No more typing reviews! Try our Samantha, our new voice AI agent.

Cisco Secure Email vs Sublime Security comparison

Sponsored
 

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) (12th), Data Loss Prevention (DLP) (21st), Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB) (13th), Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection (8th), 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
4th
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
18th
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 June 2026, in the Email Security category, the mindshare of Cloudflare One is 1.6%, up from 1.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Cisco Secure Email is 4.5%, down from 6.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Sublime Security is 1.4%, down from 1.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Email Security Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Cisco Secure Email4.5%
Sublime Security1.4%
Cloudflare One1.6%
Other92.5%
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 is a stable solution."
"The solution has different options that can be used to differentiate DDoS attacks."
"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."
"The blocking feature is very good."
"Cloudflare is by far the most effective solution that I have come across."
"Enables me to work from two locations."
"Cloudflare, in my opinion, was easy to implement."
"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."
"My favorite feature of Cisco Secure Email is the threat intelligence capabilities, particularly its integration with Cisco Talos."
"Email service is one of the services that we offer at Galaxy, and Cisco ESA has improved our business so much that our customers want to maintain their business with us for email security, with over 500 domains on our email platform and improved profitability in everything."
"The system provides our service desk with the means to troubleshoot email delivery issues with ease."
"The most valuable feature is the different content filters we are using, such as DKIM."
"The product's initial setup phase was easy."
"Cisco IronPort mail security was very helpful by blocking threats, viruses, worms and Trojans from attacking the mail accounts and user PCs."
"The user interface was quite friendly, it was quite easy to use, unlike some other Cisco products. Anybody could use it. You don't have to be familiar with IT to be able to handle navigating it."
"It does a great job of preventing spam, malware, and ransomware. I can only go by what people have told me and what I've seen, but I have not seen spam in a year and a half to two years in my own company mailbox. And there are not a lot of catches where it's catching something that should have gotten through, either."
"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

"Cloudflare One is not very powerful, but for what we require, it is basic and sufficient."
"Cloudflare DDoS has poor technical support."
"Cloudflare Zero Trust Platform needs to improve its documentation. It took time to do the implementation."
"I would like them to include a VPN feature to provide a secure connection to the data center."
"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 tool should provide on-premise versions. Currently, all versions are cloud-based."
"For the topic of improvement, providing some training material is one of my suggestions."
"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."
"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."
"The primary areas for improvement are the pricing and the complexity of deployment."
"I use the search all the time. Sometimes, it is hard to search for things and things are hard to find. People come to me all the time, saying, "This email didn't get through." Then, I go searching and don't find it on the first search. You have to think about alternative searches. I don't know if there is an easier way that they could help to find things. I don't know how they could simplify it, because now everybody else is using the cloud and everything is coming from Office 365, or whatever. It is just not the same environment from years ago where everybody had their own server and you could search easier."
"The user interface could be updated."
"The management features of the product are not up to date."
"It takes time to harmonize information from the email log events with higher level reporting tools."
"Having Cisco Email Security as a standalone solution is not good enough. It needs to be combined with another solution."
"The solution does not have a strong outbound service. It should also integrate DLP."
"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."
"To improve Sublime Security, I think the learning curve is the primary concern; it is powerful, but it is not plug and play."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution is not that 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."
"Cloudflare Zero Trust Platform's pricing is good."
"The prices are slightly expensive."
"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."
"The solution's pricing lacks transparency."
"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."
"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."
"We were using Proofpoint and then we switched to Cisco... reportability was one of the main reasons we switched, but the biggest one was cost. If you can get an equivalent functionality for a better price it's wise to do so. That's what our primary decision came down to: We could get equivalent functionality at a lower price point."
"The solution is expensive."
"Cisco Secure Email is expensive, but we get what we pay for."
"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."
"The product's price falls on the higher side when compared to the other products on the market."
"In addition to the standard licensing, there is a cost for SMARTnet as well."
"It is an expensive product. I rate its pricing an eight or nine."
"I would rate the pricing of Sublime Security as a seven out of ten. It is reasonably well-priced."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Email Security solutions are best for your needs.
900,644 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Construction Company
19%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
8%
Outsourcing Company
6%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Outsourcing Company
10%
Computer Software Company
8%
Marketing Services Firm
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business10
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise12
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 Zero Trust Platform?
In my opinion, Cloudflare One can be improved mainly through compatibility, as the integration should be much simpler...
What is your primary use case for Cloudflare Zero Trust Platform?
Cloudflare One's primary use case for my organization is to protect servers and to provide remote access with the VPN...
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 primary use case for Cisco Secure Email?
We are using Cisco Secure Email to monitor the outgoing and incoming mail traffic in our financial institute. We have...
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: June 2026.
900,644 professionals have used our research since 2012.