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Fortinet FortiMail vs Fortra's Clearswift Secure Email Gateway comparison

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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
6.8
Number of Reviews
68
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Fortra's Clearswift Secure ...
Ranking in Email Security
31st
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 October 2026, in the Email Security category, the mindshare of Fortinet FortiMail is 2.7%, down from 3.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Fortra's Clearswift Secure Email Gateway is 1.3%, up from 0.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Email Security Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Fortinet FortiMail2.7%
Fortra's Clearswift Secure Email Gateway1.3%
Other96.0%
Email Security
 

Featured Reviews

Abhimanyu Das - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Cybersecurity Engineer at Kyndryl
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

"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."
"Through Fortinet FortiMail, we can perfectly authenticate each local mail service and mail release so that only authenticated mail goes out from our domain."
"FortiMail has a low cost and high support."
"The solution is very, very stable."
"The solution is very reliable and very stable."
"The product's initial setup phase was very easy."
"FortiMail effectively filters all emails coming to our mail server, blocking malicious ones automatically."
"Technical support is very good."
"Go for it! I think it's an excellent product with great technical support."
"A stable solution."
"We use a few features for web proxy, and another feature is the email content filter and malware for our internal policy in the email content."
"Ability to create your own content-filtering policies with relative ease."
 

Cons

"Sometimes, the tool flags legitimate incoming traffic as spam."
"It is not easy to install."
"What's missing in Fortinet FortiMail is some sandbox information for some of the emails. It's probably configuration-based, where it could be configured on some emails. For example, there was malware in some emails that weren't detected in some of the Fortinet FortiMail sessions, but it should have been configured from my company's end to better catch scam emails, but overall, the solution is okay. At the moment, my company is okay with the current Fortinet FortiMail offerings, but in the past, because of a lack of understanding, my team wasn't able to quickly implement the geographical IP blocking feature. It was time-consuming to implement that feature, but that wasn't a fault of Fortinet FortiMail. The issue was from my team's end, but just by emailing the support team, that issue was resolved, so right now, there isn't any additional feature I'd like added to Fortinet FortiMail."
"The product should work on licensing and provide more detail once the license is selected for the customer."
"The solution's pricing could be improved."
"Such kinds of things, raised from the point from the objective actually, we are using Fortinet FortiMail. We don't find any kinds of challenge or difficulties, but Fortinet FortiMail is more efficient and more effective for us. I don't know for other client, but for us, Fortinet FortiMail is very effective Like, for instance, if it is possible, let's say some kind of high threat is actually encountered if it could be possible to SMBs in our smartphone, or mobile apps, kinds of thing, if Fortinet FortiMail is available to monitor the thing using from our mobile phone from our smartphone. If such kinds of things are truly included, it will be more or good for us."
"The product could incorporate even more artificial intelligence to enhance the functionality, but it is a competetive and intelligent product as it."
"Sometimes, authentic emails get blocked by the solution's firewall."
"FTP server and TRUST Manager functionality."
"I am not satisfied with Clearswift because of the lack of customer support."
"Malware needs improvement."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Fortinet FortiMail is a little bit expensive."
"There is a license required for this solution."
"There is a license required for this solution and it is on an annual basis. I am satisfied with the price."
"If you don't need the full bundle that includes everything, you have options for the small or medium enterprise environments."
"The pricing is good."
"There is either an annual or six-month charge to use this solution. Fortinet FortiMail is cheaper than Proofpoint or Cisco Security, or other email security appliances."
"Price-wise, the solution is not far from Microsoft ATP. So, it is affordable."
"I have no information on pricing for the competition because right now, my company is working only with Fortinet, but I can say that in general, the price for Fortinet FortiMail was accepted by the customers easily. The POC is also important when a customer is buying a solution. The customer wants to see how the product runs, and as Fortinet FortiMail is a stable product that runs without big issues, it has a bigger chance of getting chosen by customers over its competitors, even if its price may be a little higher. Pricing for the solution is competitive. Sometimes it's less, sometimes it's a little bit higher, but it isn't far from what other solutions charge."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
9%
Construction Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Computer Software Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Construction Company
11%
Retailer
9%
Comms Service Provider
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business33
Midsize Enterprise23
Large Enterprise14
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Fortinet FortiMail?
I think they should improve Fortinet FortiMail on-premises by enhancing its user interface. Additional features they could have in the future would include advanced analytics capabilities. I do thi...
What is your primary use case for Fortinet FortiMail?
I do have a partnership with Fortinet. I have been both a partner and reseller.
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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: September 2026.
914,938 professionals have used our research since 2012.