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Cisco Secure Email Threat Defense vs SonicWall Email Security comparison

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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

Cloudflare One
Sponsored
Ranking in Email Security
20th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
22
Ranking in other categories
Secure Web Gateways (SWG) (16th), Data Loss Prevention (DLP) (21st), Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB) (11th), Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection (7th), Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) Solutions (13th), Access Management (11th), Bot Management (3rd), ZTNA as a Service (8th), ZTNA (2nd), Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) (10th), Remote Browser Isolation (RBI) (3rd)
Cisco Secure Email Threat D...
Ranking in Email Security
22nd
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
16
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
SonicWall Email Security
Ranking in Email Security
30th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
15
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2026, in the Email Security category, the mindshare of Cloudflare One is 1.4%, down from 1.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Cisco Secure Email Threat Defense is 1.1%, up from 1.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SonicWall Email Security is 0.6%, up from 0.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Email Security Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Cloudflare One1.4%
Cisco Secure Email Threat Defense1.1%
SonicWall Email Security0.6%
Other96.9%
Email Security
 

Featured Reviews

CV
Network Architect at IP Dimension
Cloud security has improved remote access and has reduced costs for smaller client sites
I have used Cloudflare One's Identity-Aware Proxy, and it is quite straightforward from what I have seen so far. The app registration on the Azure side integrates fully into Cloudflare, and I am very satisfied with that part because it is easy to set up. The integration of Cloudflare One's Secure Web Gateway and Zero Trust Network Access works without any issues. That part is pretty automatic, and if you complete the rest of the setup, it comes together by itself with no issues from my side. What makes it nice is that we can actually start replacing on-site firewalls at this stage for the smaller clients because it does not matter if they go to a coffee shop or work from home; they are still secured by the same connection. The hops get shorter and you get better latency. We have done testing to see if it is better. One thing that we did notice with our proof of concept with our current client is that they have people connecting from the UK. When they used their previous VPN solution, uploading CAD drawings and other files to the server took a long time. They mentioned that it is much quicker on Cloudflare One's solution. I definitely believe that is part of the improved performance, and I am satisfied with that as well. What is nice about Cloudflare One is that it makes the setup easier and also easier to train technicians to maintain it. Compared to legacy systems, we do not need to get fancy firewalls in place that are costly. That is definitely also a cost-saver with Cloudflare One.
reviewer2541525 - PeerSpot reviewer
Principal Cyber Prevent and Defense Engineer at a comms service provider with 1,001-5,000 employees
Clawback feature performs well but analytics and integration capabilities need improvement
The integration capability with other threat intelligence platforms is not optimal, as I have experienced difficulty in sending logs to our SIEM. Cisco Secure Email Threat Defense's flexibility could be enhanced while it mostly integrates with cloud solutions, but not on-premise. 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. Regarding room for improvement, the significant number of false positives should be addressed. The solution does not adapt to behavioral analytics and does not make changes when it sees a pattern.
Swapnil Kulkarni - PeerSpot reviewer
System Administrator at Ador Powertron Ltd.
Has consistently supported security needs for mid-sized teams with affordable deployment
I do not work with Cloud Secure Edge, CSE, or SMA apart from SonicWall NSA. I am not satisfied with phishing protection, as it falls completely under the email domain security. The customizable policy configuration does not help to tailor email security overall because our systems are not integrated with SonicWall Email Security. We are not using reporting and analytics because it requires completely different software. While all required features are available in SonicWall Email Security for SMBs and startups, we lack analytics features. They provide an option to purchase a complete separate product for analytics, but despite initially having purchased the paper license, due to technical limitations or changes, we cannot use that product. Now they require additional fees to access the analytics feature.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It will take the blow rather than our applications should an attack occur."
"The simplicity of the solution is its valuable features as almost no effort was needed to learn the configurations. It is also one of the cheapest firewalls available in this category."
"The capabilities of the software are strong enough for me to do what it's supposed to do. For me, we don't need to do a lot of configuration on our site. We just enable it and monitor it."
"The best feature is rate limiting. If I'm expecting 500 visits per hour, Cloudflare will limit the requests if I suddenly get 50,000."
"The solution has different options that can be used to differentiate DDoS attacks."
"It's the endpoint exposition. We don't need to expose our VPN server to the internet and need a zero-test solution. I can apply some conditional access to the endpoint that's connecting to our network to check their security policies or the security condition of their workstation. Once the workstation is trying to connect to my internal network, then I would like to check the discrete condition of these endpoints that are trying to access my internal network. We created some conditional access. We have CrowdStrike, to check if the CrowdStrike is installed, to check if it's updated, and to check for Windows updates. We created some conditional policies to check it."
"I'm very satisfied with the environment and the dashboard."
"Cloudflare, in my opinion, was easy to implement."
"Cisco Secure Email Cloud Mailbox can handle a complete portfolio, which is required to protect any kind of attack coming from emails. However, it does not have advanced phishing, but it is available through Cisco. If you compare Cisco Secure Email Cloud Mailbox with the competition, in the competition you have to have one or two solutions together to address the customer's requirement, whereas Cisco Secure Email Cloud Mailbox is addressing everything, such as web domain and email protection. If there is any kind of challenge it will come across through email."
"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."
"Cisco Secure Email Threat Defense's best features include user management of graymail, enhancing security awareness by allowing users to manage cold calls, sales-based items, and ensuring email compliance."
"I highly recommend it as one of the best choices."
"It has an efficient email filtering feature."
"Secure Email Threat Defense's scalability is good."
"Regarding stability, Cisco Secure Email Threat Defense is very stable."
"Setup was easy. It took about 30 minutes."
"The most valuable features are the anti-spam, anti-phishing, anti-virus, and anti-spoofing."
"The anti-spam aspect of the solution is its most valuable feature."
"The pricing for SonicWall Email Security is reasonable and budget-friendly."
"Beside a few issues with specificity in the email protection controls, this product is very good at handling email security."
"The most valuable feature is that it protects from spam."
"According to our customers, the product's most valuable feature is the ability to detect spam and reduce phishing emails."
"There are no wasted extras and the interface is really simple."
 

Cons

"There are premium tier live service and lower tier live service, so we opted for the lower tier. But there is no medium tier where we pay a little extra and get a bit more service. So if that can be improved."
"For the topic of improvement, providing some training material is one of my suggestions."
"They don't have a person to provide support for customers using the solution under their free plan."
"The response time for support must be reduced."
"When there are any dynamic changes in complex applications, the tool takes a lot of time, making its analytics-related area a major matter of concern where improvements are needed."
"From a logging perspective, it is still a bit difficult to see exactly what users are being blocked with the current views."
"Operating and tuning the product is difficult."
"The onboarding process can be improved a little bit."
"The physical appliance has been discontinued, although the platform still exists."
"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."
"Customers will benefit greatly from monthly billing because the majority of customers today use the cloud, be it Office 365, or Google Cloud."
"The pricing could always be better."
"Cisco's multiple product lines and verticals made this just one of their many verticals, and we could see a shift in focus."
"Cisco Secure Email Cloud Mailbox can improve by adding advanced phishing, then the solution would become the best in the market. However, this could increase the price even more. Additionally, if CES with domain protection could be added it would be an even better solution."
"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 protection level for email security isn't 100%. I'm still getting some spam and junk mail."
"Policy deployment could be time consuming and represents an area for improvement in SonicWall Email Security."
"The pricing could be improved."
"They should integrate the solution with third-party platforms."
"The pricing could be improved."
"The reporting needs improvement."
"Updates could be released more frequently."
"The technical support from the company is not always very good at solving issues, but they offer access to a good community of users where problems are easily solved."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"My company has to make yearly payments towards the licensing costs attached to the solution. There are no hidden charges apart from the licensing costs of the solution."
"The prices are slightly expensive."
"The price tag is no longer $200,000, but rather $300,000 to $400,000. It's twice."
"The solution's pricing lacks transparency."
"The solution is not that expensive."
"Cloudflare Zero Trust Platform's pricing is good."
"The pricing of the solution is cheap. The licensing cost is also very low. I rate the cost and pricing a three out of ten."
"The pricing is somewhere in the middle. I would rate the pricing a seven out of ten."
"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."
"It is expensive compared to other vendors."
"The solution’s pricing is manageable."
"The feedback from vendors and customer is that it is expensive."
"We have a two-year license subscription and the price is very high."
"The cost is cheaper than Sophos. I would rate it as five out of ten."
"I rate the application’s pricing a five out of ten."
"When compared with Cisco, it is very well priced. Cisco is very expensive."
"The platform offers a yearly license."
"Our customers purchase the solution's yearly license."
"The overall price of SonicWall Email Security should be reduced and there should be an option to purchase one or two licenses more instead of their current policy of bulk increases only. There should be more flexibility in the licensing model. Each license cost approximately $33 annually."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
12%
Comms Service Provider
11%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Marketing Services Firm
12%
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Healthcare Company
7%
Marketing Services Firm
10%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Computer Software Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business10
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise10
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business4
Midsize Enterprise6
Large Enterprise7
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business11
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise3
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Cloudflare Access?
Cloudflare Access has strong integration with Microsoft, among other platforms. However, when it comes to Kaspersky, ...
What is your primary use case for Cloudflare Access?
Cloudflare Access provides secure access to internal applications for employees, external members of the organization...
What advice do you have for others considering Cloudflare Access?
Cloudflare Access is one of the best integrations available. While about two hundred vendors offer similar services, ...
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, ...
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 ...
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 De...
What needs improvement with SonicWall Email Security?
Policy deployment could be time consuming and represents an area for improvement in SonicWall Email Security.
What is your primary use case for SonicWall Email Security?
SonicWall Email Security was used for security purposes, which aligns with the product's core function.
 

Also Known As

Cloudflare Area 1 Email Security, Cloudflare Bot Management, Cloudflare Gateway, Cloudflare Zero Trust Platform, Cloudflare DDoS, Cloudflare SASE & SSE Platform
Cisco Secure Email Cloud Mailbox, Cisco CMD, Cisco Cloud Mailbox Defense
Dell SonicWALL Email Security Platform, SonicWall Hosted Email Security
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

23andMe
Luiss University, Lone Star College, T-Systems, Magyar Telekom
Star Kay White, Locala Community Partnerships
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco Secure Email Threat Defense vs. SonicWall Email Security and other solutions. Updated: February 2026.
883,011 professionals have used our research since 2012.