

Cisco Secure Email and IRONSCALES compete in the email security sector. Cisco Secure Email has the upper hand with its extensive threat protection features and threat-intelligence integration, making it a strong choice for large enterprises with existing Cisco infrastructure.
Features: Cisco Secure Email offers advanced malware protection, threat intelligence integration, and efficient policy routing. It smoothly integrates into existing network infrastructures, providing a comprehensive solution without extra hardware needs. IRONSCALES excels in automated detection and response, utilizing AI and a global community for effective threat management. It easily integrates with Microsoft 365, aiding proactive threat identification.
Room for Improvement: Cisco Secure Email faces challenges in complex licensing, a dated user interface, and reliance on hardware, impacting scalability. IRONSCALES needs to enhance its management interface, awareness training in multiple languages, and offer more features without incurring additional licensing fees.
Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Cisco Secure Email supports both on-premises and hybrid cloud environments, offering flexibility but requiring complex configurations. Customer service is generally rated well, with some criticisms regarding response times. IRONSCALES, being cloud-based, ensures straightforward deployment. Its technical support is praised for promptness, though documentation and user training could improve.
Pricing and ROI: Cisco Secure Email, with its comprehensive security features, is costly and appeals to large enterprises, offering varying pricing models based on features and user numbers. It receives mixed ROI perceptions due to its high cost. IRONSCALES, while also expensive, reduces manual efforts in email threat management, providing value in preventing costly breaches, thus delivering good perceived ROI.
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.
Customer support for IRONSCALES is outstanding.
I would rate their technical support as very good, as they respond promptly when my team opens a ticket.
The on-premises hardware is not very scalable, but switching to the SaaS offering is expected to improve scalability.
Based on my experience, the stability of Cisco Secure Email is very strong.
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 there were clickable drill downs on specific users or specific correspondence to relate them to certain types of mails, that would be beneficial.
Having a more user-friendly UI would make it easier to identify features and options when using the tool.
Though this isn't problematic for our users, the content could be updated more frequently.
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.
While I don't specifically oversee the pricing details, I understand that IRONSCALES is in the range of similar solutions while offering better results.
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.
IRONSCALES has positively impacted my organization by making email security simple in terms of controlling mails, understanding where the threats are, and protecting the organization itself.
The best features of IRONSCALES are that most alerts are validated through AI, which reduces the fatigue of alerts that need to be worked on by the team handling the alerts investigation part.
IRONSCALES excels at analyzing the intention, not just the content itself, but the sender's attempt to gain user attention.
| Product | Market Share (%) |
|---|---|
| Cisco Secure Email | 5.5% |
| IRONSCALES | 1.6% |
| Other | 92.9% |


| Company Size | Count |
|---|---|
| Small Business | 22 |
| Midsize Enterprise | 18 |
| Large Enterprise | 25 |
| Company Size | Count |
|---|---|
| Small Business | 7 |
| Midsize Enterprise | 4 |
| Large Enterprise | 4 |
Cisco Secure Email provides email security with advanced threat protection, spam filtering, and easy integration with Cisco Talos, ensuring comprehensive protection against cyber threats like phishing and malware.
Cisco Secure Email offers a comprehensive platform for organizations seeking robust email security. With advanced threat protection and seamless integration with Cisco Talos, it enhances threat intelligence. The tool provides easy-to-use spam blocking and granular policy customization. Effective ransomware, phishing, and malware protection ensures stable network performance. It includes logging and reporting features, along with Active Directory integration, delivering enhanced security without extra hardware. Although it addresses threats efficiently, improvements in synchronization with reporting tools and phishing detection are needed. Organizations find cost and licensing complexities challenging for smaller networks and seek more intuitive configuration, advanced AI threat detection, and comprehensive reporting. Enhanced support, documentation, and cross-platform compatibility are desirable for better management and scalability.
What are the most important features?In industries like finance, healthcare, and IT, Cisco Secure Email is key to securing email communications. It serves as the primary email gateway in datacenters, scanning and filtering emails to defend against phishing, malware, and spam. Many organizations integrate it with Sophos Antivirus and Talos Threat Intelligence for heightened protection. It plays a crucial role in outbound message control and data loss prevention, ensuring compliance with security policies.
IRONSCALES delivers cutting-edge AI-driven email phishing detection and prevention, seamlessly integrating with Microsoft 365 for enhanced security.
IRONSCALES, with its advanced AI capabilities, focuses on email security by detecting phishing threats, mitigating business email compromises, and preventing impersonation. Its integration with Microsoft 365 strengthens spam filters, automatically responding to suspicious emails. The platform is used globally for threat inspection, quarantine, and end-user incident reporting. Staff training is enhanced through simulated phishing campaigns, offering an extra layer of protection beyond Microsoft's spam filters. Areas for improvement include better Google Suite integration, pricing adjustments, and enhanced reporting features.
What features make IRONSCALES stand out?In finance, IRONSCALES plays an essential role in safeguarding sensitive data from phishing attacks, ensuring compliance with industry standards. Educational institutions use IRONSCALES for training faculty and students on recognizing phishing attempts, thereby enhancing overall cybersecurity awareness. IT sectors leverage its capabilities for managing complex threat landscapes.
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