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Cisco Secure Email vs Forcepoint Email Security [EOL] comparison

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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
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
63
Ranking in other categories
Email Security (5th), Cisco Security Portfolio (6th)
Forcepoint Email Security [...
Average Rating
7.8
Number of Reviews
14
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Featured Reviews

KS
Technical Associate Network Security at Valuepoint Systems
Email security has protected financial data and provides clear tracking for every branch message
The areas of Cisco Secure Email that could be improved or enhanced are the slowness in the console. I don't think it was a database error or something, but we feel some slowness in configuring DLP and other content filters compared to other consoles. It may have been due to on-premises, but it was much noisy at some times while configuring DLP. When we tried to configure a DLP policy, the console became much slower. In that case, we cannot see what had happened in the mail which was blocked at that time. It may take nearly an hour to get back to normal while configuring policies. That is the major issue in the product.
Kunjal Haria - PeerSpot reviewer
Systems Manager at Muraspec Decorative Solutions Ltd
Stable, easy to scale, and has anti-spam and anti-spyware features, but support needs to be faster and more knowledgeable
I've contacted Forcepoint Email Security support, but I'm not satisfied with the answer speed. It could be a lot faster. I also get more answers on the internet than from the technical support team, so Forcepoint Email Security needs more knowledgeable support. On a scale of one to five, my rating for the technical support of Forcepoint Email Security is three.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"This solution provides some benefits, like comfortable access to TAC support. You get prompt support when working directly with Cisco."
"The tool comes with AI features. It is good for clients who already use Cisco products due to integration."
"From a functionality perspective, the platform is great."
"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."
"This product is the complete solution and the real deal."
"It provided a platform to sell a service to customers."
"Overall, the ease of migration to Cisco's cloud email security from the on-prem solution was a positive experience."
"There were detailed logs available. That was a seriously good feature... It turns out these were actually spoof emails that came into our environment. I got to know about them from the log system."
"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."
"With businesses running on email now, the companies are completely protected with this solution, and our customers are happy."
"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."
"We have found the product to be stable."
"Forcepoint Email Security is a unique endpoint management solution that secures our centralized management, our web, our DLP, and data."
"All of the filtering features are very nice."
"Our customers get more visibility into what's going on, they are able to get the exact details of what is being shared and what is being captured by Forcepoint, and it has also reduced spam."
"The email and the web filter aspects of the solution are the most valuable features."
 

Cons

"The UI is definitely one area of improvement because it doesn't match other interfaces and the navigation can be a little clunky."
"The area of license renewal should be improved. We normally renew our license every year. There is a feature called smart licensing, and I switched from the legacy mode to the smart licensing mode because of what I thought smart licensing does. I thought it would make licensing renewal seamless and very swift, but ever since I've switched to smart licensing, each time I want to renew my license, it is a whole lot of headache. The process is not smooth, and I had to keep calling Cisco TAC to see how the issue can be resolved. At one point, I wanted to revert back to the legacy mode, but I can't revert. Once you switch from the legacy mode to the smart licensing mode, you can't revert. They should improve on the visibility of the smart licensing mode so that it can indeed be smart and easier to use for the license renewal every year. That is one challenge."
"The Forged Email Detection feature needs improvement, particularly with domain. The sensors are not that good and the rules sets are unclear."
"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 areas of Cisco Secure Email that could be improved or enhanced are the slowness in the console."
"The user interface of the Email Security Gateway should be improved."
"The interface is dated. It has looked pretty much the same for 15 years or so."
"We use the CLI for management, but it's not very good. It's based on Java and it's very difficult to use."
"I would like to see some improvement like cloud application and integration capabilities and the classification part is missing from the DLP."
"The reporting functionality needs to be improved, as it is not customizable."
"My advice, if you're looking into using Forcepoint Email Security, is that you can find better options out there."
"It would be better if it were simpler to deploy on one or two machines instead of three or four machines."
"Forcepoint Email Security is stable, but it could be improved."
"This solution could be improved by providing further functionality to reduce or to block ransom attacks, cross-site scripting and man-in-the-middle attacks."
"Technical support is lacking. It could be a lot better."
"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."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We do annual licensing for Cisco Secure Email Gatewayand SMA together, and possibly SmartNet support. Packaged together, the cost is just under $38,000."
"It is a super big router that costs a few hundred thousand dollars."
"I don't have the insights into it, but compared to different products, it seems to have a medium level of pricing."
"At times, we feel the pricing is a bit too high, but then, there is also room for discounts. We enjoy a lot of discounts, and that is why we are still with them. There are no costs in addition to the standard licensing fees."
"Cisco Secure Email is more expensive than other products. I rate it a five out of ten. There are no additional costs. You only need to pay the subscription amounts."
"Licensing costs depend on how many users there are. It could range between $5 and $7 per month, per user."
"Cisco Secure Email and the support are priced well. It's not cheap, but there are other solutions that offer less and cost so much. For example, Microsoft is more expensive than Cisco."
"I rate the product price as six on a scale of one to ten, where one means it is a very expensive tool."
"There are three types of support licenses."
"My company pays for Forcepoint Email Security licensing annually."
"When compared to other email security solutions, the price is not cheap."
"Licensing is a yearly subscription that is based on the number of users."
"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."
"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."
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Answers from the Community

KK
Quality Executive at Dharampal Premchand Limited(DPPCL)
Dec 12, 2022
Dec 12, 2022
Hi Kamal, Firstly, you would have to recognize that there is/are no fast and hard rules to choosing a final preferred product, what works well for company A may not work extensively well for company B. Reason being that: the efficiency of the Security capabilities provided by one tool can be amplified by another tool, particularly for secure email gateway. Hence, if you have an XDR that you in...
2 out of 7 answers
SimonClark - PeerSpot reviewer
Cyber Security Advisor - Director at Fort Net UK
Jun 20, 2022
Top brands don't mean best or most cost-effective. My advice is to look a bit further before you make a decision. Evidence suggests that most top brands are pretty good at detecting and blocking malicious attachments, best case letting through 1%, but can be worse than 50% when it comes to detecting malicious links in the text of the email.  There are numerous less well-known vendors with lower-cost AI-based solutions that have a far better success rate, also providing employees the ability to report on suspect emails which auto-removes them from other staff members' inboxes until they have been properly assessed. Some will provide a visual risk score to the recipient to give them advance warning to be more cautious. Combining this kind of capability with staff awareness products keeps your vendor list lower and further improves efficiency. For around £2 GBP per user per month (less than $3) we provide different vendors depending upon the customer's environment but provided as a managed service. This allows our customers to outsource some of the monitoring and day-to-day management, spread the cost on a monthly basis, and flex how many licences they need on a monthly basis too i.e. if you drop 20 users don't pay for them but if you increase by 20 you don't need complex co-termination and pro rata discussions.
DM
Security Technician at Mercadona
Jun 21, 2022
I only can recommend Cisco because it´s the only one with which I'd worked enough. I think it is powerful enough and has a lot of possibilities. In addition, to a great support team. 
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Outsourcing Company
10%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Outsourcing Company
20%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Healthcare Company
8%
Performing Arts
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business22
Midsize Enterprise18
Large Enterprise27
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business8
Midsize Enterprise5
Large Enterprise1
 

Questions from the Community

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 areas of Cisco Secure Email that could be improved or enhanced are the slowness in the console. I don't think it was a database error or something, but we feel some slowness in configuring DLP ...
What is your primary use case for Cisco Secure Email?
We are using Cisco Secure Email to monitor the outgoing and incoming mail traffic in our financial institute. We have nearly 900 branches all over India. We have an on-premises mail server in which...
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Also Known As

Cisco Email Security, IronPort, Cisco Email Security, ESA, Email Security Appliances
Websense Email Security
 

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
Find out what your peers are saying about Proofpoint, Microsoft, Check Point Software Technologies and others in Email Security. Updated: October 2026.
920,939 professionals have used our research since 2012.