10,001+ employees

Streamlined global file sharing with user-friendly interface and self-service capabilities

I'm not a network expert, however, there must be some room for improvement. Perhaps there could be a notification to users about their bandwidth or network packet loss. If users receive such notifications, they can understand any disruptions are due to issues with their network or bandwidth rather than the site or Kiteworks. Additionally, I work from offshore India, and I told my client manager to communicate with the Kiteworks forum salesman regarding one feature. I noticed the Kiteworks login UI is very basic, lacking customization. Allowing more HTML tags to add hyperlinks or user-friendly information on the home page would be very useful.

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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

"Secure Email Threat Defense's scalability is good."

"The ability to see east-west traffic is its most valuable feature. Traditionally, email defense focuses on north-south, inbound-outbound, egress-ingress traffic. With Cisco Secure Email Cloud Mailbox, it's able to quickly identify, track, tag, and categorize emails that are internal. That can typically give us visibility into if there's an internal compromised account (for example). Someone can then use that internal compromised account to email additional accounts with either malicious software or links, but internal within that Office tenant. Effectively, that email message never leaves the tenant. Any of the mail gateways really do not have any method or way of seeing this traffic since it's not leaving the environment."

"I highly recommend it as one of the best choices."

"Regarding stability, Cisco Secure Email Threat Defense is very stable."

"This solution is easy to use."

"The features and functionalities are much better than Microsoft's in-built Defender plan."

"It's very easy to deploy and configure."

"I would say it's very comprehensive, with multiple antivirus OEMs, virus encrypt features, encryption, and more."

More Cisco Secure Email Threat Defense pros

"I can identify from which region our users are uploading or downloading files."

"Scalability is impressive."

"We could see whether the customer with whom we shared a file had downloaded it, which was not available with GitHub."

"The solution removes the limitations with file attachment size that is found with regular email."

"The most valuable feature is the ability to send a large file of 30 GB in size and more. In Outlook and other email applications, you cannot send files that are larger than 20 MB. But with Kiteworks, 30 GB is transferable by default and, with the proper approval, a file of up to 100 GB can be sent. It makes file transfer very easy and smooth."

"The most valuable aspect of Kiteworks is undoubtedly the private content network. This feature is particularly beneficial for us. Furthermore, it serves as a centralized platform that enables us to track and manage our information exchange."

"The solution can be used remotely; it's easy to upload and share files."

"We can see when people are sending things. We can definitely see who is sending to whom. From the administrative logs, we can see who is sending to an outside entity, and those logs are retained for quite a while."

More Kiteworks pros

Cons

"The search area has room for improvement. When you go to the next page, it remains at the bottom of the current page that you're on. Also, under the reports section, it allows you to see any "convictions," but if you want to search for those convictions you have to remember when they all came in and go back and edit the search accordingly. You cannot click on the list of convictions to actually see if you had a spike at a certain time."

"Cisco's multiple product lines and verticals made this just one of their many verticals, and we could see a shift in focus."

"There is still room for improvement in terms of integrations with other Cisco tools and non-Cisco tools. There is also some room for improvement needed in terms of the reporting."

"The pricing could always be better."

"Cisco Secure Email Cloud Mailbox can improve by adding advanced phishing, then the solution would become the best in the market. However, this could increase the price even more. Additionally, if CES with domain protection could be added it would be an even better solution."

"Customers will benefit greatly from monthly billing because the majority of customers today use the cloud, be it Office 365, or Google Cloud."

"This solution could be improved by integration with Sandbox."

"The learning curve shows that in the beginning, there are numerous false positives. For one month, we had to reclassify the false positives manually until the system learned."

More Cisco Secure Email Threat Defense cons

"It would be nice if Kiteworks could provide a free version of the platform so that it could be used for a certain number of file transfers. We could be charged a fee if we exceeded the number of allotted file transfers."

"Perhaps there could be a notification to users about their bandwidth or network packet loss."

"I would like to see immediate releases of fixes because now it takes at least a week. If that time span can be reduced to one day or two days, that would be very helpful for users so that things are sorted and transactions work smoothly."

"In my experience, their technical support can be a little slow."

"There is no offboarding process for end-users in Kiteworks. It's a manual process. There is no automated syncing with LDAP and checking to see if the account is still active. It's a manual process to get people out of here, which isn't the best way."

"File location could be improved."

"The one feature, which I have also requested directly to Kiteworks, is to have a scheduled upgrade function. Currently, one of my engineers logs in after hours for the upgrade. We're a hospital, and we're 24/7, but the primary users are seven to five. So, we log in the early evening just to push a button to tell it to do the update. It would be nice if that could be very easily scheduled."

"There are always issues when there are bugs or upgrades. The challenge with upgrading is getting more storage from the customer. Every time we have a new version, it requires additional storage. This means that the customer would need to procure more storage for their server, which they don't like because it means additional cost to them. So, I think my request would be that the version upgrades don't require any significant storage requirement."

More Kiteworks cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution’s pricing is manageable."

"Cisco Secure Email Cloud Mailbox does not have any competition with Sophos, Trend Micro, or other vendors of the world. However, there is a pricing premium for the solution. One has to look at it from that angle that while they are buying Cisco, there will be a premium, and Cisco justifies that premium value. That's why they're charging a high price."

"It is expensive compared to other vendors."

"The feedback from vendors and customer is that it is expensive."

"The price of Kiteworks is reasonable."

"They changed it midstream. We were being charged a certain flat rate for SFTP traffic. For whatever reason, at the beginning of the year, our pricing changed, and we are now being charged more for using a feature of the product than we were when we first bought it. That has been our experience with billing. It turned out to be more expensive than when we started with it."

"The solution is very expensive because we are buying with Malaysian Ringgit and it's sold in US dollars."

"The license management is changing and confusing. If I could make one change to it, it would be better license management through the API."

"It is not really expensive. I mean, to me it's obviously expensive, but it's worth it."

"I believe it's a little costly, but given the faith that we put into it from a security perspective to maintain the integrity of our patient information that is being transferred through this system, that's a small price to pay. So, on the surface, it might look like a lot of money, but depending on the need for security, which is where we feel it shines, it's okay price-wise."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

14%

Marketing Services Firm

11%

Manufacturing Company

Healthcare Company

Government

13%

Financial Services Firm

12%

Healthcare Company

Comms Service Provider

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	4
Midsize Enterprise	6
Large Enterprise	7

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	3
Large Enterprise	11

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Secure Email Threat Defense?

Comparatively with other products, the pricing of Cisco Secure Email Threat Defense is normal. As a technical guide, I am not very aware of the pricing details.

What needs improvement with Secure Email Threat Defense?

We have deployed Cisco Secure Email Threat Defense in two customer environments. It is still in development as a new product. Some customer requirements, such as sending logs to a Syslog server, ar...

What is your primary use case for Secure Email Threat Defense?

We are working with Cloud Mail Gateway and on-premise mail gateways. We have worked with Cisco Secure Email Threat Defense.

What is Kiteworks?

Kiteworks is a secured file sharing platform that enables users to collaborate with different parties across a robust offering of secured protected channels. Users have the option of virtual privat...

What needs improvement with Kiteworks?

What advice do you have for others considering Kiteworks?

Scalability is impressive. It can be highly available, resilient, and scalable infrastructure. I can confidently give it a nine. It suits any level of organization, whether a small setup with two a...

Cisco Secure Email vs Cisco Secure Email Threat Defense

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Product Reports

Cisco Secure Email Threat Defense

January 2026

Cisco Secure Email Threat Defense report

Download Cisco Secure Email Threat Defense product report

Download Kiteworks product report

January 2026

Also Known As

Cisco Secure Email Cloud Mailbox, Cisco CMD, Cisco Cloud Mailbox Defense

Accellion

Overview

Cisco's secure email threat defense is designed to provide comprehensive protection against email-based threats. With the increasing sophistication of cyber attacks, it is crucial for organizations to have a robust solution in place to safeguard their email communications.

The product offers advanced threat detection capabilities, leveraging machine learning algorithms and real-time analysis to identify and block malicious emails. It scans incoming and outgoing emails for suspicious attachments, links, and content, ensuring that only safe and legitimate emails reach the users' inbox.

To combat phishing attacks, our solution employs advanced anti-phishing techniques, including URL reputation analysis and email header analysis. It proactively detects and blocks phishing emails, preventing users from falling victim to fraudulent schemes and protecting sensitive information.

The Secure Email Threat Defense also includes robust anti-malware and anti-spam features. It scans email attachments for malware and viruses, preventing them from infiltrating the organization's network. Additionally, it filters out spam emails, reducing the clutter in users' inboxes and improving productivity.

Administrators have full visibility and control over email security. They can set up customizable policies to enforce security measures, such as blocking specific file types or restricting email access from certain domains. Detailed reports and analytics provide insights into email threats and help in fine-tuning the security settings.

Cisco

Kiteworks empowers organizations to effectively manage risk in every send, share, receive, and save of sensitive content over numerous communications channels: email, file sharing, managed file transfer, APIs, and web forms. The Kiteworks platform unifies, tracks, controls, and secures sensitive content moving within, into, and out of an organization, significantly improving risk management and ensuring regulatory compliance.

Sample Customers

Luiss University, Lone Star College, T-Systems, Magyar Telekom

United States Securities and Exchange Commission, National Health Service, Husch Blackwell LLP, NYC Health + Hospitals, Viatris, MITRE Corporation, Chubb, Kraft Heinz, KPMG, Kohler, National Institute of Standards and Technology, Purdue Pharma, AVL