Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

Cisco Secure Email vs Trend Micro ScanMail 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)
Trend Micro ScanMail
Average Rating
7.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
7
Ranking in other categories
Anti-Malware Tools (20th)
 

Mindshare comparison

Cisco Secure Email and Trend Micro ScanMail aren’t in the same category and 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.
Trend Micro ScanMail, on the other hand, focuses on Anti-Malware Tools, holds 0.7% mindshare, down 0.8% since last year.
Email Security
Anti-Malware Tools
 

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.
Jaffar Ali - PeerSpot reviewer
Ensures continuous protection with real-time scanning of emails and mailboxes
ScanMail needs improvement in its reporting, as it is currently weak in some areas. Additionally, the response time of their technical support is slow and needs enhancement. Overall, Trend Micro's technical support has deteriorated, and pricing is another area that requires attention. The list pricing is high, and we lose deals against competitors because of this. Trend Micro should consider reducing their prices, especially for large customers.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It has an intuitive, clear graphical interface where you can deploy your policies and understand the overall flow. There are a lot of things that you cannot handle on the graphic interface, like message filters. For this, you need to go to a lower level where you have more power, like command line interface. So, this solution has the best of both worlds. There are not a lot of bells and whistles. It is more practical with access to most features that you can configure."
"The system provides our service desk with the means to troubleshoot email delivery issues with ease."
"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."
"Because we scan products, and there is a lot of critical data, security is very important in these cases."
"We rely heavily on antivirus protection, email content filtering, and authentication mechanisms to ensure compliance with email security. Regarding phishing attempts, while phishing protection features are crucial, we also emphasize user education as a critical defence. The intelligence services Cisco provides, such as the Cisco Intelligence Center, play a significant role in analyzing and validating threats, including phishing attempts, in our email security practices."
"The tech engineers are very knowledgeable."
"Cisco Secure Email Cloud Gateway has allowed our users to be able to concentrate on the emails that they do receive. Previously, our users had to deal with nine million additional emails across the organization, which is nearly 1,000 emails per user to have to deal with a month. That's a massive amount for our staff to deal with and probably several hours of their time. We have a lot of clinical staff, being a hospital. We want to make our staff as productive as possible. By removing a lot of that spam and phishing type emails, this allows them to do their job."
"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..."
"Its integration with mail platforms is valuable."
"I find Trend Micro ScanMail to be a stable solution, and I would rate its stability as nine out of ten."
"The analysis part is good."
"It does the job. Even when our clients have a very high rate of emails per second, there has been no problem."
"The most effective feature of ScanMail is its real-time antivirus behaviors, particularly when it scans URLs."
"I like that Trend Micro ScanMail is very effective and quite strong."
"What I like the most about Trend Micro ScanMail is its easiness."
"The most effective feature of ScanMail is its real-time antivirus behaviors, particularly when it scans URLs."
 

Cons

"There are some concerns in the way the architecture is set up, making it an area where improvements are required."
"I would like more functionality and how to use it for Level 2 type staff. The biggest issue is it needs to be easier to use and navigate."
"It is not user-friendly, and it is quite complicated. So, it should be more user-friendly."
"They can do it better with web links, with the URLs. They have a technology called Outbreak but it doesn't work as well as we would like."
"I would like them to add some clustering or high availability features."
"Cisco Email Secure's pricing needs to be less. We have vendors who provide cheaper solutions with the same features."
"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."
"The scalability must be improved."
"ScanMail needs improvement in its reporting, as it is currently weak in some areas."
"Its user interface is pretty old-fashioned, and sometimes, it's hard to find the features that you are looking for. The user interface definitely needs some improvement."
"The weaknesses of Trend Micro ScanMail are that it doesn't fully protect ad-based web access and lacks proper security for Outlook, iOS, and web browser access."
"ScanMail was one of the best solutions a few years ago, but it is no longer the best solution because of its old-fashioned management console. Customers associate it with something that is old because there is no change in the management console. It has old icons, and it is not fresh enough. It is also not easy to use or play with. The report engine is also old-fashioned. Customers want something easier, quicker, and cleaner."
"The price could be better. I think it's pretty good compared to other solutions as far as the features are concerned. It basically covers most of the stuff which we require for email security. But it would be better if they made it a little cheaper and more cost-effective. That would make it easier for us to sell it."
"I believe there is room for improvement in better signatures, better reporting features, and more insight into the spam emails database."
"ScanMail needs improvement in its reporting, as it is currently weak in some areas."
"The sandboxing part can be improved."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"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."
"It is a reasonably priced solution."
"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."
"The product's price falls on the higher side when compared to the other products on the market."
"It is a super big router that costs a few hundred thousand dollars."
"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."
"We do annual licensing for Cisco Secure Email Gatewayand SMA together, and possibly SmartNet support. Packaged together, the cost is just under $38,000."
"It is an expensive solution. I rate the pricing a seven out of ten."
"Its price is okay. It is not too high."
"It's a yearly subscription, but the price could be better."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Email Security solutions are best for your needs.
865,295 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

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

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 do you like most about Trend Micro ScanMail?
What I like the most about Trend Micro ScanMail is its easiness.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Trend Micro ScanMail?
Trend Micro ScanMail is priced in the middle range—not too expensive and not too cheap. In my experience, there are more costly solutions available, but this one provides a balanced cost.
What needs improvement with Trend Micro ScanMail?
I believe there is room for improvement in better signatures, better reporting features, and more insight into the spam emails database.
 

Also Known As

Cisco Email Security, IronPort, Cisco Email Security, ESA, Email Security Appliances
ScanMail
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

SUNY Old Westbury, CoxHealth, City of Fullerton, Indra
L&T Chiyoda, Assaf Harofeh Medical Center, Atlanta Gastroenterology Associates, Atma Jaya Catholic University of Indonesia, Bishop Luffa School, Brooks Rehabilitation, CHR de la Citadelle, CHRU de Nancy
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft, Proofpoint, Abnormal Security and others in Email Security. Updated: July 2025.
865,295 professionals have used our research since 2012.