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Cisco Secure Email vs Forcepoint Email Security [EOL] vs Fortra's Clearswift Secure Email Gateway comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

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

Featured Reviews

BD
Chief Information Security Officer at Abcl
Threat intelligence with fast attack detection enables comprehensive email protection
In some cases, detection is missed, leading to false positives where genuine emails are flagged as spam. This could result in users not opening genuine emails. We have highlighted this to Cisco because sometimes phishing or marketing campaigns, which are genuine, are incorrectly flagged as spam. The solution should better analyze the actual content rather than only focusing on the email header or origin.
MB
Senior IT Security at ALEXBANK
Easy to use and setup and expands well
We primarily use the solution for email security The solution is very easy for administration. The interface is very good.  It's easy to set up initially. We have found the product to be stable.  It can scale well.  The solution could use better integration capabilities.  There are other…
PC
Systems Administrator at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees
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

"It sends us reports, where we can see if there have been attacks, e.g. DDoS. If so, we can switch to a clean IP."
"We rely heavily on antivirus protection, email content filtering, and authentication mechanisms to ensure compliance with email security. Regarding phishing attempts, while phishing protection features are crucial, we also emphasize user education as a critical defence. The intelligence services Cisco provides, such as the Cisco Intelligence Center, play a significant role in analyzing and validating threats, including phishing attempts, in our email security practices."
"Cisco Secure Email has strong inbound services."
"The most valuable feature is the different content filters we are using, such as DKIM."
"The filtering is definitely better at catching both spam and malicious messages, and there's a lot of extremely granular ability for setting up rules. You can do it the way you want to. The Microsoft solution tends to be pretty limited in how it allows some of that to be done."
"The system enables end users to manage their own whitelists/blacklists."
"It's flexible. There are a lot of rules and policies that can be easily applied for certain employees or certain mailboxes."
"The tool has a DLP solution which we can implement. Its database is updated regularly."
"Forcepoint Email Security is a good solution, and I don't have any issues with it. I found anti-spam and anti-spyware the most valuable features of Forcepoint Email Security."
"This is a reasonably stable solution."
"The filtering of the solution is very good. You can do URL filtering and, while you need a custom URL to filter under other solutions like Symantec, here the solution covers most categories and the database."
"It is good at data leakage prevention (DLP). You can create the data exfiltration profile while sending the emails, which is one of the key advantages of the solution."
"It's easier to deploy than other options."
"Unlike other competitors, it doesn't cause any performance issues."
"We have found the product to be stable."
"The email and the web filter aspects of the solution are the most valuable features."
"A stable solution."
"Ability to create your own content-filtering policies with relative ease."
 

Cons

"The management features of the product are not up to date."
"Cisco Secure Email can be improved from the administrator's point of view. Usually, you have to work with different areas, and they can try to make it easy for the administrator to use different functions."
"I use the search all the time. Sometimes, it is hard to search for things and things are hard to find. People come to me all the time, saying, "This email didn't get through." Then, I go searching and don't find it on the first search. You have to think about alternative searches. I don't know if there is an easier way that they could help to find things. I don't know how they could simplify it, because now everybody else is using the cloud and everything is coming from Office 365, or whatever. It is just not the same environment from years ago where everybody had their own server and you could search easier."
"The hardware is not up to the mark. Two to three times a year we have complete downtime."
"We have been struggling in the last month with Cisco encryption and with the S/MIME encryption. I don't know if it is an issue on our side or if these features of the solution are not working very well."
"They can do it better with web links, with the URLs. They have a technology called Outbreak but it doesn't work as well as we would like."
"The user interface needs some improvement to become more user-friendly. The graphics could be better. It's designed more for a technical user rather than a business user."
"The reporting functionality needs to be improved."
"An area for improvement in Forcepoint Email Security is technical support. The agents need to be more knowledgeable. The support also needs to be faster."
"Technical support is lacking. It could be a lot better."
"The solution could use better integration capabilities."
"We've fixed a couple of issues on the solution so far. It doesn't work perfectly all the time."
"Forcepoint is the best for DLP, but it is not better than other solutions in terms of phishing emails or threat protections on the email. It has less visibility over there. They might need to enhance these components because other solutions, such as Cisco Email Security and IronPort, have more advanced features. Forcepoint should focus more on threats and spam. They have a small database for spam. They must increase their solution's capability from this perspective."
"I would like for deployment to be simplified."
"I would like to see some improvement like cloud application and integration capabilities and the classification part is missing from the DLP."
"It would be better if it were simpler to deploy on one or two machines instead of three or four machines."
"Malware needs improvement."
"FTP server and TRUST Manager functionality."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The licensing was all transferred."
"It is a relatively expensive option compared to other alternatives."
"The pricing for the Cisco Email Security Appliance involves recurring costs for licenses based on the contracted time frame, such as one year, three years, or five years. Renewals are required after the license expires."
"I rate the pricing a ten out of ten on a scale where one means it is less cost-effective, and ten means it is the most cost-effective solution."
"It is a reasonably priced solution."
"In addition to the standard licensing, there is a cost for SMARTnet as well."
"In my previous organization, avoiding four instances of CryptoLocker within an estimated six month period is approximately $600,000 in lost time and effort. Our five year cost was about a million dollars, and the four outages that we had equated to 65 percent of that five year cost."
"The price is significantly high."
"Licensing is a yearly subscription that is based on the number of users."
"My company pays for Forcepoint Email Security licensing annually."
"There are three types of support licenses."
"Its licensing is quite easy and straightforward. They have two or three suites, and the price is negotiable. It depends upon the size of the deal. They have multiple licenses. The standard is one, and then there are additional licenses that you can go for. There are three or four licensing models. You have the network suite, endpoint suite, email security, and the standard one."
"The licensing is user base (per user). The product is purchased mostly by medium to large companies. For smaller companies, we have other solutions because the pricing is not cheap."
"When compared to other email security solutions, the price is not cheap."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
15%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Comms Service Provider
5%
Computer Software Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Performing Arts
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
12%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Educational Organization
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business22
Midsize Enterprise18
Large Enterprise25
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business8
Midsize Enterprise5
Large Enterprise1
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Cisco Secure Email?
Cisco Secure Email is a budget-friendly solution.
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 user interface of the Email Security Gateway ( /products/security-gateway-reviews ) should be improved. It would ...
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Also Known As

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

Overview

 

Sample Customers

SUNY Old Westbury, CoxHealth, City of Fullerton, Indra
Alphawest, Amadori, AudioNova, Betsson, Confartigianato Vicenza, Davies Turner, iGATE, Lake Michigan Credit Union, Landa Digital Printing, Northern California Bank, Scavolini, Toyota
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