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Cisco Secure Email vs Trend Micro ScanMail comparison

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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

Microsoft Defender for Offi...
Sponsored
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
52
Ranking in other categories
Email Archiving (1st), Email Security (1st), Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) (2nd), Microsoft Security Suite (10th), Secure Email Gateway (SEG) (1st)
Cisco Secure Email
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
62
Ranking in other categories
Email Security (5th), Cisco Security Portfolio (6th)
Trend Micro ScanMail
Average Rating
7.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
7
Ranking in other categories
Anti-Malware Tools (18th)
 

Mindshare comparison

Email Security
Anti-Malware Tools
 

Featured Reviews

Tolu Omolaja - PeerSpot reviewer
Great URL scanning and attachment scanning, but I would like more proactive threat analysis
The two main features that prove most beneficial for us are URL scanning and attachment scanning. URL scanning involves an automatic scan of links and emails. When a user clicks on a link within an email, the system promptly checks the link's safety. If the link is deemed safe, access is granted automatically. However, if it is flagged as unsafe, we receive feedback and notification to caution us about the potentially harmful link. At this point, we are presented with the option to proceed or return. I have personally witnessed the system identify a few unsafe links, making this the primary advantage of using the solution. The second crucial aspect is the scanning of attachments. When an email containing an attachment arrives, we receive a notification of the new email, along with information that the attachment is being scanned for threats. This additional layer of security provides peace of mind for our organization. While Microsoft Defender for Office 365 offers numerous features, these two stand out as particularly impressive and valuable to us.
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

"The most valuable feature is protection against malicious links, fishing, and impersonation. You can train people to be aware of these threats, but they're not always careful. When they're using their phones between meetings, they click on a link, and it's game over."
"The most valuable feature of Microsoft Defender for Office 365 is data backups that we can provide through ticket requests."
"The DLP feature of Microsoft Defender for Office 365 is valuable, and we also use the DLP feature for email real-time detection."
"There are several features that I consider valuable."
"The product is not resource-intensive."
"Microsoft Defender for Office 365's most valuable features are safe attachments and safe links."
"Microsoft Defender for Office 365 is a stable solution."
"I would say that 90% of the spam and phishing attack emails get blocked right off the bat."
"What I find the most valuable about Cisco Secure Email is that the logs are not that difficult to see even if you're not used to them. The logs are reasonably readable and diagnosing the problem is not too hard with them."
"The most valuable features are Advanced Malware Protection, URL filtering, and of course Reputation Filtering."
"Cisco Secure Email has strong inbound services."
"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."
"The malicious URL scanning, as well as the anti-malware features, have been really useful for us in our environment."
"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."
"Anti-Spam and Advanced Malware Protection are the most valuable features... and we also have the option to block Zero-day attacks."
"It provides good IT assistance."
"The most effective feature of ScanMail is its real-time antivirus behaviors, particularly when it scans URLs."
"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."
"What I like the most about Trend Micro ScanMail is its easiness."
"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."
"Its integration with mail platforms is valuable."
"I like that Trend Micro ScanMail is very effective and quite strong."
 

Cons

"The visibility for the weaknesses in the system and unauthorized access can be improved."
"Microsoft Defender for Office 365 could improve by giving customers information on techniques to prevent threats. For example, information about best practices on how to protect their own devices against hackers and scammers, such as educational information or training. This would help others have a better understanding of cyber security. Additionally, there can be more security features added."
"In some situations, it has not been able to pick impersonated emails having no attachments. Technical support definitely has a scope for improvement."
"The GUI is sometimes slow to fetch the device report and could be improved."
"Microsoft could improve by offering recommendations for domain spoofing attacks, especially scenarios where DNS records like SPF, DKIM, and DMARC are not properly published."
"Microsoft needs to broaden its global support presence by establishing teams of subject-matter experts in all regions."
"Too many false positives and lacks an accurate capability to detect malicious SharePoint sites."
"They can improve their security in a way where a customer can know if all their attachments are safe or not to open through a report. The solution does its job perfectly, but it never reports to the customer whether those attachments have been stopped before or not."
"In future releases, I would like to see two main improvements come to mind. First, the current solution requires maintaining two separate operating systems for FTD, which can be cumbersome. I'd love to see a single operating system for the FTD box."
"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."
"I would like to see features like AI since it is currently an area that the product lacks."
"The user interface of the Email Security Gateway should be improved."
"While Cisco offers excellent solutions and innovations, the pricing may not be suitable for everyone. The cost of the software is relatively high. In the current market, there are numerous competitive alternatives that focus on security, enterprise networks, and various other aspects. Cisco, being a comprehensive provider, extends its expertise across data, servers, storage, and security, making them a preferred choice for many enterprises. However, when it comes specifically to security solutions, there are other vendors that specialize solely in this domain, offering competitive options."
"Typically, in a phishing email, they try to use a name everybody's going to recognize, like the CEO's name or the CFO's name... With this appliance, the way it's designed at the moment, for us to really stop that with any level of confidence, we have to build a dictionary of all the names of the people we want it to check, and all the ways they could be spelled. My name would be in there as Phillip Collins, Phillip D. Collins, Phillip Dean Collins, Phil Collins, Phil D. Collins. There could be eight or 10 variations of my name that we'd have to put in the dictionary. There's no artificial intelligence to say "Phil Collins" could be all these other things, and to stop phishing from coming through in that way."
"We have been struggling in the last month with Cisco encryption and with the S/MIME encryption. I don't know if it is an issue on our side or if these features of the solution are not working very well."
"One of the things that Cisco could improve on with IronPort is the support. Cisco doesn't really have enough engineers who have full, hands-on knowledge of IronPort. Knowledge of it is not something you can find easily compared to other security appliances."
"I believe there is room for improvement in better signatures, better reporting features, and more insight into the spam emails database."
"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."
"ScanMail needs improvement in its reporting, as it is currently weak in some areas."
"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 sandboxing part can be improved."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The product is very expensive."
"The product is expensive."
"Defender is a little bit more expensive as compared to others. We are in the manufacturing environment. So, we don't have a high budget for all of our endpoint devices. Its cost is a major concern for us."
"Compared to other brands, Microsoft Defender for Office 365's pricing is competitive."
"From the pricing point of view, like any other product in the market, there is scope for negotiation."
"For licensing, it's usually a yearly package for customers who are subscribed to Office 365, but they can also pay on a monthly basis."
"While Microsoft Defender for Office 365 necessitates pricier E3 or E5 subscriptions, the extensive functionality offered by these licenses across various Microsoft products justifies the investment."
"I know that the product is incredibly expensive."
"Cisco Secure Email is expensive, but we get what we pay for."
"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."
"There are additional fees for adding features."
"It is expensive. I would rate it 2 out of 10, where 1 is the most expensive and 10 is the cheapest."
"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."
"The licensing was all transferred."
"The price is significantly high."
"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."
"Its price is okay. It is not too high."
"It is an expensive solution. I rate the pricing a seven out of ten."
"It's a yearly subscription, but the price could be better."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
16%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
6%
Computer Software Company
20%
Educational Organization
15%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Government
9%
Computer Software Company
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Microsoft Defender for Office 365?
Threat Explorer is an invaluable tool for me, and it plays a crucial role in helping me discern the origins of variou...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Microsoft Defender for Office 365?
Microsoft is quite affordable with a lot of features available for any size organization.
What needs improvement with Microsoft Defender for Office 365?
Microsoft could improve by offering recommendations for domain spoofing attacks, especially scenarios where DNS recor...
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 ...
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 m...
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 sp...
 

Also Known As

MS Defender for Office 365
Cisco Email Security, IronPort, Cisco Email Security, ESA, Email Security Appliances
ScanMail
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Microsoft Defender for Office 365 is trusted by companies such as Ithaca College.
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: June 2025.
860,632 professionals have used our research since 2012.