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Cisco Secure Email vs Symantec Messaging Gateway comparison

 

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

Cisco Secure Email
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
62
Ranking in other categories
Email Security (5th), Cisco Security Portfolio (7th)
Symantec Messaging Gateway
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
20
Ranking in other categories
Secure Email Gateway (SEG) (6th)
 

Mindshare comparison

While both are Messaging and Collaboration solutions, they serve different purposes. Cisco Secure Email is designed for Email Security and holds a mindshare of 6.1%, down 8.2% compared to last year.
Symantec Messaging Gateway, on the other hand, focuses on Secure Email Gateway (SEG), holds 2.6% mindshare, up 2.1% since last year.
Email Security
Secure Email Gateway (SEG)
 

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.
Girish Vijay - PeerSpot reviewer
A stable and reasonably priced solution that performs well and has a very good malware database
Since Symantec merged with Broadcom, they might have lost some good technical engineers. Maybe that’s the reason why the product is performing poorly. When we have a good marketing and sales team, even though our product cannot perform, we will sell it at a high price because of the buzzwords. However, at the end of the day, the product should perform. Most of the products might not perform. Symantec is a very good product, but the services are basic. I rate the technical features of the product a nine out of ten. However, I would rate the services provided by the solution a six out of ten. Overall, I rate the tool an eight out of ten.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The tool's most valuable feature in preventing security breaches revolves around the area of malware protection that the product provides."
"The tool has a DLP solution which we can implement. Its database is updated regularly."
"Initially, the most valuable feature for us was the SenderBase Reputation, because that reduced the number of emails that were even considered by the system by a huge number..."
"Cisco Secure Email is a budget-friendly solution."
"The tech engineers are very knowledgeable."
"It's flexible. There are a lot of rules and policies that can be easily applied for certain employees or certain mailboxes."
"The strong point of the solution is that we hardly get any spam emails because of Cisco Secure Email."
"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 most valuable features of Symantec Messaging Gateway are advanced content filtering, malware, and antivirus defense."
"The solution is excellent at blocking spam."
"I like that it's simple and easy to configure, deploy, and manage. The reporting function has all the features we're looking for, and we are fine with that."
"Symantec Messaging Gateway is stable and scalable. Installation is easy, and the deployment and maintenance can be done by one administrative person."
"The anti-malware and spam features are valuable."
"What I like most about Symantec Messaging Gateway is its usability. I also find its interface very friendly. The solution has a very good interface."
"The setup is pretty simple."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is the content filtering policies because the solution offers huge options for configuration, such as hardware manipulation, et cetera, and the dictionaries make the work easier."
 

Cons

"We have occasionally had hardware problems because we are using an appliance-based solution, but that might change. We may consider going to virtual systems."
"The hardware is not up to the mark. Two to three times a year we have complete downtime."
"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 primary areas for improvement are the pricing and the complexity of deployment."
"The Forged Email Detection feature needs improvement, particularly with domain. The sensors are not that good and the rules sets are unclear."
"I have some frustrations with the user experience in the interface, specifically with regard to making a list of people for whom I want to allow email access."
"The management features of the product are not up to date."
"Licensing is quite complicated for a number of customers, including ourselves."
"They have updated the version of the Messaging Gateway and the new features they are adding the need to be re-evaluated. They have done some changes on the policy."
"What's lacking when you compare it with Proofpoint and other threat protection solutions is that it does the basic stuff, but we need more advanced threat handling."
"They really need to create a good package that competes with Microsoft."
"The documentation could have more detailed examples of how to use the product in various situations. As more companies shift to the cloud, they could better integrate the on-prem and cloud versions through an on-prem client."
"Sometimes the solution picks up false positive for viruses during scans."
"It is a nice product but is not user friendly in terms of the graphical interface. It is poor and is not rich in terms of the human interface."
"What needs to be improved in Symantec Messaging Gateway is its local partner support, as it's not as technical. The support my company gets from the partner isn't good. Vendor support is good, but local partner support isn't. I'm happy with Symantec Messaging Gateway as a solution, but the problem is with its partner support. To me, Symantec Messaging Gateway is a complete solution, but it can be very difficult to search the web for resolutions to issues or problems you experience from it. If this could be improved or resolved in the next release of Symantec Messaging Gateway, then that would be good."
"The solution interface is from 2003 and is outdated. Symantec Messaging Gateway needs to update the interface."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It's adapted to the market. It's similar to other vendors. We at least don't have many problems regarding that because Cisco is adaptable on that side. When we present the solutions to the customers, we tend to achieve the goals that the customer has in terms of the budget for such implementations."
"Cisco Secure Email and the support are priced well. It's not cheap, but there are other solutions that offer less and cost so much. For example, Microsoft is more expensive than Cisco."
"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."
"It is a super big router that costs a few hundred thousand dollars."
"It is expensive. I would rate it 2 out of 10, where 1 is the most expensive and 10 is the cheapest."
"It is a reasonably priced solution."
"There are additional fees for adding features."
"The pricing for the Cisco Email Security Appliance involves recurring costs for licenses based on the contracted time frame, such as one year, three years, or five years. Renewals are required after the license expires."
"The cost of Symantec Messaging Gateway is too expensive in general. However, the appliance also includes the price of the license in the same bundle."
"Symantec Messaging Gateway’s pricing is very cheap."
"A subscription for technical support costs extra."
"It's a bit expensive compared to its competitor Barracuda Email Security Gateway but cheaper than Sophos Email."
"For 150 users, we pay INR 1,60,000."
"They're a little costly compared to Microsoft."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
20%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Government
6%
Financial Services Firm
22%
Computer Software Company
16%
Government
9%
Manufacturing Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

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...
What needs improvement with Symantec Messaging Gateway?
The solution takes up a lot of memory. The system becomes slow. The performance must be improved.
What is your primary use case for Symantec Messaging Gateway?
We use the solution to secure our data and emails.
 

Also Known As

Cisco Email Security, IronPort, Cisco Email Security, ESA, Email Security Appliances
Symantec.cloud, Symantec Email Security.cloud
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

SUNY Old Westbury, CoxHealth, City of Fullerton, Indra
Doric, Joblink Plus, Our Lady of Mercy College, Parramatta, PPB Advisory, Slater & Gordon Lawyers, Sydney Adventist Hospital Ltd.
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco Secure Email vs. Symantec Messaging Gateway and other solutions. Updated: January 2024.
865,295 professionals have used our research since 2012.