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Cisco Secure Email vs Fortra's Clearswift Secure Email Gateway comparison

 

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

Cisco Secure Email
Ranking in Email Security
5th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
62
Ranking in other categories
Cisco Security Portfolio (7th)
Fortra's Clearswift Secure ...
Ranking in Email Security
41st
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 August 2025, in the Email Security category, the mindshare of Cisco Secure Email is 6.1%, down from 8.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Fortra's Clearswift Secure Email Gateway is 0.9%, up from 0.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Email Security
 

Featured Reviews

Kostas Karidas - PeerSpot reviewer
Helps prevent security breaches but fails to improve in the area of AI
I have not noticed any impressive advanced threat protection mechanisms in the tool. I don't know if there are any AI features in the product. I don't know if there is any other technology embedded in the solution. Cisco Secure Email successfully mitigated potential email threats. My company has seen plenty of scenarios where Cisco Secure Email successfully mitigated potential email threats, spam emails, and fraudulent domains. The product is good for dealing with spam emails, and it can take care of more than 100 spam emails per day. A huge number of spam emails are monitored with the help of Cisco Secure Email. I would not recommend the product to other businesses because you need to have some kind of expertise in configuring and knowing a bit about the tool's GUI. The tool also lacks in the area of AI mechanics. If I would like to have an overview and review another solution, I would go for another product other than Cisco Secure Email. I can definitely suggest others to look at the product and review it, but I would also recommend that they compare it with the other solutions in the market. I wouldn't prioritize Cisco Secure Email over other tools. Either the support partner of the product or I take care of the tool's maintenance phase by looking into the configurations and doing some fine-tuning. I rate the tool a seven to eight out of ten.
PC
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

"The product blocks spam emails."
"The solution works well."
"Capital expenditure is a significant consideration, and the impact on major expenditures prompts a careful analysis before onboarding the new product."
"The system enables end users to manage their own whitelists/blacklists."
"Cisco Secure Email's most valuable is email certification."
"The product's initial setup phase was easy."
"The advanced phishing protection and the integration with the awareness tool that Cisco has embedded into the solution to bring awareness to the customers about the dangers of phishing attacks and other things that come from email are the most valuable features."
"Cisco Secure Email has strong inbound services."
"Ability to create your own content-filtering policies with relative ease."
"A stable solution."
 

Cons

"The solution needs to improve its advanced phishing filters. It is very good at filtering things which have bad reputations. However, when phishing or malicious emails are new or coming from a legitimate source, we don't feel that the solution is working."
"We cannot manage multiple devices from a single UI."
"Cisco Email Secure's pricing needs to be less. We have vendors who provide cheaper solutions with the same features."
"The user interface needs massive improvement. While the device works fine and it's not complicated to write policies, renaming menu items and showing policy flow in conjunction with the application could help."
"The hardware is not up to the mark. Two to three times a year we have complete downtime."
"It would be nice to have an easier way to check on the health of the system, how stressed these appliances are. Sure, you can do it, but it would be helpful to have an easier way to do it, maybe even at a glance."
"The user interface could be updated."
"In some cases, detection is missed, leading to false positives where genuine emails are flagged as spam."
"Malware needs improvement."
"FTP server and TRUST Manager functionality."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I would rate the pricing a ten out of ten, where one is cheap, and ten is expensive."
"It is a relatively expensive option compared to other alternatives."
"Cisco Secure Email is more expensive than other products. I rate it a five out of ten. There are no additional costs. You only need to pay the subscription amounts."
"There were no other costs in addition to the standard licensing fees."
"It is expensive. I would rate it 2 out of 10, where 1 is the most expensive and 10 is the cheapest."
"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."
"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."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
20%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Government
6%
Computer Software Company
18%
Government
12%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Comms Service Provider
10%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

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 user interface of the Email Security Gateway ( /products/security-gateway-reviews ) should be improved. It would be beneficial to have the functionality of the Email Threat Defense integrated i...
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Earn 20 points
 

Also Known As

Cisco Email Security, IronPort, Cisco Email Security, ESA, Email Security Appliances
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

SUNY Old Westbury, CoxHealth, City of Fullerton, Indra
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco Secure Email vs. Fortra's Clearswift Secure Email Gateway and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
865,164 professionals have used our research since 2012.