What is our primary use case?
We are a managed service provider, and many of our customers have email on-premises with Microsoft Exchange Servers or through cloud-based services like Microsoft 365. They weren't satisfied with built-in spam filtering, received too many spam emails, and suffered from phishing attacks etc. This highlighted the need for a robust anti-spam solution for us to roll out for our clients, and we decided to go with TitanHQ SpamTitan. We've had a good relationship since then, and they cloud host our instance of SpamTitan; it's otherwise managed by us internally.
How has it helped my organization?
I don't think that's sort of in the scope of this type of product. So no, I don't think it really applies.
What is most valuable?
I like that advanced features such as DKIM signing are integrated into SpamTitan. It works well, and setting up DKIM can be cumbersome for many email servers, particularly with Microsoft Exchange. DKIM signing verifies the sender's authenticity by applying a signature to outgoing emails, and it was straightforward to set up within the solution.
TitanHQ support is very helpful and responsive. When we wanted to make changes, needed assistance customizing the solution, or had any concerns, they are there for us, and that's a key feature.
When clients approach us looking for tech services, we put together a proposal to address their needs, and if those include email security and anti-spam, we pitch SpamTitan. The price is per user, and we set up the solution in front of the client's email service. The product filters all incoming and potentially outgoing emails, allowing only the clean ones through.
We appreciate how customizable and flexible the solution is. It allows us to operate how we want, especially as we have our own instance. We have two of them in a cluster for redundancy, and we can go in and make whatever changes we require with no problems.
We have a good partner relationship with our TitanHQ sales rep. They are very responsive in terms of support; our concerns are taken seriously and resolved appropriately. We are an SMB and work primarily with other SMBs, so vendor relationships and trust are essential to us. When partnered with a gigantic company, there is a risk of our voice going unheard when we have complaints, which hasn't happened with TitanHQ.
Regarding filtering emails, we have two main requirements: reducing the spam cluttering users' inboxes and, more importantly, filtering out malicious emails containing viruses, malware, phishing attacks, etc. The product has done a great job filtering those out, and when it comes to security, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. The consequences of a malicious email getting through are potentially very severe, and the system could be compromised.
It can be hard to quantify as users aren't even aware of the viruses, malware, and phishing emails SpamTitan rejects before reaching their mailboxes. I'm sure it's saving employees' time, as just one malicious email can cost a significant amount of productivity. If someone's account is compromised, even if there are no other adverse effects, we still need to reset their credentials and multi-factor authentication. The more significant concern of an account being compromised is data leakage; if a bad actor got in and saw our emails, what sort of information can they glean from that, and how can they use it? We saw cases before we started to use SpamTitan, or in our clients who don't use the product, where malicious actors got in and were able to run financial scams because they could get into the emails and see invoices being sent to customers. Preventing these situations is one of the key selling points of the solution, and it has increased our spam catch rate and reduced the number of false positives.
What needs improvement?
The authentication functionality could be improved. We liked having a single sign-on approach in that our customers could use the same username and password for their workstation, email, and spam filter. That integrates very well in an on-premise environment. Microsoft has since moved away from some of its legacy authentication methods, so it's no longer possible for our clients to use the exact login details for SpamTitan and Microsoft 365. SpamTitan has yet to introduce modern authentication methods. Although we can use the solution's native multi-factor authentication, it isn't compatible with Microsoft 365's MFA, requiring the use of different usernames and passwords. It would be great if TitanHQ could improve that to be compatible with modern authentication.
There is room for improvement in automation; better wizards for deployment, for example.
For how long have I used the solution?
We have been using the solution since April 2019, and we've filtered over 20 million emails for our customers.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
We've had one major outage since 2019, where one of our nodes was taken down, and the other was impacted, but not entirely down. We needed support to get up and running, but the solution is 100% stable apart from that occasion. It's not perfect, but no cloud service is, and I would say that one issue over three years of use makes SpamTitan a highly reliable product.
I'd say the stability is comparable with other solutions. When we were with Roaring Penguin, there were one or two outages over a similar period. No product is up 100% of the time. When cloud services go down, we feel it because there isn't anything we can do, but SpamTitan has very high uptime, and I think most cloud services have very high uptimes.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
We haven't had any scalability issues; our two nodes have handled all the traffic we're throwing at it, so we haven't had to scale beyond our initial deployment. TitanHQ manages that for us, and we don't have to pay any mind to scale resources in terms of CPU and RAM. At one point, they may have increased logging disk space. Other than that, there has been no need to scale.
How are customer service and support?
I rate them a 10 out of 10. The support isn't 24/7, so tickets submitted on the weekend may not be answered until Monday, and there is a time difference as they are based in Ireland. We brought this up with our rep, and they gave us a direct line to get support from a technician in urgent scenarios. We used that once and woke the technician up on the other end. TitanHQ always adequately addressed our concerns; they took the step to make up for the issues we raised about the availability of technical support, which is very valuable.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We have a large customer base, so we inherit the different solutions that come with them; that's a lot of different products. We had clients using Microsoft 365's built-in spam filter, GFI MailEssentials, and other on-premise solutions, so we became familiar with these products. As an MSP, we don't necessarily dictate our customers' solutions. We provided firewalls with email filters from a vendor called eSoft, then acquired by Untangle, and an anti-spam solution by Roaring Penguin Software. They were purchased by N-able, which shut down the service and pushed for our clients to move to Mail Assure. We were satisfied with Roaring Penguin and didn't like Mail Assure, which triggered our search for a new solution to offer our customers. There was also an internal goal to standardize in our company, to focus on one solution.
We chose SpamTitan because it was closer to what we were used to with Roaring Penguin; it was cleaner and more straightforward than the other products. Mail Assure, for example, had a confusing interface, so we went with SpamTitan as our first cloud-hosted solution.
How was the initial setup?
We went with the cloud-hosted solution, so we didn't have to install anything, TitanHQ deployed it for us in the sense that they configured the environment.
In terms of deployment between my company and our customers, it's straightforward. There are just a few steps to add a new customer: adding their domain, adding the point where the mail is going, configuring the settings according to their requirements, and documenting the process. It only took us a few deployments to become very proficient at it. However, some automation, especially in the form of a deployment wizard to assist in setup, would be a welcome improvement.
There is always a tradeoff between feature-rich products and ease of configuration or complexity of setup. I would say SpamTitan is a happy medium, there are a lot of settings and a corresponding learning curve, but the documentation and support are there to make that process smooth. The UI is also user-friendly and straightforward, with little help buttons and question marks to click for more details. Configuration isn't any more difficult than I would expect with a feature-rich, complex product. Especially a spam filtering solution as it's such a cat and mouse game, it's never going to be one-size-fits-all. Our customers have widely differing requirements, so customization is vital.
The maintenance is very light. The only maintenance requirements are occasional configuration backups and upgrades and version upgrades. Those consist of clicking install, next, and done, so maintenance is simple.
What was our ROI?
Any security solution is generally a good return on investment, whether it's spam filtering, antivirus, firewalls etc. We can't be sure what we have been protected from and what may have happened if we didn't have the protection SpamTitan provides.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The pricing and licensing are acceptable. The licensing is somewhat different; TitanHQ gives us a peak cap of simultaneous users, which they calculate as the number of email addresses viewed through so many days or weeks. That's considered our number of users, but it isn't always a one-to-one relationship, making it harder to resell. We can't say precisely that the solution costs X per month per user, but that's how we present the price to potential customers, and we just ensure we receive more than we pay to TitanHQ. The licensing hasn't caused us any problems, but it would be better if the pricing were per-user. I know that's not easy to achieve on a technical level.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
We looked at the N-able Mail Assure solution and a Barracuda spam filtering product. We did the sales calls, received demos, and got quotes for pricing, but the SpamTitan UI won it for us.
What other advice do I have?
I would rate this solution a 10 out of 10.
We implemented the geo-blocking feature due to concerns coming out of Ukraine and Russia, so we decided to geo-block emails from that part of the world. Unfortunately, this isn't the product's fault; it didn't work for our customers because they had legitimate vendors or partners in that region. We had to turn the feature off because it interrupted our customers' business. That is not to say geo-blocking isn't a good feature; it just hasn't been compatible with our customers' needs. I can see how this feature could be handy in the future.
I would advise reading the documentation and reaching out to support if you need any help. They're very helpful.
Disclosure: PeerSpot contacted the reviewer to collect the review and to validate authenticity. The reviewer was referred by the vendor, but the review is not subject to editing or approval by the vendor. The reviewer's company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Partner