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Avanan vs Fortra's Clearswift Secure Email Gateway 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
16th
Average Rating
9.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.8
Number of Reviews
19
Ranking in other categories
Data Loss Prevention (DLP) (26th)
Fortra's Clearswift Secure ...
Ranking in Email Security
41st
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
0
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the Email Security category, the mindshare of Avanan is 3.7%, down from 3.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Fortra's Clearswift Secure Email Gateway 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

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.
PC
Stable, but malware needs improvement and customer support is poor
They need to improve the malware in the product. I am not satisfied with Clearswift because of the lack of customer support. The support is poor, the supplier takes a lot of time and it's expensive. We have some issues here when I contact the supplier, it takes a lot of time for them to get back to us but there's no solution. I am now looking at Symantec as a possible alternative.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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."
"Avanan is a stable software. My company hasn't faced any issues, bugs, or problems with the performance of Avanan."
"Email Attachment Protection detects any insecure files and quickly blocks them to prevent the spread of viruses to other secure documents."
"It can retract unsafe emails and remove them from the entire communication channel."
"Spam protection is the most valuable feature."
"When we don't understand some functionalities, the customer support staff responds fast to our calls and provides immediate action."
"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."
"The program has reduced the dangers related to phishing, malware, ransomware, and other vulnerabilities."
"Ability to create your own content-filtering policies with relative ease."
"A stable solution."
 

Cons

"When sending bulky emails, the system slows down and takes a long time before it responds effectively to our requests."
"The cost can be reviewed to enable SMEs to acquire it and enjoy great security features."
"It should reduce the amount of time needed for thorough scanning."
"It is complicated for new users unfamiliar with the modern cloud networking infrastructure."
"The customer service team could come up with clear tutorials on how to use this platform to help new teams."
"In Avanan, the email channel is one of the channels where data leakage happens, and they need to consider it from a DLP perspective."
"Being cloud first and because we are in the movie business, we use a lot of Macintoshes. So, there is absolutely no reason for us to have Active Directory whatsoever. However, if you are using Office 365, you must have Active Directory in order to reset passwords. Even though we have a single sign-on provider, we must have Azure Active Directory for Office 365, which is really stupid. As a cloud application, you would think that I don't need Active Directory, which I don't need for anything else except Office 365. We have one server inside that space to help us manage Active Directory just for Office 365. This is a very sore point, but it is what it is."
"The system could be designed to give corporate emails first priority due to demands."
"Malware needs improvement."
"FTP server and TRUST Manager functionality."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Good pricing arrangement as an SaaS offering."
"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."
"Avanan’s price is comparable to Barracuda."
"The product is not the cheapest in the market."
Information not available
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
16%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Construction Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
6%
Computer Software Company
18%
Government
12%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Comms Service Provider
10%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

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...
Ask a question
Earn 20 points
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Bethel School District, ServiceSource, Capital Caring
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about Avanan vs. Fortra's Clearswift Secure Email Gateway and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
865,384 professionals have used our research since 2012.