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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) (13th), Data Loss Prevention (DLP) (22nd), Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB) (13th), Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection (9th), Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) Solutions (12th), Access Management (11th), Bot Management (3rd), ZTNA as a Service (9th), ZTNA (4th), Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) (9th), Remote Browser Isolation (RBI) (3rd)
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 (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 Email4.7%
Proofpoint Email Protection6.7%
Microsoft Defender for Office 3656.1%
Other82.5%
Email Security
Cloud Email Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Fortinet FortiMail Cloud3.6%
SendGrid8.4%
Amazon WorkMail8.1%
Other79.9%
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.
IA
Consultant for the Chairman at Financial Literacy Knowledge Hub
Positive impact observed with email classification and encryption, but improvements needed in classification accuracy
The best features of Fortinet FortiMail Cloud are the classification of email and spam helper functionality. We are making a mix between human interaction and the cloud for the device itself. We are using pre-configured control on the device itself, and for the cloud, for the automatic notifications of classification. I have used the identity-based email encryption feature and we are using the mail encryption feature. We are not delivering the email until the user confirms that they know the sender; it remains encrypted until after confirmation that the email is safe. Fortinet FortiMail Cloud has had a positive effect on our organization since we can classify each email coming to our organization. We can identify false positives, spam emails, and other classifications for each email coming to our organization.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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."
"Cloudflare Zero Trust Platform removes the risk of exposing the applications to the public."
"For Cloudflare Access, I am using the free plan...The most valuable feature is their protection."
"Clover is the best product globally."
"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."
"Cloudflare Access is a stable solution."
"It will take the blow rather than our applications should an attack occur."
"Cloudflare, in my opinion, was easy to implement."
"The malicious URL scanning, as well as the anti-malware features, have been really useful for us in our environment."
"The most valuable features of the Cisco ESA have to do with the intelligence they provide us, as they respond quickly to any phishing attacks and threats on the system."
"The user interface was quite friendly, it was quite easy to use, unlike some other Cisco products. Anybody could use it. You don't have to be familiar with IT to be able to handle navigating it."
"The most valuable feature is the different content filters we are using, such as DKIM."
"We like the in-built features, like the email filtering based on the IP and domain, and Cisco has its own blacklisted domains and IPs, which is very good because this filters around 70 percent of emails from spam and we are seeing fewer false positives with this."
"At one point, there was a zero-day attack. The Cisco appliance detected it and stopped it, helping us out. We avoided the attack and potential damage."
"The tool comes with AI features. It is good for clients who already use Cisco products due to integration."
"We chose Cisco Iron Port as it delivers strong email security protection and our company needed it to protect the company's email systems from spam, email viruses, .exe files, unwanted email from unwanted sender etc."
"I love FortiMail."
"I am impressed with the tool's ability to setup rules and destinations. It also helps to monitor suspicious items."
"It is a good solution and a good choice."
"The most valuable feature is the advanced threat protection."
"The deployment is simple."
"If there is a problem somewhere Fortinet can act on it immediately. That is very important."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is the ability to check to see if the email is real."
"From my experience, this tool is able to protect the network."
 

Cons

"Our subscription plan for the solution has a limitation of bot signatures."
"The free plan has limitations. For example, I can only set up three rules, and the application firewall is unavailable."
"The pricing is an area that can be improved. Pricing, as far as I recall, was the source of our problems."
"Cloudflare DDoS has poor technical support."
"The initial onboarding was causing us some confusion."
"The onboarding process can be improved a little bit."
"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."
"Feedback could be enhanced. While I work efficiently with Clover as a partner in Mexico City, sometimes the information and requests are easier to manage with more concrete solutions."
"The interface is dated. It has looked pretty much the same for 15 years or so. It would be helpful to be able to do everything from one spot. The centralized quarantine and reporting are completely separate from policy administration."
"Many smaller businesses opt for more cost-effective solutions, such as Gmail or Hotmail accounts, instead of investing in Cisco Secure Email, given its higher cost."
"In some cases, detection is missed, leading to false positives where genuine emails are flagged as spam."
"I would rate the stability a six out of ten. We had multiple issues with the stability."
"We cannot manage multiple devices from a single UI."
"The scalability must be improved."
"The graphical user interface is not user-friendly like other vendors. I find it very difficult at times to find some options on the UI."
"Typically, in a phishing email, they try to use a name everybody's going to recognize, like the CEO's name or the CFO's name... With this appliance, the way it's designed at the moment, for us to really stop that with any level of confidence, we have to build a dictionary of all the names of the people we want it to check, and all the ways they could be spelled. My name would be in there as Phillip Collins, Phillip D. Collins, Phillip Dean Collins, Phil Collins, Phil D. Collins. There could be eight or 10 variations of my name that we'd have to put in the dictionary. There's no artificial intelligence to say "Phil Collins" could be all these other things, and to stop phishing from coming through in that way."
"The dashboard could use improvement."
"The tool's UI can be simple since it's cluttered now and you can't understand where you are going. It's not obvious to find out the menus or things that you are looking to find."
"The product could be improved by extending reporting tools and adding options for notification."
"Email sorting is missing from this solution."
"The price is relatively expensive."
"The improvement in Fortinet FortiMail Cloud can be made regarding the classification process itself because it has some false positives."
"FortiMail needs to develop further, particularly in integrating AI features, to keep up with rapidly advancing technology."
"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."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price tag is no longer $200,000, but rather $300,000 to $400,000. It's twice."
"The prices are slightly expensive."
"The solution is not that expensive."
"The solution's pricing lacks transparency."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"Compared to Cisco's on-prem service, the cost is the same, but you don't have to pay for the hardware and you don't have to maintain the system, as far as upgrades and hardware failures are concerned. It is cheaper to operate on their cloud service than it is to operate with their on-prem service."
"The product's price falls on the higher side when compared to the other products on the market."
"It is expensive. I would rate it 2 out of 10, where 1 is the most expensive and 10 is the cheapest."
"The price is significantly high."
"There are additional fees for adding features."
"You're going to get what you pay for. If you're not willing to pay the price of Cisco, you're not going to get a product that's as good as Cisco. I don't think Cisco is overpriced, because for the last two years I've been comparing it to Microsoft and Cisco has been cheaper and given us more features."
"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."
"The licensing is a mess and needs sorting out. I am not really concerned about the pricing because I only make recommendations, not buying decisions."
"The pricing depends on various factors, including the type of licenses and subscriptions you have procured"
"The licensing is for three years. In the beginning, we did not pay monthly, it was paid once for three years."
"It should cost around $60,000. We bought it as a bundle, so everything comes together in the license. That is standard."
"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 product's price is reasonable."
"A license for our company using FortiMail and FortiCare (filtering and support) was $4000."
"The price of this solution could be more competitive."
"When we're talking about pricing, other products have about the same price. That is normal."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Construction Company
19%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
8%
Outsourcing Company
6%
Financial Services Firm
8%
University
8%
Computer Software Company
7%
Construction Company
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: June 2026.
904,016 professionals have used our research since 2012.