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Cisco Secure Email vs Sublime Security 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
Ranking in Email Security
20th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
23
Ranking in other categories
Secure Web Gateways (SWG) (13th), Data Loss Prevention (DLP) (20th), Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB) (12th), Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection (7th), Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) Solutions (12th), Access Management (11th), Bot Management (3rd), ZTNA as a Service (9th), ZTNA (4th), Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) (10th), Remote Browser Isolation (RBI) (3rd)
Cisco Secure Email
Ranking in Email Security
5th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
63
Ranking in other categories
Cisco Security Portfolio (6th)
Sublime Security
Ranking in Email Security
17th
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.4
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2026, in the Email Security category, the mindshare of Cloudflare One is 1.7%, up from 1.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Cisco Secure Email is 4.7%, down from 6.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Sublime Security is 1.4%, up from 1.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Email Security Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Cisco Secure Email4.7%
Sublime Security1.4%
Cloudflare One1.7%
Other92.2%
Email Security
 

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.
reviewer2764257 - PeerSpot reviewer
Manager Security Operations Center at a educational organization with 10,001+ employees
Improves decision-making with clear verdict explanations and works well across multiple environments
I know that a lot of time has been invested in improving the efficacy of the platform, and it shows; it performs very well. Moving forward, I think our focus should be on how to achieve better integration with other systems. While they do provide API-level access and web hooks, I believe more out-of-the-box integrations with SOAR platforms and SIEM tools would enhance Sublime's value. This would allow it to be integrated more closely with the workflows of various teams and could potentially increase its market appeal. From my perspective, the tool itself functions exceptionally well, which gives me confidence in the system. I want to see this functionality extend to other tools that I use, enabling faster automation and improved workflows for the team, particularly from a security operations standpoint. I have no critiques regarding the tool itself. They've done an outstanding job and are maintaining high quality throughout their development process. They have a great product, and it's essential that they continue to uphold that standard, even though it requires significant effort.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It will take the blow rather than our applications should an attack occur."
"Cloudflare One has assisted in securing my remote workforce through a SASE solution with Cloudflare One and the Workers part, although I am not currently using the Workers component."
"It's a perfect solution from my perspective; it's easy to understand and easy to configure."
"Cloudflare DDoS is better than its competitors for its security, deployment, and scalability."
"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."
"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."
"Cloudflare is simple to use."
"It's a bit easy to handle Cisco Secure Email; it's not that difficult. For the logs, which are in PDF format, it's not hard to read them. We don't need Wireshark much to analyze the logs."
"There were detailed logs available. That was a seriously good feature... It turns out these were actually spoof emails that came into our environment. I got to know about them from the log system."
"The added value of it is that every migration to a new version is initiated by the Cisco version itself, so that is a bunch of work that you don't have to do on the Cisco ESA system on-premise. As it becomes a safe platform, you don't need to invest anything in your own data center or in your upgrade path."
"Overall, it is a very good product, and I'm very happy with it."
"The most significant enhancement we've gained is in terms of security through the upgrade we received."
"The tool has a DLP solution which we can implement. Its database is updated regularly."
"The most valuable features are protection against ransomware and spam."
"At one point, there was a zero-day attack. The Cisco appliance detected it and stopped it, helping us out. We avoided the attack and potential damage."
"Overall, the auditability and the ability to evaluate the information in Sublime through various mechanisms made me very comfortable with setting these capabilities to auto-remediation."
"I like its ability to detect and block."
"This is why it provides absolute value; it adds a smarter layer that catches anything missed by Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace protection, as attackers can breach those systems easily using flexible detection logic that security teams can quickly customize."
 

Cons

"For the topic of improvement, providing some training material is one of my suggestions."
"Cloudflare DDoS has poor technical support."
"Feedback could be enhanced."
"Our customers no longer use Cloudflare because its service is subpar."
"From a logging perspective, it is still a bit difficult to see exactly what users are being blocked with the current views."
"The onboarding process can be improved a little bit."
"The initial onboarding was causing us some confusion."
"Lacks a VPN feature to provide a secure connection to the data center."
"Having Cisco Email Security as a standalone solution is not good enough. It needs to be combined with another solution."
"The initial setup was complex because I have two sites with physical clusters."
"We have Microsoft and we have the E5 licenses, they have more EDR responses on certain emails. That's something that Cisco ESA on the cloud doesn't have. They don't do anything about MITRE attacks. They only detect if there is a malicious email or a threat and they remove it."
"We cannot manage multiple devices from a single UI."
"Better dashboards and more interactive overviews would be nice, but the current functionality is sufficient."
"There could be additional DLP functionality for it."
"The area of license renewal should be improved. We normally renew our license every year. There is a feature called smart licensing, and I switched from the legacy mode to the smart licensing mode because of what I thought smart licensing does. I thought it would make licensing renewal seamless and very swift, but ever since I've switched to smart licensing, each time I want to renew my license, it is a whole lot of headache. The process is not smooth, and I had to keep calling Cisco TAC to see how the issue can be resolved. At one point, I wanted to revert back to the legacy mode, but I can't revert. Once you switch from the legacy mode to the smart licensing mode, you can't revert. They should improve on the visibility of the smart licensing mode so that it can indeed be smart and easier to use for the license renewal every year. That is one challenge."
"Cisco Secure Email can be improved from the administrator's point of view. Usually, you have to work with different areas, and they can try to make it easy for the administrator to use different functions."
"To improve Sublime Security, I think the learning curve is the primary concern; it is powerful, but it is not plug and play."
"While they do provide API-level access and web hooks, I believe more out-of-the-box integrations with SOAR platforms and SIEM tools would enhance Sublime's value."
"The ability for users to look at their own quarantine box needs improvement. So at the moment, it doesn't give you the ability to see every email that has been quarantined. No end-user has the ability to see what's being quarantined. It's only people who have access to the back-end platform that can actually see what has been quarantined. The end user doesn't know if they have an email that has been quarantined, only if they're expecting something that didn't come through."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution is not that expensive."
"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 pricing of the solution is cheap. The licensing cost is also very low. I rate the cost and pricing a three out of ten."
"Cloudflare Zero Trust Platform's pricing is good."
"The prices are slightly expensive."
"The pricing is somewhere in the middle. I would rate the pricing a seven out of ten."
"The price tag is no longer $200,000, but rather $300,000 to $400,000. It's twice."
"The solution's pricing lacks transparency."
"It is a reasonably priced solution."
"The solution is expensive."
"Cisco Secure Email is expensive, but we get what we pay for."
"It is expensive. I would rate it 2 out of 10, where 1 is the most expensive and 10 is the cheapest."
"There were no other costs in addition to the standard licensing fees."
"Cisco Secure Email is not expensive, and licensing costs are yearly."
"In my previous organization, avoiding four instances of CryptoLocker within an estimated six month period is approximately $600,000 in lost time and effort. Our five year cost was about a million dollars, and the four outages that we had equated to 65 percent of that five year cost."
"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."
"I would rate the pricing of Sublime Security as a seven out of ten. It is reasonably well-priced."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Construction Company
20%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Computer Software Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
6%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Computer Software Company
10%
Outsourcing Company
8%
Marketing Services Firm
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business10
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise11
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business22
Midsize Enterprise18
Large Enterprise26
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business4
Midsize Enterprise2
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 Sublime Security?
The pricing or setup cost or licensing that they are offering for us is not my scope; it is someone else working with...
What needs improvement with Sublime Security?
Based on the feedback we receive from our partners and their end-users, there are two main areas for improvement: the...
What is your primary use case for Sublime Security?
Our main use case is two-fold. Primarily, as a channel partner, our core focus is channel enablement. We actively pit...
 

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
Snowflake, Spotify, Anduril, Elastic, Compass, Encompass Health, Zscaler, Ovo Energy, Personio, Beneteler 
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco Secure Email vs. Sublime Security and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.
893,221 professionals have used our research since 2012.