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Avanan vs Cisco Secure Email comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Feb 8, 2026

Review summaries and opinions

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

ROI

Sentiment score
8.4
Avanan improved email security, reduced phishing, increased user trust, enhanced mobile protection, and boosted ROI and revenue growth.
Sentiment score
6.1
Cisco Secure Email is valued for security and efficiency, though financial benefits are mixed and hard to quantify.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
8.1
Avanan's customer service is highly responsive, professional, and proactive, with excellent communication and extensive support staff knowledge.
Sentiment score
7.3
Cisco Secure Email's superior customer service, marked by prompt, reliable support, is rated highly over competitors like Fortinet.
Within half an hour, the team person will arrive, and the issue will be resolved in an hour.
Technical Associate Network Security at Valuepoint Systems
Cisco's tech support can be hit or miss, depending on the engineer you get.
Cloud Partner & Solutions Architect at a tech vendor with 1,001-5,000 employees
The support is pretty decent, with a rating of eight out of ten.
Chief Information Security Officer at Abcl
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
8.2
Avanan integrates with Office 365 and Google, praised for scalability, admin capabilities, and efficient email protection across diverse organizations.
Sentiment score
7.3
Cisco Secure Email provides flexible scalability and security enhancements, supporting large setups with positive user experiences and expansion options.
The on-premises hardware is not very scalable, but switching to the SaaS offering is expected to improve scalability.
Chief Information Security Officer at Abcl
My thoughts on the scalability level of Cisco Secure Email is nine because of the delay in making a configuration and the slowness in the console.
Technical Associate Network Security at Valuepoint Systems
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
8.5
Avanan is highly praised for its stability, efficiency, security, minimal maintenance, seamless Microsoft 365 integration, and reliable AI-based scanning.
Sentiment score
8.0
Cisco Secure Email is valued for stability and reliability, with minimal issues and efficient operation, requiring minimal maintenance.
Based on my experience, the stability of Cisco Secure Email is very strong.
Systems Engineer at a non-tech company with 51-200 employees
 

Room For Improvement

Users feel Avanan needs improvements in Active Directory dependency, email quarantining, AI logic, training, UI, performance, pricing, mobile app, and integrations.
Cisco Secure Email faces complex UI, integration issues, high costs, and lacks advanced features, affecting usability and scalability.
The solution should better analyze the actual content rather than only focusing on the email header or origin.
Chief Information Security Officer at Abcl
It would be beneficial to have the functionality of the Email Threat Defense integrated into the Email Security Gateway so customers don't have to buy two products for full email protection.
Systems Engineer at a non-tech company with 51-200 employees
It may take nearly an hour to get back to normal while configuring policies.
Technical Associate Network Security at Valuepoint Systems
 

Setup Cost

Avanan provides flexible pricing for Office 365, with straightforward setup and costs between $4 to $8 per user.
Cisco Secure Email is costly yet valued for features, with variable pricing based on factors like environment and user count.
Its cost is bundled with other Cisco products.
Chief Information Security Officer at Abcl
The pricing structure is good as it is user-based or email client-based, which is positive for clients.
Systems Engineer at a non-tech company with 51-200 employees
The licensing is a mess and needs sorting out.
Cloud Partner & Solutions Architect at a tech vendor with 1,001-5,000 employees
 

Valuable Features

Avanan provides advanced malware and phishing detection, 24/7 cloud protection, easy integration with Microsoft 365, and ensures secure communications.
Cisco Secure Email offers advanced protection, integration, and user-friendly management, enhancing security against malware, spam, phishing, and ransomware.
It is highly effective in catching phishing and spam emails.
Systems Engineer at a non-tech company with 51-200 employees
It also possesses multiple modules for spam detection, malware detection, and threat intelligence, which are valuable in categorizing emails and determining actions.
Chief Information Security Officer at Abcl
The integration of Cisco AMP for Advanced Malware Protection with Cisco Secure Email has helped our organization's security posture.
Technical Associate Network Security at Valuepoint Systems
 

Categories and Ranking

Avanan
Ranking in Email Security
22nd
Average Rating
9.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.8
Number of Reviews
18
Ranking in other categories
Data Loss Prevention (DLP) (41st)
Cisco Secure Email
Ranking in Email Security
4th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
63
Ranking in other categories
Cisco Security Portfolio (6th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2026, in the Email Security category, the mindshare of Avanan is 1.9%, down from 3.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Cisco Secure Email is 4.5%, down from 5.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Email Security Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Cisco Secure Email4.5%
Avanan1.9%
Other93.6%
Email Security
 

Featured Reviews

Robert Melendez - PeerSpot reviewer
Vice President Information Technology at Makeready
Enhances email security and has a very simple and easy-to-use UI
Spam protection is the most valuable feature. We have implemented the tool to enhance our email security. It helps prevent phishing attacks. The anomaly detection capabilities are baked into the security platform. The product integrates wonderfully with Microsoft 365. It's built right on a cloud platform and works almost natively. The solution has a very simple and easy-to-use UI. The tool appears extremely powerful and has a good solid feature set. It catches things that are bad for my environment. The user interface is good the way it is. If the solution continues down that path, I see no problems with the way it is going. It feels like a mature product.
KS
Technical Associate Network Security at Valuepoint Systems
Email security has protected financial data and provides clear tracking for every branch message
The areas of Cisco Secure Email that could be improved or enhanced are the slowness in the console. I don't think it was a database error or something, but we feel some slowness in configuring DLP and other content filters compared to other consoles. It may have been due to on-premises, but it was much noisy at some times while configuring DLP. When we tried to configure a DLP policy, the console became much slower. In that case, we cannot see what had happened in the mail which was blocked at that time. It may take nearly an hour to get back to normal while configuring policies. That is the major issue in the product.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Construction Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Outsourcing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Outsourcing Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business7
Midsize Enterprise8
Large Enterprise6
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business22
Midsize Enterprise18
Large Enterprise27
 

Questions from the Community

Ask a question
Earn 20 points
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 areas of Cisco Secure Email that could be improved or enhanced are the slowness in the console. I don't think it was a database error or something, but we feel some slowness in configuring DLP ...
What is your primary use case for Cisco Secure Email?
We are using Cisco Secure Email to monitor the outgoing and incoming mail traffic in our financial institute. We have nearly 900 branches all over India. We have an on-premises mail server in which...
 

Also Known As

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

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Bethel School District, ServiceSource, Capital Caring
SUNY Old Westbury, CoxHealth, City of Fullerton, Indra
Find out what your peers are saying about Avanan vs. Cisco Secure Email and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
912,801 professionals have used our research since 2012.