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Cisco Secure Email vs IRONSCALES comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jul 27, 2025

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
7.9
Implementing IRONSCALES led to cost savings, improved cybersecurity, and enhanced security awareness with immediate efficiency and threat detection benefits.
 

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
8.8
IRONSCALES and its third-party resellers are praised for their quick, efficient issue resolution, excellent support, and high customer ratings.
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.
 

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
8.2
IRONSCALES is cloud-based, easily scalable for up to thousands of users, integrates with Office 365, and requires minimal maintenance.
The on-premises hardware is not very scalable, but switching to the SaaS offering is expected to improve scalability.
 

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
8.9
IRONSCALES is highly stable and reliable, featuring minimal downtime, easy maintenance, and consistent uptime, ensuring smooth performance.
Based on my experience, the stability of Cisco Secure Email is very strong.
 

Room For Improvement

Cisco Secure Email's high cost, complexity, poor interface, and limited integration impact usability, requiring AI and service enhancements.
IRONSCALES needs improved Google Suite integration, better UI, enhanced training and reporting, refined algorithms, and more comprehensive feature bundling.
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.
 

Setup Cost

Cisco Secure Email is priced higher, but users find its extensive features and security benefits justify the cost.
IRONSCALES pricing is considered high but cost-effective and valuable, offering significant security benefits and savings for varying budgets.
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.
 

Valuable Features

Cisco Secure Email provides comprehensive threat management with advanced filtering, intuitive management, and seamless integration, enhancing email security effectively.
IRONSCALES offers scalable AI-driven phishing detection, automated response, and integration with Microsoft 365, enhancing email security and user experience.
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.
 

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)
IRONSCALES
Ranking in Email Security
18th
Average Rating
9.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
13
Ranking in other categories
Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) (19th), Secure Email Gateway (SEG) (8th)
 

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 IRONSCALES is 1.9%, down from 2.4% 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.
Hemeshen Govender - PeerSpot reviewer
Applies AI automation to clearly identify and stop a lot of phishing emails
The solution captures a bit more of the unknown, quantifies it, and applies intelligence to it to pick out and stop a lot of phishing emails that come through. The solution improved our response to phishing attempts. IRONSCALES has a virtual assistant and some AI intelligence that's applied to it. That was the main differentiator between IRONSCALES and Microsoft. The solution's AI automation clearly identifies phishing emails and gives you an overall indication of why it found the mail to be malicious. It does the whole analysis for you to see why the email was deemed a phishing email. The solution's response time is better than that of our previous tool. The solution's user interface is pretty straightforward and user-friendly.
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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
16%
Manufacturing Company
7%
University
6%
Construction Company
5%
 

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 be beneficial to have the functionality of the Email Threat Defense integrated i...
What do you like most about IRONSCALES?
The solution captures a bit more of the unknown, quantifies it, and applies intelligence to it to pick out and stop a lot of phishing emails that come through.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IRONSCALES?
The product is available as a middle-priced tool. I think it is not the cheapest solution. There are other solutions apart from IRONSCALES that are more expensive, while some are a little bit more ...
What needs improvement with IRONSCALES?
I think maybe on the side of the awareness training, the tool can improve a little more information and have some other languages since even though English is good, Spanish is not so good. The tool...
 

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
Allegheny Millwork, Ayrshire College, Nium, Orris, Paramount School District, Pres Les, PRT Staffing, Recovery Unplugged, Telit, WebHelp
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco Secure Email vs. IRONSCALES and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
865,164 professionals have used our research since 2012.