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Cisco Secure Email vs Fortinet FortiMail vs Trellix Collaboration Security 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:
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the Email Security category, the mindshare of Cisco Secure Email is 6.1%, down from 8.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Fortinet FortiMail is 4.4%, down from 6.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Trellix Collaboration Security is 2.0%, down from 2.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Email Security
 

Featured Reviews

PaulGiles - PeerSpot reviewer
Provides good visibility into the traffic, valuable reporting, and secure remote access
A lot of our customers use another Cisco product already, so they have confidence in Cisco products. The firewalls they are currently deploying and using have evolved from their older ASA products. They are now moving to the new Firepower Threat Defense, which incorporates many more features and allows them to get the latest ALOFT download and feeds for any security vulnerabilities and they're able to react very quickly to any vulnerabilities that have been highlighted. Initially, when the firewalls were first marketed and came onto the market, the visibility wasn't very good. But as the software evolved over time, that visibility has increased a lot more, and that is giving customers a lot more competence in the traffic and the traffic flows that they're seeing through the actual devices, so they can better understand the types of applications that they have on their network. The good thing about the actual firewall itself is that it can integrate with other Cisco products, such as Cisco ISE so that it allows full end-to-end visibility of connectivity. It gives very good visibility. It's that integration with other products, not just what that individual firewall can do itself. Talos is obviously fundamental to the actual firewall, reporting on vulnerabilities that are happening day to day. And the regular downloads, obviously, give customers confidence that their products are as secure as they can actually be.
MOHAN SUKUMAR - PeerSpot reviewer
Secure email management improves through advanced filtering and dynamic virus scanning
Fortinet FortiMail offers capabilities like settings for mail delivery, mail filtering, spam controls, and email bursting prevention. It also allows for email forwarding, dynamic filtering, and scanning based on virus signatures. I can set varying levels of security. The tool is flexible and provides essential features for mail security and management.
BernardLugalia - PeerSpot reviewer
Provides strong data protection with virtual patching and vulnerability assessments
I primarily use it to monitor database access, particularly in banking and similar environments. It ensures that IT personnel and others do not create unauthorized accounts or users. Collaboration security assists in tracking database access and alerts in case of suspicious activity One of the…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The product's initial setup phase was easy."
"The most valuable features are protection against ransomware and spam."
"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."
"The system enables end users to manage their own whitelists/blacklists."
"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 solution works well."
"It has the ability to tell us, after an email has been delivered, where else it went, once it got inside. Maybe it's something we wanted it to stop and it didn't stop it, but it notified us later that it was something that it should have stopped. It can give us a trajectory of all the other places that it went internally and it can tell us what files were transferred as well."
"I can customize the configuration and policies."
"The solution is very, very stable."
"The most valuable features of Fortinet FortiMail are its virus outbreak prevention and FortiSandbox integration."
"Clean user interface and good sandbox."
"The antiphishing capabilities are very good."
"Fortinet FortiMail is rated an eight for the protection and features it provides in the on-premises setup."
"The deployment is simple and once up and running it is easy to manage."
"The most valuable features are the endpoint defense features, it is very secure."
"Technical support is great. They're available 24/7 and their response time is typically within the hour."
"We can control this solution from the cloud and are able to access it from wherever we are."
"I like FireEye's filtering, spam digests, and its advanced threat review of email flow. It also has a broad range of riskware rules you can deploy."
"Trellix Collaboration Security is valued for being a stable and comprehensive solution that fulfills customer needs."
"The product protects my email."
"The initial setup is simple."
"The auto-remediation feature is valuable."
"FireEye Email Security helps us prevent spam and phishing emails and all other business-compromised email attacks."
"The solution's most valuable feature is its simplicity. It's very user-friendly."
 

Cons

"The tool's pricing can be improved."
"The pricing needs to be reconsidered or enhanced."
"We would like to see more options for the customization of content filters."
"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."
"We didn't get any malware, but a few phishing emails, maybe one or two, slipped in."
"I am not satisfied with the solution's reporting and logging."
"In future releases, I would like to see two main improvements come to mind. First, the current solution requires maintaining two separate operating systems for FTD, which can be cumbersome. I'd love to see a single operating system for the FTD box."
"The configuration UI should be made more intuitive. Currently, it takes a while to understand how to do the basic configurations."
"Online support sometimes takes up to a week to get back to you."
"I don't know if it is possible, but I would like to see Artificial Intelligence and machine learning introduced."
"The solution could be improved by providing a virtual machine facility with a complete set of options in the VM setup."
"I would like the integration to be easier."
"Maybe FortiMail's integration could be better."
"The solution's pricing is flexible and can be adjusted for African utility companies. Microsoft often offers special pricing formulas for African governments and organizations and it is similar to Fortinet FortiMail. In my country, government institutions receive discounted pricing from Fortinet FortiMail."
"It can be easier to configure or connect to the cloud to report on the attachments."
"Header inspection and containerization, like on-prem premises sandboxing, need enhancement."
"The solution must provide features to scan QR codes for threats."
"I would like the solution to be able to automatically quarantine the malicious emails before getting to the user's mailbox and continue with regular email operations. This could result in the user clicking the email before the purge operation is completed."
"Sometimes, integration can be challenging, impacting its stability, which is why I rate it a five out of ten."
"There is a need for improved integration with totally different products, such as a rapid server."
"If they want to be the primary or best solution, they need to have better email management features."
"FireEye needs single sign-on. They say it's on their roadmap. They should also implement support for Microsoft Authenticator app for 2FA."
"In general, our company should make the tool more robust to protect our systems."
"Sometimes especially zero-day spam emails can be passed to the user's inbox."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing is good."
"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."
"In addition to the standard licensing, there is a cost for SMARTnet as well."
"The license was not per user, the license model was per feature. You could choose anti-virus, anti-spam, etc. It was feature-based and charged yearly."
"Cisco Secure Email is expensive, but we get what we pay for."
"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."
"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."
"I rate the product price as six on a scale of one to ten, where one means it is a very expensive tool."
"The pricing is on the higher side."
"The price is acceptable for the support license it includes."
"We paid approximately $30,000 for the solution. It is less expensive than some other solutions. We have one license that carries all the features that we wanted."
"There is either an annual or six-month charge to use this solution. Fortinet FortiMail is cheaper than Proofpoint or Cisco Security, or other email security appliances."
"If you don't need the full bundle that includes everything, you have options for the small or medium enterprise environments."
"The solution is quite pricey compared to other competitors in the market."
"The product's licensing part depends on the number of mailboxes and the hard disk needed by customers. The cost of the license depends on the number of mailboxes and the number of emails."
"The tool is very expensive."
"I rate the product price as nine out of ten, where ten is the most expensive, and one is the cheapest. There is no need to pay any extra charges apart from the licensing costs."
"The solution requires a license to be purchased for every user."
"The cost is very high."
"The licensing is on a yearly basis."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
21%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Government
6%
Computer Software Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Government
7%
Manufacturing Company
18%
Computer Software Company
13%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Government
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

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 is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Fortinet FortiMail?
Fortinet FortiMail is considered overpriced by Indian rupee standards. My organization is not profit-making, and acad...
What needs improvement with Fortinet FortiMail?
It can be somewhat difficult to prepare precise or very deep rules to improve security, though the product is very good.
What do you like most about FireEye Email Security?
One of the valuable features of the product stems from the fact that it is easy to implement the tool in our environm...
What needs improvement with FireEye Email Security?
I would like to see the addition of email digital protection features, such as anti-spam and antivirus, not just sand...
What is your primary use case for FireEye Email Security?
I have worked on Email Security ( /categories/email-security ) both on-premises and in the cloud, Web Security, and a...
 

Also Known As

Cisco Email Security, IronPort, Cisco Email Security, ESA, Email Security Appliances
FortiMail
FireEye Email Security
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

SUNY Old Westbury, CoxHealth, City of Fullerton, Indra
Magromer Cueros y Pieles S.A.
Northshore Utility District, Luz Technologies, Air Academy Federal Credit Union, Bank Gutmann, Bank of Thailand, Penn State Health Milton S. Hershey Medical Center, State of Missouri, City and County of San Francisco, Denver Public Schools, Vodafone, Go Auto, Stater Bros. Market
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft, Proofpoint, Abnormal Security and others in Email Security. Updated: July 2025.
864,574 professionals have used our research since 2012.