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Avanan vs Cisco Secure Email Threat Defense 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

Avanan
Ranking in Email Security
14th
Average Rating
9.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.8
Number of Reviews
19
Ranking in other categories
Data Loss Prevention (DLP) (26th)
Cisco Secure Email Threat D...
Ranking in Email Security
27th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
16
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the Email Security category, the mindshare of Avanan is 3.4%, down from 3.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Cisco Secure Email Threat Defense is 1.1%, up from 0.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Email Security Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Avanan3.4%
Cisco Secure Email Threat Defense1.1%
Other95.5%
Email Security
 

Featured Reviews

Robert Melendez - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
Enrique-Diaz Jolly - PeerSpot reviewer
Provides comprehensive threat protection with suggestions for modernizing controls
I use the email gateway as the core of the email exchange between the Internet and our domain. The email gateway serves as the email exchanger The product offers protection, email security, anti-spam, and antivirus. It includes threat intelligence with advanced malware protection and many…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The threat detection tools enable us to ascertain malware and phishing messages across the email network infrastructure."
"I like Avanan's SmartDLP module. It's seamless, and the administrative overhead is low. We aren't a very sophisticated operation. We just want to reduce our exposure, so we find ThreatCloud helpful. Avanan's acquisition by Check Point was beneficial for them."
"The most valuable feature of Avanan is its Anti-Malware solution for Office 365, and box.com."
"The customizable rules allow you to change aspects."
"This technology is one of Check Point's acquisitions, and it is currently a powerful tool that provides all the protection that is not found in other tools."
"When we don't understand some functionalities, the customer support staff responds fast to our calls and provides immediate action."
"It can retract unsafe emails and remove them from the entire communication channel."
"Email inspection has saved many employees from spam attacks and viruses from unauthorized sources."
"I highly recommend it as one of the best choices."
"It's very easy to deploy and configure."
"Cisco has a threat mechanism called cloud-based Talos, where all the threats are inbuilt."
"The product offers protection, email security, anti-spam, and antivirus."
"I would say it's very comprehensive, with multiple antivirus OEMs, virus encrypt features, encryption, and more."
"It has an efficient email filtering feature."
"The features and functionalities are much better than Microsoft's in-built Defender plan."
"On ease of use, it rates very high. It's something that I was able to get into without really looking at any documentation. I wanted to see what it felt like before I started looking at any documentation on how to use it, and it was very easy to use. It works very smoothly. The user experience is very intuitive. They did an amazing job on that."
 

Cons

"It should reduce the amount of time needed for thorough scanning."
"It should also offer a quick backup in case any email is wrongly quarantined or deleted to ensure no data loss."
"In Avanan, the email channel is one of the channels where data leakage happens, and they need to consider it from a DLP perspective."
"Familiarization with performance for new teams may take a long time."
"It is very difficult to find the required documentation."
"The system response in a slow computing device affects performance when sending and receiving emails."
"The user experience must be improved."
"There are times when we have false positives."
"Customers will benefit greatly from monthly billing because the majority of customers today use the cloud, be it Office 365, or Google Cloud."
"The solution is a bit expensive."
"The behavioral analysis capability of Cisco Secure Email Threat Defense is not particularly helpful for identifying new, evolving threats within my company, as it keeps flagging legitimate emails as malicious."
"The learning curve shows that in the beginning, there are numerous false positives. For one month, we had to reclassify the false positives manually until the system learned."
"We encounter issues while searching for missing emails."
"There is still room for improvement in terms of integrations with other Cisco tools and non-Cisco tools. There is also some room for improvement needed in terms of the reporting."
"The tool gives false positives and it needs to be more accurate. I would like to see AI as a new feature."
"This solution could be improved by integration with Sandbox."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The product is not the cheapest in the market."
"Good pricing arrangement as an SaaS offering."
"Avanan’s price is comparable to Barracuda."
"Having the flexibility and modeling to do the pricing that best fits the needs of the organization is incredibly ideal. That is what Avanan does. They know exactly how many users are using it, etc. We can tune the invoicing associated with how we are using the product so we can charge it back to the shows appropriately."
"The pricing of Avanan is reasonable."
"Cisco Secure Email Cloud Mailbox does not have any competition with Sophos, Trend Micro, or other vendors of the world. However, there is a pricing premium for the solution. One has to look at it from that angle that while they are buying Cisco, there will be a premium, and Cisco justifies that premium value. That's why they're charging a high price."
"The feedback from vendors and customer is that it is expensive."
"It is expensive compared to other vendors."
"The solution’s pricing is manageable."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
15%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Construction Company
7%
Comms Service Provider
6%
Computer Software Company
20%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Healthcare Company
8%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business8
Midsize Enterprise8
Large Enterprise6
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business4
Midsize Enterprise6
Large Enterprise7
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Avanan?
Spam protection is the most valuable feature.
What needs improvement with Avanan?
Avanan doesn't cover certain tool segments. Barracuda provides backup and retention of emails and Microsoft 365’s backup and retention services. I've brought this up with the vendor. They told me t...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Secure Email Threat Defense?
Comparatively with other products, the pricing of Cisco Secure Email Threat Defense is normal. As a technical guide, I am not very aware of the pricing details.
What needs improvement with Secure Email Threat Defense?
We have deployed Cisco Secure Email Threat Defense in two customer environments. It is still in development as a new product. Some customer requirements, such as sending logs to a Syslog server, ar...
What is your primary use case for Secure Email Threat Defense?
We are working with Cloud Mail Gateway and on-premise mail gateways. We have worked with Cisco Secure Email Threat Defense.
 

Also Known As

No data available
Cisco Secure Email Cloud Mailbox, Cisco CMD, Cisco Cloud Mailbox Defense
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Bethel School District, ServiceSource, Capital Caring
Luiss University, Lone Star College, T-Systems, Magyar Telekom
Find out what your peers are saying about Avanan vs. Cisco Secure Email Threat Defense and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.
869,202 professionals have used our research since 2012.