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Cisco Secure Email vs Fortinet FortiMail Cloud comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
22
Ranking in other categories
Email Security (20th), Secure Web Gateways (SWG) (15th), Data Loss Prevention (DLP) (21st), Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB) (11th), Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection (7th), Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) Solutions (13th), Access Management (12th), Bot Management (3rd), ZTNA as a Service (8th), ZTNA (3rd), Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) (10th), Remote Browser Isolation (RBI) (3rd)
Cisco Secure Email
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
63
Ranking in other categories
Email Security (5th), Cisco Security Portfolio (6th)
Fortinet FortiMail Cloud
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
24
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Email (5th), Secure Email Gateway (SEG) (8th)
 

Mindshare comparison

Email Security Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Cisco Secure Email5.2%
Microsoft Defender for Office 3658.8%
Proofpoint Email Protection8.1%
Other77.9%
Email Security
Cloud Email Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Fortinet FortiMail Cloud3.6%
SendGrid9.7%
MailChimp8.7%
Other78.0%
Cloud Email
 

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.
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.
HR
Senior Network Security Engineer at Vibs
Provides solid functionality and allows room for enhancing content management and support services
They can improve their CDR content profile and some anti-spam features. They don't have any direct script to run to add personalization, and we have to do it manually one by one. There are many tasks which we have to complete individually. We can't import files into the Fortinet FortiMail Cloud sensors. That's a drawback, as they need to provide a feature to import files. We can make the format, but we cannot import the file into Fortinet FortiMail Cloud. Additionally, in Fortinet FortiMail Cloud, not in FortiSandbox, they need to improve the block and allow list functionality to block URLs and allow specific types of URLs or regex.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The best feature is rate limiting. If I'm expecting 500 visits per hour, Cloudflare will limit the requests if I suddenly get 50,000."
"I'm very satisfied with the environment and the dashboard."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"Cloudflare DDoS is better than its competitors for its security, deployment, and scalability."
"Cloudflare, in my opinion, was easy to implement."
"ATP has been the most valuable in improving our email security posture."
"There are a lot of filters for scam emails and things like that work out of the box. You can also use the antivirus features. I like its features."
"The security features are valuable."
"Cisco IronPort mail security was very helpful by blocking threats, viruses, worms and Trojans from attacking the mail accounts and user PCs."
"The Cisco Email Security Appliance has enabled us to reduce spam by at least 30% compared to our previous solution."
"Cisco's Secure Email integrates with Cisco Firewalls, utilizing the AMP as their anti-malware engine, which allows for information sharing between devices."
"Cisco Secure Email's most valuable is email certification."
"It has the ability to tell us, after an email has been delivered, where else it went, once it got inside. Maybe it's something we wanted it to stop and it didn't stop it, but it notified us later that it was something that it should have stopped. It can give us a trajectory of all the other places that it went internally and it can tell us what files were transferred as well."
"Fortinet and other software ensure that my company's email remains safe, helping to avoid access issues at some cost in production."
"The scanners with FortiMail are valuable."
"One of the most beautiful benefits is its integration, as it can seamlessly integrate with any third-party email servers."
"This solution is easy to install. The deployment takes about forty-five minutes."
"The most valuable features are the low price and its ability to integrate with other Fortinet products."
"The return on investment for us was achieved since we did not have similar incidents again in our environment."
"Content disarming and analysis are essential features in our email security setup"
"If there is a problem somewhere Fortinet can act on it immediately. That is very important."
 

Cons

"The initial onboarding was causing us some confusion."
"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."
"For the topic of improvement, providing some training material is one of my suggestions."
"The pricing is an area that can be improved. Pricing, as far as I recall, was the source of our problems."
"Feedback could be enhanced."
"Operating and tuning the product is difficult."
"Lacks a VPN feature to provide a secure connection to the data center."
"The product's GUI for the dashboard needs improvement."
"Typically, in a phishing email, they try to use a name everybody's going to recognize, like the CEO's name or the CFO's name... With this appliance, the way it's designed at the moment, for us to really stop that with any level of confidence, we have to build a dictionary of all the names of the people we want it to check, and all the ways they could be spelled. My name would be in there as Phillip Collins, Phillip D. Collins, Phillip Dean Collins, Phil Collins, Phil D. Collins. There could be eight or 10 variations of my name that we'd have to put in the dictionary. There's no artificial intelligence to say "Phil Collins" could be all these other things, and to stop phishing from coming through in that way."
"The user interface needs some improvement to become more user-friendly. The graphics could be better. It's designed more for a technical user rather than a business user."
"The pricing needs to be reconsidered or enhanced."
"The hardware is not up to the mark. Two to three times a year we have complete downtime."
"The configuration UI should be made more intuitive. Currently, it takes a while to understand how to do the basic configurations."
"In future releases, I would like to see two main improvements come to mind. First, the current solution requires maintaining two separate operating systems for FTD, which can be cumbersome. I'd love to see a single operating system for the FTD box."
"I would like to see features like AI since it is currently an area that the product lacks."
"It is slightly difficult to configure FortiMail in the cloud with Exchange on-premise, especially the quarantine mailbox access for end-users."
"The setup of the rules can be improved. I think it should be simplified and would be the best improvement in the system."
"The dashboard could use improvement."
"This ease of use and user-friendliness is something we believe could be improved in FortiMail."
"The price is relatively expensive."
"This solution is slow and it should be made faster."
"I can't see the feedback to the FortiMail gateway."
"Networking should be simplified."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution's pricing lacks transparency."
"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."
"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 pricing is somewhere in the middle. I would rate the pricing a seven out of ten."
"The solution is not that expensive."
"The prices are slightly expensive."
"There were no other costs in addition to the standard licensing fees."
"As per market availability, this solution is more expensive than other vendors."
"You're going to get what you pay for. If you're not willing to pay the price of Cisco, you're not going to get a product that's as good as Cisco. I don't think Cisco is overpriced, because for the last two years I've been comparing it to Microsoft and Cisco has been cheaper and given us more features."
"It is not that costly. We pay for the solution through a contractor and pay an annual fee."
"Compared to Cisco's on-prem service, the cost is the same, but you don't have to pay for the hardware and you don't have to maintain the system, as far as upgrades and hardware failures are concerned. It is cheaper to operate on their cloud service than it is to operate with their on-prem service."
"The solution is expensive."
"At times, we feel the pricing is a bit too high, but then, there is also room for discounts. We enjoy a lot of discounts, and that is why we are still with them. There are no costs in addition to the standard licensing fees."
"There are additional fees for adding features."
"I see how manageable and flexible the licenses are."
"The pricing depends on various factors, including the type of licenses and subscriptions you have procured"
"A license for our company using FortiMail and FortiCare (filtering and support) was $4000."
"You only have to purchase one license for multiple participants."
"I rate the price of Fortinet FortiMail Cloud a five on a one to ten scale, where one is the low price, and ten is the high price. It is an averagely priced product."
"The price of this solution could be more competitive."
"The licensing is for three years. In the beginning, we did not pay monthly, it was paid once for three years."
"It's on a subscribed basis."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Comms Service Provider
10%
Computer Software Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Government
6%
Computer Software Company
10%
University
8%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Non Profit
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business10
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise10
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business22
Midsize Enterprise18
Large Enterprise26
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business16
Midsize Enterprise8
Large Enterprise2
 

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 do you like most about Cisco Secure Email?
Cisco Secure Email is a budget-friendly solution.
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 experience regarding pricing and costs for Fortinet FortiMail Cloud?
The price of Fortinet FortiMail Cloud in Egypt is very competitive against other products, including the setup cost a...
What needs improvement with Fortinet FortiMail Cloud?
The improvement in Fortinet FortiMail Cloud can be made regarding the classification process itself because it has so...
What is your primary use case for Fortinet FortiMail Cloud?
I have experience working with Fortinet FortiMail Cloud as a mail gateway, not a firewall, and we have been using it ...
 

Also Known As

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

Overview

 

Sample Customers

23andMe
SUNY Old Westbury, CoxHealth, City of Fullerton, Indra
Black Gold Regional Schools, Amadeus Hospitality, Jefferson County, Chunghwa Telecom, City of Boroondara, Dimension Data
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco Secure Email vs. Fortinet FortiMail Cloud and other solutions. Updated: January 2024.
884,873 professionals have used our research since 2012.