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Fortinet FortiMail vs Fortra's Clearswift Secure Email Gateway comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 3, 2024

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

Fortinet FortiMail
Ranking in Email Security
6th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
67
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Fortra's Clearswift Secure ...
Ranking in Email Security
39th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
0
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Email Security category, the mindshare of Fortinet FortiMail is 3.5%, down from 5.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Fortra's Clearswift Secure Email Gateway is 1.0%, up from 0.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Email Security Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Fortinet FortiMail3.5%
Fortra's Clearswift Secure Email Gateway1.0%
Other95.5%
Email Security
 

Featured Reviews

Abhimanyu Das - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Associate at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Targeted email filtering has reduced spam and phishing and now saves significant investigation time
The best features of Fortinet FortiMail include its techniques and tactics, which are highly effective compared to other solutions such as Microsoft 365. Although Fortinet FortiMail may not be as advanced in some aspects, it is well recognized for its strong performance in handling spam and phishing. It performs thorough mail scanning and also offers a sandboxing feature that enhances protection. Fortinet FortiMail has had a positive impact on my organization by significantly reducing unwanted email activities such as spam and phishing. It provides accurate detection and generates results that often exceed what can be achieved through manual analysis. Since deploying Fortinet FortiMail, I have observed a reduction in investigation time by at least 20 to 30 percent.
PC
Systems Administrator at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees
Stable, but malware needs improvement and customer support is poor
They need to improve the malware in the product. I am not satisfied with Clearswift because of the lack of customer support. The support is poor, the supplier takes a lot of time and it's expensive. We have some issues here when I contact the supplier, it takes a lot of time for them to get back to us but there's no solution. I am now looking at Symantec as a possible alternative.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"They have a feature called CDR, Content Disarm, Reconstruction, click protection, and DLP for encryption purposes."
"Fortinet utilizes specialized processing units, which network faster and sample more efficiently compared to others."
"The number of false positives is minimal."
"I would rate Fortinet FortiMail ten out of ten overall."
"The key benefits of this solution are its user-friendly interface and clear instructions, as well as the wealth of online resources and helpful health community available for support. These features make it easy for users to navigate and utilize the solution effectively."
"The important feature is the application control, which makes administration much easier. It also has an intrusion prevention feature. There's also the wireless functionality, which works well with Huawei devices."
"It can block a lot of fake emails."
"One major benefit of the Fortinet FortiMail product is its ease of management."
"Ability to create your own content-filtering policies with relative ease."
"A stable solution."
 

Cons

"I have little to say about possible improvements, but the configuration for content blocking could be better. So, for example, if the email includes the line "You have a Bitcoin", I would like it to be easier to block it before it enters an inbox. Fortinet could maybe offer better or simpler help on how to do this properly."
"The security products stop their operations once the subscription period expires. It is a wrong policy. If I trust a product, it has to continue working even after expiry. It should have a grace period of 30, 40, or 60 days. We can extend the subscription during those days. In some places, subscription extensions can take up to six weeks. During the renewal process, the support offered by the company is very poor. It also reduces security. We pay for the expired period but do not get protection during those times. The user of Fortinet FortiMail should have a feature to see spam names."
"The sandboxing features are not well done in Fortinet FortiMail, making it an area of improvement."
"An additional feature that could be added is a pop-up screen notifying you that an email has been blocked, without having to double click on it to take you there it could provide you with a summary explaining why it was on hold or why was it spam when you hover over it with your cursor."
"FortiMail's dashboard is somewhat complex and could be made simpler."
"The product should work on licensing and provide more detail once the license is selected for the customer."
"Fortinet FortiMail's technical support team has shortcomings and needs improvement."
"The solution lacks to provide more visibility when there is a problem, and it needs to be tracked."
"FTP server and TRUST Manager functionality."
"Malware needs improvement."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I find Fortinet FortiMail pricing reasonable. There's no additional cost apart from its standard licensing fees."
"The pricing is on the higher side."
"The annual cost is $55,000."
"The fees for Fortinet FortiMail can be complicated. However, overall the pricing is fair."
"It is a fairly priced product, considering what it does. The product offers good value for the money users spend on it."
"Pricing is based on initial license purchase and use volume."
"The pricing is good."
"There is a license required for this solution."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
6%
Computer Software Company
12%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Educational Organization
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business32
Midsize Enterprise22
Large Enterprise15
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Fortinet FortiMail?
In my opinion, points for improvement for Fortinet FortiMail include sometimes the speed and fine-tuning the false positive problems, especially with the signed PDF attachments and the whitelist an...
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Earn 20 points
 

Also Known As

FortiMail
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Magromer Cueros y Pieles S.A.
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about Fortinet FortiMail vs. Fortra's Clearswift Secure Email Gateway and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.
881,082 professionals have used our research since 2012.