AppRiver Email Security vs IRONSCALES comparison

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AppRiver Email Security

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 3, 2024

AppRiver Email Security and IRONSCALES offer email protection solutions. IRONSCALES holds an edge due to its advanced AI features.

Features: AppRiver Email Security includes robust spam filtering, advanced virus protection, and streamlined email management. IRONSCALES provides AI-driven phishing threat detection, automation capabilities, and real-time incident response.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: AppRiver is known for straightforward setup and reliable customer support, suitable for smaller businesses. IRONSCALES requires more technical configuration but offers comprehensive support documents and proactive assistance, ideal for organizations with IT expertise.

Pricing and ROI: AppRiver offers cost-effective setup with strong ROI for smaller enterprises needing essential security. IRONSCALES involves a higher initial investment but promises greater long-term ROI with advanced AI-driven threat protection.

To learn more, read our detailed AppRiver Email Security vs. IRONSCALES Report (Updated: July 2025).

AppRiver Email Security vs. IRONSCALES

July 2025

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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

AppRiver Email Security

Ranking in Email Security

23rd

Average Rating

9.0

Reviews Sentiment

6.6

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

IRONSCALES

Ranking in Email Security

17th

Average Rating

9.2

Reviews Sentiment

7.6

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) (20th), Secure Email Gateway (SEG) (8th)

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Email Security category, the mindshare of AppRiver Email Security is 1.0%, down from 1.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IRONSCALES is 1.9%, down from 2.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Email Security

Featured Reviews

John Zupancic

Vice President / Branch Manager / Senior Technician at Aperion Information Technologies, Inc.

Pricing that is competitive, excellent technical support, and email security

They do a better job of distinguishing between what's real and what's not than most of the other solutions we've tried. They are very easy to use. We don't have as many problems with email security. They have some areas that could be improved. For example, we also use Zix email Encryption for email encryption, which was clunky and could be improved, but the email security itself has been excellent.

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Orion Trist

Systems Administrator at Cincinnati & Hamilton County Public Library

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.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It's easy to use and user-friendly. Users can also easily release spam emails."

"They are very easy to use."

"I would say the most valuable feature is what they call Themis. It's like a virtual analyst that uses the decisions that system admins make to generate a score for whether an email is legitimate, spam, or phishing. It gets better based on the decisions that we make over time. The automation piece is great as well. The integrated approach of email security combined with employee awareness training is excellent."

"The most valuable features of the solution are that it is easy to set it up, install, and manage the product."

"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."

"The biggest benefit is that we get fewer phishing and spam emails, so using IRONSCALES has made our environment much safer."

"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."

"The fact that it is set-and-forget is valuable. Once you turn it on, you very rarely have to micromanage it, whereas, with a lot of spam filters, you have to go in very often."

"It is a totally stable solution."

"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."

More IRONSCALES pros

Cons

"Email security checks contain a small number of false positives."

"It needs to make sure that the application is up to date with new attacks. They should also send us the demo or introductions for their new incoming features."

"Its UI could be improved. My pet peeve with a lot of these cloud-based systems is that a lot of times, the interface for the management is a little clunky. If you live and breathe IRONSCALES all day long, you'll obviously know where everything is just from muscle memory, but the system is not designed for people to be in it all day long. You're only supposed to occasionally look at it. When things get moved around, it is not necessarily that intuitive. I'm an IT guy, and I can pretty much take the worst UI and figure it out, but the menus and the options in the interface could be a little cleaner graphically. If you have a quick problem that you want to resolve, it takes a little bit of digging in the admin console, whereas it should take a few clicks up front."

"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."

"There is a feature called Account Takeover, which isn't what I want it to be able to do. I know that they're working on that, but when they first started the Account Takeover feature in incident management, it didn't have much information. It didn't have any usability to it. I already had tools in place that were 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."

"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."

"I think the tool can continue to hone the product to ensure the detections are accurate."

"I would like it if IRONSCALES had some sort of reminder mechanism, meaning IRONSCALES knows if a user completed the training or not. As long as it hasn't been completed, it keeps reminding every so often, alerts the manager, etc. Right now, it is all in the hands of the employee, and not all of them continue the process, which is a shame."

"IRONSCALES should bundle more features together instead of separating them and charging additional licensing fees."

More IRONSCALES cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"They're fairly inexpensive, but they're right in the ballpark of most of the other online products like that."

"I can rate it five out of ten because there are different platforms that also offer the same services for lower prices. But AppRiver is more flexible."

"They are pretty much the same as all the other competitors in the market."

"The product is available as a middle-priced tool. I think it is not the cheapest 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."

"There is an installation cost. Since we have this as a managed service, we pay for licensing and the managed service itself. Other than that, there are no additional costs."

"IRONSCALES is an expensive solution."

"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."

"As compared to everything else we looked at, it was good. It was the best value for the dollars."

"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."

More IRONSCALES pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

13%

Manufacturing Company

Retailer

Non Profit

Computer Software Company

19%

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

University

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

No data available

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about AppRiver Email Security?

It's easy to use and user-friendly. Users can also easily release spam emails.

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for AppRiver Email Security?

I can rate it five out of ten because there are different platforms that also offer the same services for lower prices. But AppRiver is more flexible.

What needs improvement with AppRiver Email Security?

It needs to make sure that the application is up to date with new attacks. They should also send us the demo or introductions for their new incoming features.

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 lot of phishing emails that come through.

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 apart from IRONSCALES that are more expensive, while some are a little bit more ...

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 other languages since even though English is good, Spanish is not so good. The tool...

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Product Reports

Download AppRiver Email Security product report

Email Security

June 2025

Download IRONSCALES product report

June 2025

Also Known As

AppRiver Advanced Email Security

No data available

Overview

AppRiver’s Email Security Solution is a cloud-based Anti Phishing and malware filter that’s designed to keep your inbox clean and your network safe. A simple MX Record change routes your mail through the Email Security servers before it ever reaches your network, which ensures that the mail that reaches your network doesn’t pose a threat. While our solution contains numerous adjustable settings, it is designed to work efficiently and optimally with little or no interaction from administrators.

AppRiver

IRONSCALES secures against business email compromises, phishing, and email-based attacks. Protects Microsoft 365 users by enhancing spam filters, automating threat mitigation, and providing phishing awareness training.

Deploy IRONSCALES to inspect, report, and quarantine threats with a sandbox feature, and run simulations to train staff worldwide, adding an extra security layer. Communicates via API to ensure ongoing email security. Offers threat-sharing capability, AI, easy setup, scalability, stability, and effective email security. Automated detection and response, mobile app notifications, integration with Microsoft 365, phishing training modules, and a user-friendly interface, including an Outlook extension to report suspicious emails. Reduces manual analysis time, saving considerable effort.

What are the most important features of IRONSCALES?

Threat-sharing capability: Allows users to share threat intelligence easily.
Excellent AI: Utilizes advanced AI for accurate threat detection.
Easy setup: Simplifies deployment with minimal effort.
Scalability: Easily scales to meet users' requirements.
Stability: Provides strong and reliable performance.
Effective email security: Offers a robust defense against email threats.
Automated detection and response: Quickly identifies and mitigates threats.
Mobile app notifications: Keeps users informed through mobile alerts.
Microsoft 365 integration: Seamlessly integrates with Microsoft 365.
Phishing training modules: Educates users on phishing threats.
User-friendly interface: Simplifies user interaction.
Outlook extension: Facilitates reporting of suspicious emails.

What benefits and ROI should users look for in the reviews?

Reduces manual analysis time: Saves effort by automating threat response.
Cost-effectiveness: Though pricing is high, it offers robust features that potentially justify the expense.
Improved email security: Enhances overall email protection.
Enhanced threat detection: Utilizes AI for accurate threat identification.
Comprehensive training: Provides extensive phishing awareness training.
Increased operational efficiency: Simplifies security management tasks.

In specific industries, IRONSCALES can be implemented to address varied email security needs. For instance, financial services may benefit from robust threat mitigation and phishing training to protect sensitive data. Healthcare organizations could utilize features like AI-driven detection and sandboxing to comply with stringent regulations. Technology firms might value the easy setup and scalability to keep up with rapid growth and evolving threats. Retailers can leverage mobile app notifications and automated response to ensure continuous protection against email-based attacks. Education sectors may find phishing awareness training modules particularly useful to educate staff and students about potential threats.

Sample Customers

IHMC

Allegheny Millwork, Ayrshire College, Nium, Orris, Paramount School District, Pres Les, PRT Staffing, Recovery Unplugged, Telit, WebHelp