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Abnormal Security vs IRONSCALES comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 5, 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...
Sponsored
Ranking in Email Security
1st
Ranking in Secure Email Gateway (SEG)
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)
Abnormal Security
Ranking in Email Security
4th
Ranking in Secure Email Gateway (SEG)
2nd
Average Rating
9.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.9
Number of Reviews
10
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
IRONSCALES
Ranking in Email Security
17th
Ranking in Secure Email Gateway (SEG)
8th
Average Rating
9.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
13
Ranking in other categories
Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) (20th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2025, in the Secure Email Gateway (SEG) category, the mindshare of Microsoft Defender for Office 365 is 28.9%, down from 38.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Abnormal Security is 12.5%, up from 5.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IRONSCALES is 3.2%, up from 2.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Secure Email Gateway (SEG)
 

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.
Orion Trist - PeerSpot reviewer
Saved us a big deal by catching malicious links and attachments sent directly to our staff and has also been helpful for educating our staff
It has helped immensely because it has gotten rid of malicious links and malicious attachments that have been targeted at our different staff members. It has definitely protected us on more than one occasion. Their integrated approach of combining email security and employee awareness training is excellent because the training is a reminder for staff to continually be on their feet and look out for the ever-changing landscape. It also lets us know who has been trained, who hasn't been trained, and what they're like. It integrates a risk ratio for all our employees. Its artificial intelligence and machine learning capabilities are very important because I don't want to have to manage 24/7. Having the AI to do a lot of the work for me is invaluable. Its automated detection and response capabilities are excellent. It does a wonderful job. They provide all the stats on what it has done. It gives you information about how much time is saved and all that kind of good information. Its automated detection and response capabilities have massively decreased the time we spend manually reviewing email events. Since May, it has taken care of 170 hours. So, it has saved 88 hours per analyst. It is very good in terms of the customization of the automated detection and response capabilities. It is granular, and you can adjust it however you want. If it is too high, you can turn it down. If it is too low, you can turn it up.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The two main features that prove most beneficial for us are URL scanning and attachment scanning."
"Microsoft Defender for Office 365's most valuable features are safe attachments and safe links."
"Microsoft Defender for Office 365 facilitates efficient management and updates through the cloud. We do not have to worry about incompatibilities. It just works."
"The initial setup was easy."
"The good part is that you don't have to configure it, which is very convenient."
"The ability to respond to threats if very important."
"It has significantly decreased my time to detection and response."
"At the moment we are satisfied with this product. It's a stable, scalable, and resilient solution for us."
"I have never encountered any stability issues with Abnormal."
"I would recommend Abnormal Security."
"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."
"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."
"The features that appeal to me most are the combination of auto-remediation and Detection 360."
"It protects us from being business email compromised, which is invaluable for maintaining our security."
"Their ability to take things out of the mailbox and catch things much faster than users is excellent."
"Ease of use is undoubtedly one of the most valuable features of Abnormal Security."
"The biggest benefit is that we get fewer phishing and spam emails, so using IRONSCALES has made our environment much safer."
"For me, the mobile app is most valuable. All other features are also very useful, but the mobile app makes it really easy for me to manage on the go. I don't have to be at my desk. I could be at the shops, or it could be in the evening when I am out, and I can get a notification on my phone that there is an incident that has been raised. I can sort it out very quickly without having to be at my work PC."
"The most valuable features of the solution are that it is easy to set it up, install, and manage the product."
"AI-driven phishing detection and incident remediation are valuable. It saves time from having to do manual analysis and investigation, and we also get alerts for phishing emails."
"There is buzz around phishing awareness training. When I make a campaign, all of a sudden people in our organization are talking, thinking, and wondering about it. Therefore, it keeps people on their toes. That is perfect because it does exactly what we want it to do."
"For what was being offered with IRONSCALES, I feel like we got an incredible deal."
"The stability is good."
"The solution captures a bit more of the unknown, quantifies it, and applies intelligence to it to pick out and stop a lot of phishing emails that come through."
 

Cons

"The visibility into threats is not up to the mark, as I do not have control. I rate my experience with Microsoft Defender for Office 365 as six out of ten due to troubleshooting and pricing concerns."
"The UI needs to be more user-friendly."
"Specifically, within Microsoft Defender for Office 365, I want it to improve the DLP capabilities."
"We noticed that from time to time, Microsoft's stability does have problems. Sometimes the service goes up and down. Sometimes they change without prior notice."
"In some situations, it has not been able to pick impersonated emails having no attachments. Technical support definitely has a scope for improvement."
"I am generally satisfied with how it currently is. If I could improve anything, I would reduce the cost."
"This product's effectiveness could be improved, in terms of detecting unwanted spam or even malware between the emails, compared to other products."
"You should be able to deploy Defender for every subscription without the need to add servers."
"I would like to have the ability to customize the auto-remediation feature."
"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."
"There could be more selectable options and more granular selections available."
"The ideal scenario would be for Abnormal Security to work in tandem with Microsoft to analyze incoming emails."
"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."
"The pricing for academic institutions and student mailboxes is challenging."
"The biggest pain point for us is the lack of support for on-premise email systems."
"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."
"I think the tool can continue to hone the product to ensure the detections are accurate."
"In addition to integrated training, they should also have personalized training that you don't have to do as part of a phishing campaign or a simulation."
"Even though they have been continuously improving it, it is not 100% there. We have had a few incidents where legitimate emails were getting blocked, and we had to manually remove those emails from quarantine. It is 90% effective or accurate because, on rare occasions, some emails from customers were not getting delivered. In one or two instances, their emails got blocked by IRONSCALES, and we had to manually remove the emails from quarantine. I would like them to improve their algorithm to avoid flagging genuine emails as malicious. I would also like to be able to whitelist certain email addresses. I'd love to be able to whitelist a particular customer."
"IRONSCALES should bundle more features together instead of separating them and charging additional licensing fees."
"The tool supports 15 to 16 languages, but the content it uses in the training in Spanish has certain limitations."
"The integration with Google Suite needs to be better. it's something they can work on."
"The only thing that I could say is that some of the reporting features could be better."
"The simulation and training piece could be improved by having more granularity in terms of scheduling how campaigns are run and allowing people to directly take the training rather than having to go through an official campaign. That's not available yet."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Defender is a little bit more expensive as compared to others. We are in the manufacturing environment. So, we don't have a high budget for all of our endpoint devices. Its cost is a major concern for us."
"It's a user-base subscription."
"I was working in the government and it was too expensive for us to use our Microsoft products."
"The pricing has become expensive."
"The product is very expensive."
"From the pricing point of view, like any other product in the market, there is scope for negotiation."
"I know that the product is incredibly expensive."
"The license is expensive because the cost is based on the number of users."
"The pricing appears fair, and they demonstrate a genuine willingness to work with us on it."
"The license is based on the user count, so the number of users that have an email address in the organization."
"Overall, we'd certainly prefer lower pricing, but Abnormal Security doesn't seem unreasonable compared to similar offerings in the market."
"Abnormal Security, on the other hand, provides the same level of functionality for just over $60,000 – that's half the price!"
"IRONSCALES is an expensive solution."
"We pay $3000 plus a little more a year for the number of employees we have, and we're not even that big. The solution is at the higher end in terms of cost. It's not the most expensive product, but I would say it's worth the price if you have a high volume of email traffic. In our case, the solution has inspected over 162,000 emails between three and four months. It saved us a lot of time and money. It's a worthwhile investment because a bad actor only has to succeed once; we must defend against everything in our business. IRONSCALES offers a sense of security and confidence from being well protected."
"Considering the value it provides, it is definitely worth the cost. We don't have to do manual analysis and remediation of phishing emails, which saves us a lot of hours. Its licensing is based on the number of users being supported and the number of email addresses being protected. I'm not aware of any additional costs."
"The product is available as a middle-priced tool. I think it is not the cheapest solution."
"The tool is not very cheap, but it is affordable."
"I don't know about its pricing because I don't run the budget or pay the bills, but if it was extortionate, we probably would be looking to scrap it, and because we are not, I assume its price is okay."
"They are pretty much the same as all the other competitors in the market."
"As compared to everything else we looked at, it was good. It was the best value for the dollars."
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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%
Computer Software Company
19%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
6%
University
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 do you like most about IRONSCALES?
The solution captures a bit more of the unknown, quantifies it, and applies intelligence to it to pick out and stop a...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IRONSCALES?
The product is available as a middle-priced tool. I think it is not the cheapest solution. There are other solutions ...
What needs improvement with IRONSCALES?
I think maybe on the side of the awareness training, the tool can improve a little more information and have some oth...
 

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
Allegheny Millwork, Ayrshire College, Nium, Orris, Paramount School District, Pres Les, PRT Staffing, Recovery Unplugged, Telit, WebHelp
Find out what your peers are saying about Abnormal Security vs. IRONSCALES and other solutions. Updated: May 2025.
857,162 professionals have used our research since 2012.