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Abnormal Security vs Check Point Anti-Spam and Email Security Software Blade 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

Microsoft Defender for Offi...
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Ranking in Email Security
1st
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
52
Ranking in other categories
Email Archiving (1st), Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) (2nd), Microsoft Security Suite (10th), Secure Email Gateway (SEG) (1st)
Abnormal Security
Ranking in Email Security
4th
Average Rating
9.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.9
Number of Reviews
10
Ranking in other categories
Secure Email Gateway (SEG) (2nd)
Check Point Anti-Spam and E...
Ranking in Email Security
11th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
40
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2025, in the Email Security category, the mindshare of Microsoft Defender for Office 365 is 12.6%, down from 17.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Abnormal Security is 7.6%, up from 3.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Check Point Anti-Spam and Email Security Software Blade is 0.9%, up from 0.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Email Security
 

Featured Reviews

Tolu Omolaja - PeerSpot reviewer
Great URL scanning and attachment scanning, but I would like more proactive threat analysis
The two main features that prove most beneficial for us are URL scanning and attachment scanning. URL scanning involves an automatic scan of links and emails. When a user clicks on a link within an email, the system promptly checks the link's safety. If the link is deemed safe, access is granted automatically. However, if it is flagged as unsafe, we receive feedback and notification to caution us about the potentially harmful link. At this point, we are presented with the option to proceed or return. I have personally witnessed the system identify a few unsafe links, making this the primary advantage of using the solution. The second crucial aspect is the scanning of attachments. When an email containing an attachment arrives, we receive a notification of the new email, along with information that the attachment is being scanned for threats. This additional layer of security provides peace of mind for our organization. While Microsoft Defender for Office 365 offers numerous features, these two stand out as particularly impressive and valuable to us.
ChrisBrown5 - PeerSpot reviewer
Automated threat detection that protects against corruption with minimal intervention
Abnormal Security is valuable because it features an automated scoring tool that doesn't require much intervention from our team. It enhances threat detection capabilities by making the process automated and is easy to scale to our entire environment. Additionally, it protects us from being business email compromised, which is invaluable for maintaining our security.
Dushyant Trivedi - PeerSpot reviewer
Effectively secures data centers against various threats, including spam emails and provides policy-based control
It is a stable solution. We implemented the solution in HA. This is because the solution is highly available and can withstand hardware failures and software upgrades. Once the solution is implemented, there is no need for any further downtime for the Check Point server. Because once we change any policy, we can break the High Availability (HA) session and define the new policy on the Check Point Security Gateway (SGW) in isolation. This allows us to test the new policy without affecting the production traffic. Once the new policy is tested and active, we can then activate it on the HA pair and bring the HA session back up. This process ensures that we can make changes to the policy without any interruption to the user experience. It is a really stable solution. I would rate the stability a ten out of ten.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The benefit that stands out to me is the ability for multiple individuals to collaborate simultaneously within the same document. Additionally, there is the option to save the document directly in the integrated OneDrive or SharePoint."
"The product is not resource-intensive."
"Microsoft Defender has a feature to protect each and every attachment. Even if it's an encrypted attachment, it will check for any potential threats."
"The most valuable aspect of Microsoft Defender for Office 365 is its ability to protect us from malware."
"I would say that 90% of the spam and phishing attack emails get blocked right off the bat."
"It gives us visibility into threats and, for endpoints, it helps us to prioritize threats. We used to have a lack of visibility, but now our time to detect and respond has decreased."
"The most valuable feature is the integration. It's a single console, so we don't have to switch around between multiple products. Another valuable feature is the ease of operations and maintenance."
"Defender helps us prioritize threats across our organization."
"One of the things that I love about them is that the setup and installation are super easy. All you do is give them access to your Microsoft 365 tenant, and through APIs, they are able to do their work. They are doing all this through APIs, so you do not have to install the software and take a month to get it all set up to even see the value of the solution. You could be up and running in less than an hour."
"It protects us from being business email compromised, which is invaluable for maintaining our security."
"I like Abnormal's threat protection with auto-remediation, but I also love its abuse mailbox feature, which automatically responds to the end user. That feature has a super-valuable security component and helps improve the user experience."
"I would recommend Abnormal Security."
"Ease of use is undoubtedly one of the most valuable features of Abnormal Security."
"I have never encountered any stability issues with Abnormal."
"The features that appeal to me most are the combination of auto-remediation and Detection 360."
"What I like about Abnormal Security is that it notifies me if any of my partners or suppliers are experiencing a security breach by analyzing their database and identifying potential cyber threats."
"It has provided us with an easy way to avoid invasive mail."
"DLP features can help prevent sensitive information from being leaked via email."
"The tool helps us see the behavior inside our environment, which is important to us. The solution's capacity integration features are great."
"This solution helped us lock down and have our infrastructure easier to manage."
"When sharing files with my colleagues, it provides a comprehensive report on the security status of the document."
"We now have better security and fewer false positives."
"Since implementing Check Point Anti-Spam and Email Security Software Blade, we have observed a dramatic reduction in successful phishing attempts and malware delivery to end-user boxes."
"Overall, the product rating is nine out of ten."
 

Cons

"There is room for improvement in terms of reporting."
"The changes to customer service, specifically the new model for support agreements, are not favorable."
"I'd like some additional features any product can give me to protect our environment in a better way."
"The XDR dashboard has room for improvement."
"Microsoft sometimes has downtime, and we'll get several incidents coming in back to back. We have a huge backlog of notifications, many of which may be false positives. However, there might be serious alerts, so we can't risk dismissing all of them at once."
"One area for improvement is support, in terms of being able to reach them and, especially, technical support for configuration."
"There needs to be an improvement in integrating the product to work across multiple operating systems, and to have better support for non-Microsoft file types."
"The UI needs to be more user-friendly."
"I would like to have the ability to customize the auto-remediation feature."
"The biggest pain point for us is the lack of support for on-premise email systems."
"There could be room for improvement in enhancing integration with other cybersecurity tools."
"One feature I'd love to see is outbound scanning."
"I, as such, do not have anything that I do not like or would like to add, but you could argue that because they are doing it API-based, there is a chance that something could slip through temporarily before they are able to pull it out. In theory, it could happen just because of the nature of the system. They are not in line with the delivery of the mail. They are kind of asynchronous, which is a pro as well as a con. If it is synchronous, then I know it would always stop them, but because it is asynchronous, things could get through temporarily or because of some system issues on the Microsoft side or their side. It is the nature of the beast, but it is a little bit of a con."
"When we're working on something as engineers, and we find an idea or a method of doing something that would be greatly improved by doing it another way, there should be an ability for me to click the ideas button, type in an idea that I have, and submit it to a product review team or developers to have them think through the process a little bit more."
"The pricing for academic institutions and student mailboxes is challenging."
"Abnormal should add more automatic reports. I have an open request to our account team for more notification and report types that can be sent automatically. For example, they have an awesome report that gets sent weekly, and I also want them monthly, so I don't need to do so much adding up when my director wants numbers over time."
"The high-end protection of email servers from any advanced foreign agents and malware is not 100% there currently."
"It does not provide for standalone configuration on the security gateway. Instead, you need to have a management server/smart console for managing it."
"The solution could be improved by reducing false positives."
"While we often take advantage of Check Point's cloud part, including Infinity or Harmony, I would like to see products that directly deal with mobile or native environments or other operating systems that we have within the organization."
"The interface is a bit overwhelming with information overload for someone new to it."
"A major area for improvement is within some of the heavily discounted software blade add-ons on top of the current Next Generation Threat Prevention and SandBlast and Next Generation Threat Prevention offerings."
"They should keep the software up to date with the latest patches and updates to ensure optimal protection."
"It would be useful to have more logs and in aggregate mode, perhaps through a specific report, that can be more easily used for troubleshooting."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"For licensing, it's usually a yearly package for customers who are subscribed to Office 365, but they can also pay on a monthly basis."
"Compared to other brands, Microsoft Defender for Office 365's pricing is competitive."
"For large enterprise organizations, they can definitely afford it, but for small and medium organizations, they might struggle to cover the expenses."
"The pricing is normal. Considering its popularity, it's not overpriced."
"I was working in the government and it was too expensive for us to use our Microsoft products."
"From the pricing point of view, like any other product in the market, there is scope for negotiation."
"The product is very expensive."
"Microsoft Defender is expensive. I typically recommend it only if clients have the budget. Otherwise, I would suggest an alternative."
"Abnormal Security, on the other hand, provides the same level of functionality for just over $60,000 – that's half the price!"
"Overall, we'd certainly prefer lower pricing, but Abnormal Security doesn't seem unreasonable compared to similar offerings in the market."
"The license is based on the user count, so the number of users that have an email address in the organization."
"The pricing appears fair, and they demonstrate a genuine willingness to work with us on it."
"For licensing, my company makes yearly payments, which is expensive."
"Reasonably priced solution."
"This is a simple system with a very low cost and basic functions, which surely is ideal for a small company."
"The cost is competitive with other security products on the market."
"Choosing the correct set of licenses is essential because, without the additional software blade licenses, the Check Point gateways are just a stateful firewall."
"I rate the product pricing a seven out of ten."
"I rate the pricing as an eight on a scale of one to ten, where one is cheap and ten is expensive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
16%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
6%
Computer Software Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Government
6%
Security Firm
21%
Computer Software Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Microsoft Defender for Office 365?
Threat Explorer is an invaluable tool for me, and it plays a crucial role in helping me discern the origins of variou...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Microsoft Defender for Office 365?
Microsoft is quite affordable with a lot of features available for any size organization.
What needs improvement with Microsoft Defender for Office 365?
Microsoft could improve by offering recommendations for domain spoofing attacks, especially scenarios where DNS recor...
What do you like most about Abnormal Security?
The features that appeal to me most are the combination of auto-remediation and Detection 360.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Abnormal Security?
I find the pricing to be favorable, but I did not disclose the exact cost.
What needs improvement with Abnormal Security?
There could be more selectable options and more granular selections available.
What needs improvement with Check Point Anti-Spam and Email Security Software Blade?
One area for improvement in Check Point Anti-Spam and Email Security Software Blade involves the firmware updates; so...
What is your primary use case for Check Point Anti-Spam and Email Security Software Blade?
My main use case for the Check Point Anti-Spam and Email Security Software Blade within the Check Point 1600 applianc...
 

Also Known As

MS Defender for Office 365
No data available
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Microsoft Defender for Office 365 is trusted by companies such as Ithaca College.
Foot Lcoker, Xerox, Liberty Mutual, Mattel, Boston Scientific
SF Police Credit Union (SFPCU)
Find out what your peers are saying about Abnormal Security vs. Check Point Anti-Spam and Email Security Software Blade and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.
856,873 professionals have used our research since 2012.