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Cisco Secure Email vs LevelBlue MailMarshal comparison

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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:
 

Categories and Ranking

Cisco Secure Email
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
63
Ranking in other categories
Email Security (5th), Cisco Security Portfolio (6th)
LevelBlue MailMarshal
Average Rating
7.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
Secure Email Gateway (SEG) (14th)
 

Mindshare comparison

While both are Messaging and Collaboration solutions, they serve different purposes. Cisco Secure Email is designed for Email Security and holds a mindshare of 4.6%, down 5.2% compared to last year.
LevelBlue MailMarshal, on the other hand, focuses on Secure Email Gateway (SEG), holds 2.0% mindshare, up 0.8% since last year.
Email Security Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Cisco Secure Email4.6%
Proofpoint Email Protection5.9%
Microsoft Defender for Office 3655.1%
Other84.4%
Email Security
Secure Email Gateway (SEG) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
LevelBlue MailMarshal2.0%
Proofpoint Email Protection17.7%
Mimecast Advanced Email Security14.1%
Other66.2%
Secure Email Gateway (SEG)
 

Featured Reviews

KS
Technical Associate Network Security at Valuepoint Systems
Email security has protected financial data and provides clear tracking for every branch message
The areas of Cisco Secure Email that could be improved or enhanced are the slowness in the console. I don't think it was a database error or something, but we feel some slowness in configuring DLP and other content filters compared to other consoles. It may have been due to on-premises, but it was much noisy at some times while configuring DLP. When we tried to configure a DLP policy, the console became much slower. In that case, we cannot see what had happened in the mail which was blocked at that time. It may take nearly an hour to get back to normal while configuring policies. That is the major issue in the product.
FA
Cloud & Systems Admin at Service Management Group, Inc.
Offers clear vision on the clear side of what is being blocked and easy to use but a bit old-fashioned GUI
I would rate my experience with the initial setup a four out of ten when one is difficult, and ten is easy. It's difficult initially since it's an on-premise solution. So it's a bit difficult. So the initial assessment took a few days, and then the deployment was a couple of days. It is on-prem. That is also one of the improvements you need to make on the cloud. Most of the people like things to be on the cloud. You don't have the burden of setting up things on-premise.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It's a bit easy to handle Cisco Secure Email; it's not that difficult. For the logs, which are in PDF format, it's not hard to read them. We don't need Wireshark much to analyze the logs."
"Apart from the improvement needed to the filters, it was all good."
"The system enables end users to manage their own whitelists/blacklists."
"The Cisco Email Security Appliance has enabled us to reduce spam by at least 30% compared to our previous solution."
"Cisco Secure Email's most valuable is email certification."
"You are never secure without some solution from Cisco."
"We rely heavily on antivirus protection, email content filtering, and authentication mechanisms to ensure compliance with email security. Regarding phishing attempts, while phishing protection features are crucial, we also emphasize user education as a critical defence. The intelligence services Cisco provides, such as the Cisco Intelligence Center, play a significant role in analyzing and validating threats, including phishing attempts, in our email security practices."
"Cisco Secure Email Cloud Gateway has allowed our users to be able to concentrate on the emails that they do receive."
"The product's most valuable features are spam protection and artificial intelligence."
"I like that it doesn't hold emails for any reason; it sends out notifications to the user as well as administrators. So we have a clear vision on the clear side of what is being blocked and in time as well."
 

Cons

"I would like to see sandboxing for email, where suspicious emails received by the system are analyzed through online services."
"They could improve the filters. In my time at the company, there were several times we had to contact support to update the filters."
"The user interface needs massive improvement. While the device works fine and it's not complicated to write policies, renaming menu items and showing policy flow in conjunction with the application could help."
"The initial setup was complex because I have two sites with physical clusters."
"The user interface is a bit complex."
"There could be additional DLP functionality for it."
"It is not user-friendly, and it is quite complicated. So, it should be more user-friendly."
"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."
"There is room for improvement in GUI because it is a bit old-fashioned."
"The technical support services and stability need improvement as well."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is a reasonably priced solution."
"Cisco Secure Email is more expensive than other products. I rate it a five out of ten. There are no additional costs. You only need to pay the subscription amounts."
"In addition to the standard licensing, there is a cost for SMARTnet as well."
"Licensing costs depend on how many users there are. It could range between $5 and $7 per month, per user."
"As per market availability, this solution is more expensive than other vendors."
"There are additional fees for adding features."
"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."
"There were no other costs in addition to the standard licensing fees."
"It is a cost-effective product."
"The pricing is in the middle. Compared to other products, it should be five out of ten, where one is cheap and ten is expensive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Outsourcing Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
7%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business22
Midsize Enterprise18
Large Enterprise27
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

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 areas of Cisco Secure Email that could be improved or enhanced are the slowness in the console. I don't think it was a database error or something, but we feel some slowness in configuring DLP ...
What is your primary use case for Cisco Secure Email?
We are using Cisco Secure Email to monitor the outgoing and incoming mail traffic in our financial institute. We have nearly 900 branches all over India. We have an on-premises mail server in which...
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Also Known As

Cisco Email Security, IronPort, Cisco Email Security, ESA, Email Security Appliances
Trustwave SEG
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

SUNY Old Westbury, CoxHealth, City of Fullerton, Indra
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about Proofpoint, Microsoft, Check Point Software Technologies and others in Email Security. Updated: September 2026.
916,212 professionals have used our research since 2012.