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Fortinet FortiMail vs Kiteworks 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
8th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
68
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Kiteworks
Ranking in Email Security
27th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
13
Ranking in other categories
Enterprise Content Management (15th), Managed File Transfer (MFT) (7th), Content Collaboration Platforms (14th), Secure Email Gateway (SEG) (9th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of November 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 Kiteworks is 0.9%, up from 0.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Email Security Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Fortinet FortiMail2.7%
Kiteworks0.9%
Other96.4%
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.
KT
Associate Consultant at a tech consulting company with 10,001+ employees
Streamlined global file sharing with user-friendly interface and self-service capabilities
I'm not a network expert, however, there must be some room for improvement. Perhaps there could be a notification to users about their bandwidth or network packet loss. If users receive such notifications, they can understand any disruptions are due to issues with their network or bandwidth rather than the site or Kiteworks. Additionally, I work from offshore India, and I told my client manager to communicate with the Kiteworks forum salesman regarding one feature. I noticed the Kiteworks login UI is very basic, lacking customization. Allowing more HTML tags to add hyperlinks or user-friendly information on the home page would be very useful.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Technical support is great. They're available 24/7 and their response time is typically within the hour."
"The anti-spam feature is very valuable."
"I think the spamming feature is very valuable."
"The anti-spam features are valuable."
"One major benefit of the Fortinet FortiMail product is its ease of management."
"Fortinet FortiMail is a very good product and reliable, and we find it easy to sell it."
"The spam filtering is great."
"This excellent email gateway minimizes spam, inspects suspicious emails and isolates infected attachments with little administrative effort."
"I like Kiteworks or Accellion because it's continuously upgraded. I also know that it probably works with a lot of clients."
"The most valuable aspect of Kiteworks is undoubtedly the private content network. This feature is particularly beneficial for us. Furthermore, it serves as a centralized platform that enables us to track and manage our information exchange."
"The benefits that Kiteworks has provided to its customers in terms of data sovereignty."
"The most valuable feature is the ability to send a large file of 30 GB in size and more. In Outlook and other email applications, you cannot send files that are larger than 20 MB. But with Kiteworks, 30 GB is transferable by default and, with the proper approval, a file of up to 100 GB can be sent. It makes file transfer very easy and smooth."
"Kiteworks is easy to manage and maintain with a user-friendly interface and I recommend it to anyone that requires a file-sharing system that supports SFTP."
"As a file-sharing application, it's an absolute 10 out of 10."
"We could see whether the customer with whom we shared a file had downloaded it, which was not available with GitHub."
"The best part of this solution is that we can generate multiple reports about how the data is transferred and about user information or IP."
 

Cons

"A room for improvement in Fortinet FortiMail is that it only has a hardware version. I also didn't find the solution scalable, so that's another area for improvement."
"The solution could be improved by providing a virtual machine facility with a complete set of options in the VM setup and by enhancing the clarity of the information supplied for content filtering."
"Sometimes, authentic emails get blocked by the solution's firewall."
"Limited ability to upgrade hardware may lead to some performance issues that might otherwise be improved."
"It is not easy to install."
"I don't know if it is possible, but I would like to see Artificial Intelligence and machine learning introduced."
"The solution could improve by making the UI more user-friendly and increasing spam and threat detection capabilities."
"I'll rate it higher when it can be easier to configure or connect to the cloud to report on the attachments."
"File location could be improved."
"In my experience, their technical support can be a little slow."
"We have experienced some issues with stability due to bugs."
"The system is extremely stable, but because it is a "COTS" system access is restricted and you must use the solution's support to make even simple changes, which increases the downtime."
"Kiteworks could benefit from enhancing the proposal knowledge base section, specifically regarding the type of work involved. Currently, the knowledge base seems insufficiently dedicated to this topic, making it challenging for new users to access the relevant administrative law. Improving the visual aids and providing clearer explanations could alleviate this issue."
"We have experienced a few hiccups and bugs when using the admin console and from a user perspective."
"We mainly had stability issues with kiteworks, where we were pushing the limits of its capability."
"The one feature, which I have also requested directly to Kiteworks, is to have a scheduled upgrade function. Currently, one of my engineers logs in after hours for the upgrade. We're a hospital, and we're 24/7, but the primary users are seven to five. So, we log in the early evening just to push a button to tell it to do the update. It would be nice if that could be very easily scheduled."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"This is a good solution and value for the money."
"The solution is reasonably priced compared to one of its competitors."
"It's not as that expensive with the competitive different brands. The products sell a lot."
"It is a fairly priced product, considering what it does. The product offers good value for the money users spend on it."
"My company has a three-year license for Fortinet FortiMail, including the support, but I'm not so sure of how much the solution costs because I'm not part of the procurement team. What's more important to me is the functionality and stability of Fortinet FortiMail. In terms of Fortinet FortiMail licensing, the cost is calculated based on company requirements. For example, it's based on the features you need for your environment, on capacity, how many CPUs you have, etc."
"FortiMail has extra charges for installation, configuration, and project management."
"The tool is very expensive."
"In terms of licensing, we are using a virtual machine license for the single virtual server which it runs on. Doing it this way enables us to cut costs by only licensing FortiMail for our exact use case. If you need to expand in future, you can later buy extra licenses per virtual machine."
"I believe it's a little costly, but given the faith that we put into it from a security perspective to maintain the integrity of our patient information that is being transferred through this system, that's a small price to pay. So, on the surface, it might look like a lot of money, but depending on the need for security, which is where we feel it shines, it's okay price-wise."
"The license management is changing and confusing. If I could make one change to it, it would be better license management through the API."
"They changed it midstream. We were being charged a certain flat rate for SFTP traffic. For whatever reason, at the beginning of the year, our pricing changed, and we are now being charged more for using a feature of the product than we were when we first bought it. That has been our experience with billing. It turned out to be more expensive than when we started with it."
"The price of Kiteworks is reasonable."
"It is not really expensive. I mean, to me it's obviously expensive, but it's worth it."
"The solution is very expensive because we are buying with Malaysian Ringgit and it's sold in US dollars."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
10%
Construction Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Outsourcing Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Comms Service Provider
11%
Government
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business33
Midsize Enterprise23
Large Enterprise14
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business3
Large Enterprise11
 

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.
What is Kiteworks?
Kiteworks is a secured file sharing platform that enables users to collaborate with different parties across a robust offering of secured protected channels. Users have the option of virtual privat...
What needs improvement with Kiteworks?
I'm not a network expert, however, there must be some room for improvement. Perhaps there could be a notification to users about their bandwidth or network packet loss. If users receive such notifi...
What advice do you have for others considering Kiteworks?
Scalability is impressive. It can be highly available, resilient, and scalable infrastructure. I can confidently give it a nine. It suits any level of organization, whether a small setup with two a...
 

Also Known As

FortiMail
Accellion
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Magromer Cueros y Pieles S.A.
United States Securities and Exchange Commission, National Health Service, Husch Blackwell LLP, NYC Health + Hospitals, Viatris, MITRE Corporation, Chubb, Kraft Heinz, KPMG, Kohler, National Institute of Standards and Technology, Purdue Pharma, AVL
Find out what your peers are saying about Fortinet FortiMail vs. Kiteworks and other solutions. Updated: November 2026.
920,769 professionals have used our research since 2012.