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Cisco Secure Email Threat Defense vs Trellix Email Security comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 18, 2026

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

Cisco Secure Email Threat D...
Ranking in Email Security
23rd
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
16
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Trellix Email Security
Ranking in Email Security
15th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.2
Number of Reviews
13
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the Email Security category, the mindshare of Cisco Secure Email Threat Defense is 1.1%, up from 1.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Trellix Email Security is 0.4%, up from 0.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Email Security Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Trellix Email Security0.4%
Cisco Secure Email Threat Defense1.1%
Other98.5%
Email Security
 

Featured Reviews

NM
Enginner at Millennium Information Technologies
Has faced challenges with configuration, taking actions, and learning curve but benefits from centralized management and good technical support
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, are limited as ETD only supports sending audit logs. Customers have requirements for other system logs as well, which should be developed from their side. Another customer request is to restrict the IPs that can log in, which cannot be done from Cisco Secure Email Threat Defense yet. Any user with login details can log in. We can restrict the IPs in Cloud Mail Gateways, but not from Cisco Secure Email Threat Defense. It would be beneficial to improve this feature. Cisco Secure Email Threat Defense can take actions, such as requesting O365 to quarantine mail. In that case, the customer requires notification to the recipient from Cisco Secure Email Threat Defense. This option would be valuable if available. The real-time threat intelligence of Cisco Secure Email Threat Defense is an AI-based classification. It took one to two months to optimize the classification, but we still experience some false positives. Reducing the learning period would be beneficial. 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. Reducing the learning time would be much better. Additional features desired in the next release include IP restrictions and user logging IP restrictions, ensuring only the customer environment can log in to Cisco Secure Email Threat Defense. Logs forwarding needs improvement as currently it only has audit logs. In Cloud Mail Gateway, we can create an IPsec tunnel to forward logs. However, in Cisco Secure Email Threat Defense, there is no option, and we must do API integration to send logs. Only SIM can get logs; Syslog cannot retrieve them.
Anastasia Wairimu - PeerSpot reviewer
Team Manager at Ford
Gateway filtering has protected our organization and provides complete email threat prevention
In my opinion, the best features Trellix Email Security offers include its use for malware analysis as well as the enterprise-wide email quarantine system. My experience with the malware analysis and quarantine features is that they are easy to manage and they have been very effective because we have been able to quarantine any suspicious emails or prevent any attempt before it affects our systems. It is also very user-friendly and has a simple interface. Policies and rules are easy to create and they work with very little downtime or operational impact. Email delivery issues are easy to investigate and troubleshoot. Trellix Email Security has positively impacted my organization as it is user-friendly and does a good job detecting malicious attachments in email, providing complete email protection against all users and working well to stop advanced threats. The price is relatively the same as other competitors.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The product offers protection, email security, anti-spam, and antivirus."
"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."
"Regarding stability, Cisco Secure Email Threat Defense is very stable."
"The advanced threat analytics and URL filtering in threat detection are good features that are working well."
"Overall, it's certainly a very good idea to integrate another layer on top of Microsoft Advanced Threat Protection."
"Cisco's technical support is very good."
"Currently, the ease of deployment is the low-hanging fruit for Cisco email security."
"The ability to see east-west traffic is its most valuable feature. Traditionally, email defense focuses on north-south, inbound-outbound, egress-ingress traffic. With Cisco Secure Email Cloud Mailbox, it's able to quickly identify, track, tag, and categorize emails that are internal. That can typically give us visibility into if there's an internal compromised account (for example). Someone can then use that internal compromised account to email additional accounts with either malicious software or links, but internal within that Office tenant. Effectively, that email message never leaves the tenant. Any of the mail gateways really do not have any method or way of seeing this traffic since it's not leaving the environment."
"Trellix Email Security has positively impacted my organization as it is user-friendly and does a good job detecting malicious attachments in email, providing complete email protection against all users and working well to stop advanced threats."
"Trellix Email Security has positively impacted my organization by providing us with a consolidated tool to manage all our email protection, and it is performing excellently."
"Compared to other email solutions such as Cisco, price-wise, we get this solution within 50 to 60% of the average."
"In my opinion, the most useful functions or features in Trellix Email Security include sandboxing, anti-spam, some filters, and quarantine features, which are highly sought after because of the compliance and protection around the attack vectors on email."
"Even in my brief experience, I can clearly see how automation, AI-based analysis, and real-time monitoring improve response time and strengthen overall email security."
"The impact of Trellix Email Security is very good, with reporting showing that above 90% of threats have been blocked monthly, indicating that Trellix Email Security has helped protect us from cyberattacks."
"Trellix Email Security is one of the good parts because all our organizations are very aware of email security and they are maybe using some exchange server, which is related to that email security purpose."
"Trellix Email Security has positively impacted my organization because we previously experienced a data leak due to an email virus, but now we are secure and not experiencing any of these issues, which is beneficial for the company's important data that we can now protect from threats."
 

Cons

"The pricing could always be better."
"The product's complexity at times results in redundant rule sets that are difficult to untangle, highlighting the need for streamlined management systems and a more user-centric approach to system configuration."
"The solution is a bit expensive. It could be cheaper."
"The tool gives false positives and it needs to be more accurate. I would like to see AI as a new feature."
"The search area has room for improvement. When you go to the next page, it remains at the bottom of the current page that you're on. Also, under the reports section, it allows you to see any "convictions," but if you want to search for those convictions you have to remember when they all came in and go back and edit the search accordingly. You cannot click on the list of convictions to actually see if you had a spike at a certain time."
"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."
"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."
"We encounter issues while searching for missing emails."
"To improve Trellix Email Security, I think the dashboard details could be enhanced."
"Threat intelligence is adequate because they are using Microsoft GTI threat intelligence, but we need to increase protection against phishing and spam mails."
"For potential areas of improvement, Trellix can enable proper single sign-on as opposed to a local username and password."
"The customer support has been inconsistent with Trellix lately because there is a whole loopback hierarchy that you have to reach the customer service first, and then the engineer will respond, and then the customer service will feed you back again."
"However, it was somewhat difficult to block URL-based threats and the security settings were complex, making it difficult for us to use features beyond basic security."
"Regarding technical support from Trellix, I would rate it a four because there is a lot of work that has to be done in terms of the support that is provided."
"When we talk about security, Trellix Email Security console is very complex."
"The main issue right now with Trellix Email Security is price-wise."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The feedback from vendors and customer is that it is expensive."
"The solution’s pricing is manageable."
"It is expensive compared to other vendors."
"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."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Marketing Services Firm
11%
Construction Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Construction Company
13%
Outsourcing Company
13%
Computer Software Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
11%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business4
Midsize Enterprise6
Large Enterprise7
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business9
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise7
 

Questions from the Community

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.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Trellix Email Security?
My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing for Trellix Email Security is that everything good has a price. When we look at the cost relative to what it secures, I think that is acceptabl...
What needs improvement with Trellix Email Security?
Trellix Email Security can be improved in several areas. Although it has almost all the features that an email security tool should have, it could advance further with different types of attacks th...
What is your primary use case for Trellix Email Security?
My main use case for Trellix Email Security is for external communication, where we use the IOCs that we already have for phishing domains to capture phishing emails. For internal emails and outbou...
 

Also Known As

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

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Luiss University, Lone Star College, T-Systems, Magyar Telekom
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco Secure Email Threat Defense vs. Trellix Email Security and other solutions. Updated: August 2026.
909,725 professionals have used our research since 2012.