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Cisco Secure Email vs Fortra's Agari comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 3, 2024

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
Ranking in Email Security
5th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
62
Ranking in other categories
Cisco Security Portfolio (7th)
Fortra's Agari
Ranking in Email Security
39th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
4
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

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 Fortra's Agari is 0.7%, up from 0.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Email Security
 

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.
TF
Helps to detect and generate reports on phishing emails and saves from email compromises
We use the solution for marketing and brand protection.  I am impressed with the tool's discovery capabilities which help me find out who is sending the emails on the company's behalf. I also find the ability to detect and generate reports on phishing emails a valuable feature.  The product's…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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."
"ATP has been the most valuable in improving our email security posture."
"The solution is very configurable. It has enabled us to configure some specific filters to stop emails that general configurations didn't stop. It's a powerful solution. It can analyze a lot of emails simultaneously, with no problems of capacity or system load."
"Because we scan products, and there is a lot of critical data, security is very important in these cases."
"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."
"Spam controls are excellent because they are a powerful feature that operates almost effortlessly."
"It's flexible. There are a lot of rules and policies that can be easily applied for certain employees or certain mailboxes."
"Users were able to do a check by themselves on quarantined emails. They could check if a valid email had been stopped, if it matched up with the SPF certification."
"If spam or some kind of malicious email gets past Mimecast and gets into our email environment, we can go into Agari and we can search for it."
"It comes with a lot of helpful tips for complicated areas."
"It is really important for large companies to have the brand protection that is provided by Agari."
"I am impressed with the tool's discovery capabilities which help me find out who is sending the emails on the company's behalf. I also find the ability to detect and generate reports on phishing emails a valuable feature."
 

Cons

"The pricing needs to be reconsidered or enhanced."
"Cisco Email Secure's pricing needs to be less. We have vendors who provide cheaper solutions with the same features."
"My opinion on the licensing of this solution is that it is a mess that needs sorting out. I am not particularly bothered by pricing as I administer it and make recommendations for people to buy or not to buy."
"The initial setup was complex because I have two sites with physical clusters."
"The user interface needs some improvement to become more user-friendly. The graphics could be better. It's designed more for a technical user rather than a business user."
"The hardware is not up to the mark. Two to three times a year we have complete downtime."
"I would like more functionality and how to use it for Level 2 type staff. The biggest issue is it needs to be easier to use and navigate."
"It is not user-friendly, and it is quite complicated. So, it should be more user-friendly."
"The product's user interface is clunky. We have difficulty in finding what we need. I would also like to see automation in the onboarding processes."
"Some customers in the financial sector do not like the cloud solution because they don't want data to be transferred to a US-based cloud."
"The protocol is quite complicated, which may not be something that could be improved, but it would be better if it was simplified."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I don't have the insights into it, but compared to different products, it seems to have a medium level of pricing."
"Cisco Secure Email is not expensive, and licensing costs are yearly."
"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."
"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 expensive. I would rate it 2 out of 10, where 1 is the most expensive and 10 is the cheapest."
"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."
"In my previous organization, avoiding four instances of CryptoLocker within an estimated six month period is approximately $600,000 in lost time and effort. Our five year cost was about a million dollars, and the four outages that we had equated to 65 percent of that five year cost."
"There were no other costs in addition to the standard licensing fees."
"The pricing depends on the number of users; per how many mailboxes you have, but they're pretty negotiable with that, too."
"The tool is not expensive and I would rate its pricing a four out of ten."
"The price of the licensing is based on the volume of email."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
20%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Government
6%
Financial Services Firm
16%
Media Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Computer Software Company
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

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 be beneficial to have the functionality of the Email Threat Defense integrated i...
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Also Known As

Cisco Email Security, IronPort, Cisco Email Security, ESA, Email Security Appliances
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

SUNY Old Westbury, CoxHealth, City of Fullerton, Indra
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Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco Secure Email vs. Fortra's Agari and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
865,295 professionals have used our research since 2012.