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Cisco Secure Email vs Fortinet FortiMail Cloud comparison

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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:
 

Categories and Ranking

Cloudflare One
Sponsored
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
23
Ranking in other categories
Email Security (20th), Secure Web Gateways (SWG) (12th), Data Loss Prevention (DLP) (22nd), Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB) (12th), Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection (8th), Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) Solutions (13th), Access Management (12th), Bot Management (3rd), ZTNA as a Service (8th), ZTNA (4th), Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) (9th), Remote Browser Isolation (RBI) (2nd)
Cisco Secure Email
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
63
Ranking in other categories
Email Security (6th), Cisco Security Portfolio (9th)
Fortinet FortiMail Cloud
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
24
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Email (4th), Secure Email Gateway (SEG) (8th)
 

Mindshare comparison

Email Security Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Cisco Secure Email4.4%
Proofpoint Email Protection6.3%
Microsoft Defender for Office 3655.7%
Other83.6%
Email Security
Cloud Email Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Fortinet FortiMail Cloud3.4%
SendGrid8.2%
Amazon WorkMail8.1%
Other80.3%
Cloud Email
 

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.
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.
HR
Senior Network Security Engineer at Vibs
Provides solid functionality and allows room for enhancing content management and support services
They can improve their CDR content profile and some anti-spam features. They don't have any direct script to run to add personalization, and we have to do it manually one by one. There are many tasks which we have to complete individually. We can't import files into the Fortinet FortiMail Cloud sensors. That's a drawback, as they need to provide a feature to import files. We can make the format, but we cannot import the file into Fortinet FortiMail Cloud. Additionally, in Fortinet FortiMail Cloud, not in FortiSandbox, they need to improve the block and allow list functionality to block URLs and allow specific types of URLs or regex.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Clover is the best product globally."
"Cloudflare Access is a stable solution."
"We mostly use Cloudflare WAF, and gets basic Cloudflaire DDoS, caching as extra bonus . We like the factor these features are all integrated into 1 console, simple to manage."
"Cloudflare DDoS mitigates DDoS attacks."
"Using Cloudflare One makes my work quite easy because for DDoS protection, all I need to do is understand the OSI model and click; it makes it easier than trying to write a command line or use a Linux command."
"It's a perfect solution from my perspective; it's easy to understand and easy to configure."
"The solution has different options that can be used to differentiate DDoS attacks."
"Enables me to work from two locations."
"The logs are easily readable and help diagnose problems, although they can be difficult to find initially. The solution addresses our email security, but for the rest of our security, we would use multiple vendors. It covers everything through email, like antivirus, IDS, and IPS."
"For what you get for the product, the support, and the overall stability, it is definitely a good return on investment."
"Cisco Secure Email Cloud Gateway has allowed our users to be able to concentrate on the emails that they do receive. Previously, our users had to deal with nine million additional emails across the organization, which is nearly 1,000 emails per user to have to deal with a month. That's a massive amount for our staff to deal with and probably several hours of their time. We have a lot of clinical staff, being a hospital. We want to make our staff as productive as possible. By removing a lot of that spam and phishing type emails, this allows them to do their job."
"The product blocks spam emails."
"The strong point of the solution is that we hardly get any spam emails because of Cisco Secure Email."
"It blocks bulk marketing messages, graymail, spam, and provides advanced malware protection."
"This solution provides some benefits, like comfortable access to TAC support. You get prompt support when working directly with Cisco."
"It does a great job of preventing spam, malware, and ransomware."
"Cost-wise, it's a bit expensive, but it's totally worth it."
"FortiMail Cloud is very fast."
"From my experience, this tool is able to protect the network."
"This solution is easy to install."
"The encryption features are most valuable to us."
"The scanners with FortiMail are valuable."
"With Office 365, I would recommend using this solution as there would be no problem and everything will be taken care of."
"Fortinet's support is really good."
 

Cons

"The free plan has limitations. For example, I can only set up three rules, and the application firewall is unavailable."
"Automation could be improved where you can easily add a TLS and SSL certificate to an application or web app if the developer did not include it."
"Our subscription plan for the solution has a limitation of bot signatures."
"Operating and tuning the product is difficult."
"The software has automated alerts, but the automated alerts are not available in the mobile app."
"Cloudflare DDoS has poor technical support."
"They don't have a person to provide support for customers using the solution under their free plan."
"The tool should provide on-premise versions. Currently, all versions are cloud-based."
"The area of license renewal should be improved. We normally renew our license every year."
"The Forged Email Detection feature needs improvement, particularly with domain. The sensors are not that good and the rules sets are unclear."
"The reporting functionality needs to be improved."
"Added cost and delay to the network traffic, but performance did remain stable."
"While Cisco offers excellent solutions and innovations, the pricing may not be suitable for everyone. The cost of the software is relatively high. In the current market, there are numerous competitive alternatives that focus on security, enterprise networks, and various other aspects. Cisco, being a comprehensive provider, extends its expertise across data, servers, storage, and security, making them a preferred choice for many enterprises. However, when it comes specifically to security solutions, there are other vendors that specialize solely in this domain, offering competitive options."
"The areas of Cisco Secure Email that could be improved or enhanced are the slowness in the console."
"I use the search all the time. Sometimes, it is hard to search for things and things are hard to find."
"The UI is definitely one area of improvement because it doesn't match other interfaces and the navigation can be a little clunky."
"It is slightly difficult to configure FortiMail in the cloud with Exchange on-premise, especially the quarantine mailbox access for end-users."
"The URL filtering and handling should be enhanced because it doesn't support all languages. I believe that this would be easy to enhance in the future."
"In endpoint security, they are not at the latest quadrant. That is why a customer with existing endpoint security solutions like Trend Micro might prefer a main security solution from that vendor."
"The downside of this solution is that it is difficult to implement policies on FortiMail."
"Fortinet policies add an extra load to the endpoint."
"This solution is expensive, so the pricing could be improved to be more competitive."
"They could look at strengthening anti-spam with the newly observed domains."
"The dashboard could use improvement."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution is not that 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 prices are slightly expensive."
"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."
"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."
"Cloudflare Zero Trust Platform's pricing is good."
"The pricing is somewhere in the middle. I would rate the pricing a seven out of ten."
"There were no other costs in addition to the standard licensing fees."
"The price is significantly high."
"There are additional fees for adding features."
"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's adapted to the market. It's similar to other vendors. We at least don't have many problems regarding that because Cisco is adaptable on that side. When we present the solutions to the customers, we tend to achieve the goals that the customer has in terms of the budget for such implementations."
"Pricing depends on your environment and which model you want to buy."
"I would rate the pricing a ten out of ten, where one is cheap, and ten is expensive."
"It is a super big router that costs a few hundred thousand dollars."
"The pricing depends on various factors, including the type of licenses and subscriptions you have procured"
"It should cost around $60,000. We bought it as a bundle, so everything comes together in the license. That is standard."
"When we're talking about pricing, other products have about the same price. That is normal."
"It's on a subscribed basis."
"You only have to purchase one license for multiple participants."
"I rate the price of Fortinet FortiMail Cloud a five on a one to ten scale, where one is the low price, and ten is the high price. It is an averagely priced product."
"The price of this solution could be more competitive."
"The product's price is reasonable."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Construction Company
19%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Outsourcing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Outsourcing Company
7%
Computer Software Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Construction Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
7%
University
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business10
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise12
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business22
Midsize Enterprise18
Large Enterprise27
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business16
Midsize Enterprise8
Large Enterprise2
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Cloudflare Zero Trust Platform?
In my opinion, Cloudflare One can be improved mainly through compatibility, as the integration should be much simpler...
What is your primary use case for Cloudflare Zero Trust Platform?
Cloudflare One's primary use case for my organization is to protect servers and to provide remote access with the VPN...
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 ...
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...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Fortinet FortiMail Cloud?
The price of Fortinet FortiMail Cloud in Egypt is very competitive against other products, including the setup cost a...
What needs improvement with Fortinet FortiMail Cloud?
The improvement in Fortinet FortiMail Cloud can be made regarding the classification process itself because it has so...
What is your primary use case for Fortinet FortiMail Cloud?
I have experience working with Fortinet FortiMail Cloud as a mail gateway, not a firewall, and we have been using it ...
 

Also Known As

Cloudflare Area 1 Email Security, Cloudflare Bot Management, Cloudflare Gateway, Cloudflare Zero Trust Platform, Cloudflare DDoS, Cloudflare SASE & SSE Platform
Cisco Email Security, IronPort, Cisco Email Security, ESA, Email Security Appliances
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

23andMe
SUNY Old Westbury, CoxHealth, City of Fullerton, Indra
Black Gold Regional Schools, Amadeus Hospitality, Jefferson County, Chunghwa Telecom, City of Boroondara, Dimension Data
Find out what your peers are saying about Proofpoint, Microsoft, Check Point Software Technologies and others in Email Security. Updated: July 2026.
908,402 professionals have used our research since 2012.