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Cisco Secure Email vs Fortinet FortiMail Cloud vs Proofpoint Email Protection 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:
 

ROI

Sentiment score
6.4
Cisco Secure Email enhances ROI with robust security, reducing disruptions and downtime from cyber threats, despite perceived high costs.
Sentiment score
7.0
ROI from Fortinet FortiMail Cloud is hard to quantify, though enhanced security and decreased incidents indicate value satisfaction.
Sentiment score
7.0
Proofpoint Email Protection effectively reduced threats and costs, excelling in phishing defense, leading to significant efficiency improvements.
Return on investment in the time is difficult to quantify, however, the return on investment for us was achieved since we did not have similar incidents again in our environment.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
7.3
Cisco Secure Email support is praised for its responsiveness and expertise, though experiences can vary based on assigned engineers.
Sentiment score
6.8
Fortinet FortiMail Cloud support is generally praised for its responsiveness and knowledge, despite some concerns about occasional delays.
Sentiment score
7.3
Proofpoint Email Protection's customer service is praised for responsiveness and expertise, though some report slow responses or portal issues.
Cisco's tech support can be hit or miss, depending on the engineer you get.
The support is pretty decent, with a rating of eight out of ten.
As far as Fortinet secure support, I will rate them nine out of ten.
I would rate the technical support from Fortinet as ten out of ten.
Fortinet's support is really good.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.2
Cisco Secure Email provides scalable solutions for seamless user migration and system growth, with reliable cloud service options.
Sentiment score
7.6
Fortinet FortiMail Cloud offers scalable user expansion, though experiences vary due to subscription and deployment choices impacting flexibility.
Sentiment score
7.6
Proofpoint Email Protection excels in adaptability and scalability, serving both small and large enterprises with ease and flexibility.
The on-premises hardware is not very scalable, but switching to the SaaS offering is expected to improve scalability.
It is highly scalable, so I can give it a ten out of ten on that.
Proofpoint is scalable for multi-site organizations with thousands of users.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
8.0
Cisco Secure Email is praised for reliability, consistent performance, easy maintenance, and high user satisfaction with stable uptime.
Sentiment score
7.0
Fortinet FortiMail Cloud is highly stable with minimal downtime, consistently reliable performance, and high user satisfaction ratings.
Sentiment score
8.2
Users rate Proofpoint Email Protection highly for reliability and performance, with minor UI challenges and rare stability issues.
Based on my experience, the stability of Cisco Secure Email is very strong.
I would give it a high stability rating of nine out of ten.
 

Room For Improvement

Cisco Secure Email's high cost, complexity, poor interface, and limited integration impact usability, requiring AI and service enhancements.
Fortinet FortiMail Cloud requires improved filtering, encryption, UI simplicity, and competitive pricing, while lacking sorting, archiving, and AI features.
Proofpoint Email Protection struggles with setup complexity, feature enhancements, pricing issues, and requires improved support and interface design.
The solution should better analyze the actual content rather than only focusing on the email header or origin.
It would be beneficial to have the functionality of the Email Threat Defense integrated into the Email Security Gateway so customers don't have to buy two products for full email protection.
If we go for FortiMail Cloud and have a separate endpoint security solution, there are two agents that have to sit on a customer endpoint.
It would be beneficial to enhance flexibility for better adaptation to various customer environments.
We can't import files into the Fortinet FortiMail Cloud sensors.
Proofpoint could expand its phishing detection capabilities to improve its efficiency.
More security could be implemented.
I may advise Proofpoint to adjust marketing solutions based on each country.
 

Setup Cost

Cisco Secure Email is priced higher, but users find its extensive features and security benefits justify the cost.
Fortinet FortiMail Cloud offers competitive subscription pricing, with annual licenses around $4,000, varying by organizational needs.
Proofpoint Email Protection is considered costly, with pricing starting at $8 per user and varying by features.
Its cost is bundled with other Cisco products.
The licensing is a mess and needs sorting out.
The pricing structure is good as it is user-based or email client-based, which is positive for clients.
The price is relatively expensive.
The pricing for Fortinet FortiMail Cloud seems a bit high, although it is considered acceptable for the product's value.
Cost-wise, it's a bit expensive, but it's totally worth it.
Customers pay around $90,000 yearly for a 1,000-user organization, with the subscription license being the main expense, apart from implementation fees.
Additional costs do come in, but it enhances security.
 

Valuable Features

Cisco Secure Email provides comprehensive threat management with advanced filtering, intuitive management, and seamless integration, enhancing email security effectively.
Fortinet FortiMail Cloud offers robust email protection with advanced threat detection, seamless integration, and comprehensive management features.
Proofpoint Email Protection offers advanced threat defense, user-friendly interface, and seamless Office 365 integration for comprehensive email security.
It also possesses multiple modules for spam detection, malware detection, and threat intelligence, which are valuable in categorizing emails and determining actions.
It is highly effective in catching phishing and spam emails.
It covers everything through email, like antivirus, IDS, and IPS.
FortiMail's integration with other Fortinet solutions enhances the security part of the organization.
Fortinet FortiMail Cloud has had a positive effect on our organization since we can classify each email coming to our organization.
The return on investment for us was achieved since we did not have similar incidents again in our environment.
The main feature I find most effective is that Proofpoint Email Protection scans emails and quarantines the doubtful ones.
The most beneficial feature of Proofpoint Email Protection is mostly spam filtering; it was very efficient, and we were very happy with the functionality as only relevant emails were allowed for mailboxes.
 

Mindshare comparison

Email Security Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Cisco Secure Email6.1%
Microsoft Defender for Office 36512.1%
Proofpoint Email Protection8.5%
Other73.3%
Email Security
Cloud Email Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Fortinet FortiMail Cloud3.2%
SendGrid19.2%
MailChimp14.9%
Other62.7%
Cloud Email
Secure Email Gateway (SEG) Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Proofpoint Email Protection21.5%
Microsoft Defender for Office 36528.1%
Abnormal Security12.9%
Other37.5%
Secure Email Gateway (SEG)
 

Featured Reviews

Kostas Karidas - PeerSpot reviewer
Helps prevent security breaches but fails to improve in the area of AI
I have not noticed any impressive advanced threat protection mechanisms in the tool. I don't know if there are any AI features in the product. I don't know if there is any other technology embedded in the solution. Cisco Secure Email successfully mitigated potential email threats. My company has seen plenty of scenarios where Cisco Secure Email successfully mitigated potential email threats, spam emails, and fraudulent domains. The product is good for dealing with spam emails, and it can take care of more than 100 spam emails per day. A huge number of spam emails are monitored with the help of Cisco Secure Email. I would not recommend the product to other businesses because you need to have some kind of expertise in configuring and knowing a bit about the tool's GUI. The tool also lacks in the area of AI mechanics. If I would like to have an overview and review another solution, I would go for another product other than Cisco Secure Email. I can definitely suggest others to look at the product and review it, but I would also recommend that they compare it with the other solutions in the market. I wouldn't prioritize Cisco Secure Email over other tools. Either the support partner of the product or I take care of the tool's maintenance phase by looking into the configurations and doing some fine-tuning. I rate the tool a seven to eight out of ten.
Pravin Mandlik - PeerSpot reviewer
Provides enhanced email security with potential agent compatibility issues
There are definitely features that Fortinet should work on. I'm not the right person to implement those features. For a portable cloud solution, a customer has more affinity towards a solution where endpoint security is already in place. 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. If we go for FortiMail Cloud and have a separate endpoint security solution, there are two agents that have to sit on a customer endpoint. From that perspective, Fortinet policies add an extra load to the endpoint. Maybe other solutions have an advantage when it comes to Fortinet.
AhmedRamadan - PeerSpot reviewer
Optimize email security with effective sandboxing and auto Pull for quarantine
Proofpoint is used as an email security gateway for big enterprises, primarily for their on-premises servers. Many customers also use it alongside Office 365 Proofpoint offers a complete solution for email security with features like DLP, email archiving, and encryption. The most valuable…
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
20%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Government
6%
Computer Software Company
10%
University
7%
Non Profit
6%
Financial Services Firm
6%
Computer Software Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
6%
 

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 Business16
Midsize Enterprise8
Large Enterprise2
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business21
Midsize Enterprise13
Large Enterprise16
 

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 ...
What do you like most about Fortinet FortiMail Cloud?
Content disarming and analysis are essential features in our email security setup
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 experience regarding pricing and costs for Proofpoint Email Protection?
In terms of pricing, it is okay compared to others. I would say it is normal. Additional costs do come in, but it enh...
What needs improvement with Proofpoint Email Protection?
It became very expensive due to the nature of local circumstances, and I may advise Proofpoint to adjust marketing so...
 

Also Known As

Cisco Email Security, IronPort, Cisco Email Security, ESA, Email Security Appliances
No data available
Proofpoint Enterprise Protection, Cofense PhishMe, Proofpoint Digital Protection
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

SUNY Old Westbury, CoxHealth, City of Fullerton, Indra
Black Gold Regional Schools, Amadeus Hospitality, Jefferson County, Chunghwa Telecom, City of Boroondara, Dimension Data
Blocket, University of Waterloo, Lincoln Memorial University, WellSpan Health, U-Haul, Carestream Health, Westinghouse
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft, Proofpoint, Abnormal Security and others in Email Security. Updated: August 2025.
866,088 professionals have used our research since 2012.