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Cisco Secure Email vs Kaspersky Security for Mail Server 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

Cisco Secure Email
Ranking in Email Security
5th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
62
Ranking in other categories
Cisco Security Portfolio (7th)
Kaspersky Security for Mail...
Ranking in Email Security
30th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
8
Ranking in other categories
Secure Email Gateway (SEG) (11th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2025, in the Email Security category, the mindshare of Cisco Secure Email is 5.8%, down from 8.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Kaspersky Security for Mail Server is 0.7%, down from 0.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Email Security Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Cisco Secure Email5.8%
Kaspersky Security for Mail Server0.7%
Other93.5%
Email Security
 

Featured Reviews

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.
Kamran Bhatti - PeerSpot reviewer
Provides reliable real-time email protection and offers competitive pricing features
Regarding Kaspersky Security for Mail Server, I have not compared with other solutions, but I will compare and provide feedback. It is a reliable and fast security solution, and I can say it blocks better than other competitor software. Kaspersky Security for Mail Server has support for Windows and Linux, but regarding improvement, I have to dig deep and will have to do research on that. I have not checked into much detail about what can be better in Kaspersky Security for Mail Server. I have checked in general. If given some time, I can check and compare with other solutions. Regarding Kaspersky Security for Mail Server, I have found this is quite a good solution. It has a good response and good detection capability. I have not checked other products, so I cannot give any detailed or specific feedback regarding that. From what I have checked from Kaspersky mail security, it is satisfactory.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It has an intuitive, clear graphical interface where you can deploy your policies and understand the overall flow. There are a lot of things that you cannot handle on the graphic interface, like message filters. For this, you need to go to a lower level where you have more power, like command line interface. So, this solution has the best of both worlds. There are not a lot of bells and whistles. It is more practical with access to most features that you can configure."
"It has the ability to tell us, after an email has been delivered, where else it went, once it got inside. Maybe it's something we wanted it to stop and it didn't stop it, but it notified us later that it was something that it should have stopped. It can give us a trajectory of all the other places that it went internally and it can tell us what files were transferred as well."
"The added value of it is that every migration to a new version is initiated by the Cisco version itself, so that is a bunch of work that you don't have to do on the Cisco ESA system on-premise. As it becomes a safe platform, you don't need to invest anything in your own data center or in your upgrade path."
"It does a great job of preventing spam, malware, and ransomware. I can only go by what people have told me and what I've seen, but I have not seen spam in a year and a half to two years in my own company mailbox. And there are not a lot of catches where it's catching something that should have gotten through, either."
"It's flexible. There are a lot of rules and policies that can be easily applied for certain employees or certain mailboxes."
"There were detailed logs available. That was a seriously good feature... It turns out these were actually spoof emails that came into our environment. I got to know about them from the log system."
"The technical support from Cisco is perfect."
"Anti-Spam and Advanced Malware Protection are the most valuable features... and we also have the option to block Zero-day attacks."
"The integration rate is very high in Kaspersky, which is why most of our customers like it."
"The most valuable feature of the solution stems from the fact that it is a highly reliable and dependable solution."
"I find the product valuable because it provides easy integration with other platforms like Fortinet firewalls."
"We have achieved cost savings of up to thirty percent by using Kaspersky Security for Mail Server."
"The most valuable feature is the straightforward setup."
"You can install the plugins on the same machine hosting your exchange solution. It's a good complement for Sophos security, which scans the traffic before it reaches your mail service. Kaspersky is on the mail server itself while Sophos handles the incoming traffic. With both of them working together, we have the perfect solution for mail."
"The most valuable features are the anti-phishing and anti-spam capabilities."
 

Cons

"If you are not a technical guy, it is hard to maneuver, but as soon as you work on it, it gets better and better. If there was a better way to know how to do things or how to find things, it would be good."
"The management features of the product are not up to date."
"The hardware is not up to the mark. Two to three times a year we have complete downtime."
"I use the search all the time. Sometimes, it is hard to search for things and things are hard to find. People come to me all the time, saying, "This email didn't get through." Then, I go searching and don't find it on the first search. You have to think about alternative searches. I don't know if there is an easier way that they could help to find things. I don't know how they could simplify it, because now everybody else is using the cloud and everything is coming from Office 365, or whatever. It is just not the same environment from years ago where everybody had their own server and you could search easier."
"I would like to see features like AI since it is currently an area that the product lacks."
"Many smaller businesses opt for more cost-effective solutions, such as Gmail or Hotmail accounts, instead of investing in Cisco Secure Email, given its higher cost."
"I would like them to add some clustering or high availability features."
"The area of license renewal should be improved. We normally renew our license every year. There is a feature called smart licensing, and I switched from the legacy mode to the smart licensing mode because of what I thought smart licensing does. I thought it would make licensing renewal seamless and very swift, but ever since I've switched to smart licensing, each time I want to renew my license, it is a whole lot of headache. The process is not smooth, and I had to keep calling Cisco TAC to see how the issue can be resolved. At one point, I wanted to revert back to the legacy mode, but I can't revert. Once you switch from the legacy mode to the smart licensing mode, you can't revert. They should improve on the visibility of the smart licensing mode so that it can indeed be smart and easier to use for the license renewal every year. That is one challenge."
"Kaspersky lacks in the area of customization, so simpler customization options need to be provided to users."
"The biggest problem in the solution is related to its license renewal since it is pretty hard in Kaspersky to find out the procedure to renew a license."
"I rated the overall solution a five out of ten. If a user is looking for a low-budget solution with mid-level security without AI features, Kaspersky Security for Mail Server is suitable."
"I have only made contact via email, and it is a little slow. I would give customer service a rating of six or seven. Improving Spanish support would greatly benefit users."
"It would be great if Kaspersky could do what Sophos does for us. However, we love having these two different technologies doing the same thing. Sometimes Sophos has the patch to block a novel threat, but Kaspersky doesn't."
"The solution is not 100 percent stable and that can use improvement."
"Encrypted email attachments are not being monitored by this solution, which is an area that they need to work on."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It's adapted to the market. It's similar to other vendors. We at least don't have many problems regarding that because Cisco is adaptable on that side. When we present the solutions to the customers, we tend to achieve the goals that the customer has in terms of the budget for such implementations."
"Licensing costs depend on how many users there are. It could range between $5 and $7 per month, per user."
"I would rate the pricing a ten out of ten, where one is cheap, and ten is expensive."
"The product's price falls on the higher side when compared to the other products on the market."
"It is not that costly. We pay for the solution through a contractor and pay an annual fee."
"It is a reasonably priced solution."
"It is a super big router that costs a few hundred thousand dollars."
"The license was not per user, the license model was per feature. You could choose anti-virus, anti-spam, etc. It was feature-based and charged yearly."
"My company makes annual payments towards the licensing costs solution."
"The solution is not expensive."
"The solution offers one of the best prices possible to its users, making it even better than Barracuda. Kaspersky Security for Mail Server is ten times cheaper than Barracuda."
"Price-wise, I would rate this product a four out of five. It could be a bit cheaper."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
20%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Government
6%
Computer Software Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Retailer
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business22
Midsize Enterprise18
Large Enterprise25
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business6
Large Enterprise3
 

Questions from the Community

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 be beneficial to have the functionality of the Email Threat Defense integrated i...
What do you like most about Kaspersky Security for Mail Server?
The most valuable feature of the solution stems from the fact that it is a highly reliable and dependable solution.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Kaspersky Security for Mail Server?
The pricing is moderate. It is not expensive but not cheap either. For Mexico, a good price is about 20 dollars per agent.
What needs improvement with Kaspersky Security for Mail Server?
Regarding Kaspersky Security for Mail Server, I have not compared with other solutions, but I will compare and provide feedback. It is a reliable and fast security solution, and I can say it blocks...
 

Also Known As

Cisco Email Security, IronPort, Cisco Email Security, ESA, Email Security Appliances
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

SUNY Old Westbury, CoxHealth, City of Fullerton, Indra
Vimpel Com, Estrella Galicia, Krombacher
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco Secure Email vs. Kaspersky Security for Mail Server and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.
867,349 professionals have used our research since 2012.