Cisco Secure Email vs Perception Point Advanced Email Security comparison

Cisco Secure Email vs. Perception Point Advanced Email Security

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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

Cloudflare One

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the Email Security category, the mindshare of Cloudflare One is 1.7%, up from 1.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Cisco Secure Email is 4.4%, down from 5.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Perception Point Advanced Email Security is 1.4%, down from 2.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Email Security Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
Cisco Secure Email	4.4%
Perception Point Advanced Email Security	1.4%
Cloudflare One	1.7%
Other	92.5%

Email Security

Featured Reviews

Cobe Van Coller

Network Architect at IP Dimension

Cloud security has improved remote access and has reduced costs for smaller client sites

I have used Cloudflare One's Identity-Aware Proxy, and it is quite straightforward from what I have seen so far. The app registration on the Azure side integrates fully into Cloudflare, and I am very satisfied with that part because it is easy to set up. The integration of Cloudflare One's Secure Web Gateway and Zero Trust Network Access works without any issues. That part is pretty automatic, and if you complete the rest of the setup, it comes together by itself with no issues from my side. What makes it nice is that we can actually start replacing on-site firewalls at this stage for the smaller clients because it does not matter if they go to a coffee shop or work from home; they are still secured by the same connection. The hops get shorter and you get better latency. We have done testing to see if it is better. One thing that we did notice with our proof of concept with our current client is that they have people connecting from the UK. When they used their previous VPN solution, uploading CAD drawings and other files to the server took a long time. They mentioned that it is much quicker on Cloudflare One's solution. I definitely believe that is part of the improved performance, and I am satisfied with that as well. What is nice about Cloudflare One is that it makes the setup easier and also easier to train technicians to maintain it. Compared to legacy systems, we do not need to get fancy firewalls in place that are costly. That is definitely also a cost-saver with Cloudflare One.

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Karthik Sathivel

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.

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GOUTHAMKRISHNA

Senior Security Analyst at a security firm with 11-50 employees

Advanced email protection has reduced fraud risks and simplifies compliance workflows

The primary area for improvement in Perception Point Advanced Email Security is the need for more integrations with XDR solutions. Currently, XDR integration exists with Symantec and CrowdStrike, but additional integrations are needed. I have found that the CrowdStrike integration, specifically the Falcon integration, has been experiencing issues recently. This represents another area requiring improvement. Integration capabilities are particularly important because companies are increasingly transitioning to their own SOC platforms or SIEM solutions to ensure complete environmental integration and security. MDR technology has emerged as a significant market offering, and Perception Point Advanced Email Security should develop integrations with additional solutions in this space. I am fully satisfied with the functionality of Perception Point Advanced Email Security because we have more than 200 customers using this product. We are retaining approximately 85 to 90 percent of our customers with this solution. All customers are satisfied, and we ourselves are satisfied with the product with no plans to change it. The only area for improvement is the integration capabilities.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Cloudflare Access is a stable solution."

"The simplicity of the solution is its valuable features as almost no effort was needed to learn the configurations. It is also one of the cheapest firewalls available in this category."

"The blocking feature is very good."

"For Cloudflare Access, I am using the free plan...The most valuable feature is their protection."

"It is a stable solution."

"It's the endpoint exposition. We don't need to expose our VPN server to the internet and need a zero-test solution. I can apply some conditional access to the endpoint that's connecting to our network to check their security policies or the security condition of their workstation. Once the workstation is trying to connect to my internal network, then I would like to check the discrete condition of these endpoints that are trying to access my internal network. We created some conditional access. We have CrowdStrike, to check if the CrowdStrike is installed, to check if it's updated, and to check for Windows updates. We created some conditional policies to check it."

"Cloudflare One has assisted in securing my remote workforce through a SASE solution with Cloudflare One and the Workers part, although I am not currently using the Workers component."

"We mostly use Cloudflare WAF, and gets basic Cloudflaire DDoS, caching as extra bonus . We like the factor these features are all integrated into 1 console, simple to manage."

More Cloudflare One pros

"It is doing its work. It is doing what it was actually designed to do. It has ensured we don't have business email compromises, and it has also ensured that our brand Galaxy is unique all year round."

"There were detailed logs available. That was a seriously good feature... It turns out these were actually spoof emails that came into our environment. I got to know about them from the log system."

"The most valuable features of the Cisco ESA have to do with the intelligence they provide us, as they respond quickly to any phishing attacks and threats on the system."

"The advanced phishing protection and the integration with the awareness tool that Cisco has embedded into the solution to bring awareness to the customers about the dangers of phishing attacks and other things that come from email are the most valuable features."

"The tech engineers are very knowledgeable."

"The added value of it is that every migration to a new version is initiated by the Cisco version itself, so that is a bunch of work that you don't have to do on the Cisco ESA system on-premise. As it becomes a safe platform, you don't need to invest anything in your own data center or in your upgrade path."

"It saves a lot of time wasting, for example, phishing attacks distract a user's attention and forged emails waste a lot of time, and this solution helps protect user data."

"The most valuable features are protection against ransomware and spam."

More Cisco Secure Email pros

"The most valuable feature of Perception Point Advanced Email Security is the filtering and securing of emails."

"Perception Point Advanced Email Security was the only product that helped to stop spam and phishing emails in our organization and has helped to reduce the number of alerts received by our endpoint layer by 20%."

"Perception Point Advanced Email Security has positively impacted my organization by reducing risk, improving operational efficiency, and creating a better end-user experience."

"Another feature that we really like, one that was introduced a few months back, is the way it categorizes threats into groups, such as Emotet, Qbot, Formbook, and the like. It's not only telling you that something is malware, but it's also giving you insight into what kind of malware... You understand what you are facing and whether you are a target for a specific group of threats..."

"One of the most valuable features is the service provided by the incident response team. There have been cases where we have suspected that emails were fraudulent or something was suspicious. In those cases, we immediately contacted the incident response team through the platform, and we had a response in less than a minute."

"The solution is used to block malicious items hidden inside a document or PDF file."

"It has modules to detect malware and that is a strong point. It has a very nice way of showing you, directly in the product, a lot of details about certain pieces of malware. It goes very deep and even shows you the assembly code. It also does detonations on files and shows you the results in different operating systems. That is very useful."

"Perception Point Advanced Email Security has a correct price point and offers very good email filtering capabilities."

More Perception Point Advanced Email Security pros

Cons

"Operating and tuning the product is difficult."

"The pricing is an area that can be improved. Pricing, as far as I recall, was the source of our problems."

"From a logging perspective, it is still a bit difficult to see exactly what users are being blocked with the current views."

"The tool should provide on-premise versions. Currently, all versions are cloud-based."

"Automation could be improved where you can easily add a TLS and SSL certificate to an application or web app if the developer did not include it."

"The free plan has limitations. For example, I can only set up three rules, and the application firewall is unavailable."

"I would like them to include a VPN feature to provide a secure connection to the data center."

"The software has automated alerts, but the automated alerts are not available in the mobile app."

More Cloudflare One cons

"The product's GUI for the dashboard needs improvement."

"Cisco Secure Email can be improved from the administrator's point of view. Usually, you have to work with different areas, and they can try to make it easy for the administrator to use different functions."

"Scalability has certain shortcomings and needs to be improved because there are service providers who provide better scalability.v"

"Cisco is already providing a very good environment with the IronPort solution, but there could be some more integration with other products. For instance, an integration with the EDR solution could be there to raise an alert."

"I use the search all the time. Sometimes, it is hard to search for things and things are hard to find. People come to me all the time, saying, "This email didn't get through." Then, I go searching and don't find it on the first search. You have to think about alternative searches. I don't know if there is an easier way that they could help to find things. I don't know how they could simplify it, because now everybody else is using the cloud and everything is coming from Office 365, or whatever. It is just not the same environment from years ago where everybody had their own server and you could search easier."

"I would like them to add some clustering or high availability features."

"While Cisco offers excellent solutions and innovations, the pricing may not be suitable for everyone. The cost of the software is relatively high. In the current market, there are numerous competitive alternatives that focus on security, enterprise networks, and various other aspects. Cisco, being a comprehensive provider, extends its expertise across data, servers, storage, and security, making them a preferred choice for many enterprises. However, when it comes specifically to security solutions, there are other vendors that specialize solely in this domain, offering competitive options."

"The UI is definitely one area of improvement because it doesn't match other interfaces and the navigation can be a little clunky."

More Cisco Secure Email cons

"They can do better on the spam. Today, Perception Point is not our only solution. We have two solutions, and they are the second in line because the spam filtering is not yet the best."

"I think the interface could be improved in the next release."

"It would be helpful for Perception Point Advanced Email Security to have more integration with other solutions."

"This is an option to preview an email in their console, and that could be improved."

"The extensive reporting capabilities influence my decision-making process regarding email security as the reporting feature is intermediate. I believe there have been no changes in that part for the last couple of years, and there are no updates."

"They could improve their anti-spam engine a little bit, because there are a lot of false positives."

"Dashboard is an area of concern in the solution where improvements are required."

"From a forensics point of view, it could improve a bit more from a threat intelligence aspect."

More Perception Point Advanced Email Security cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price tag is no longer $200,000, but rather $300,000 to $400,000. It's twice."

"The pricing of the solution is cheap. The licensing cost is also very low. I rate the cost and pricing a three out of ten."

"My company has to make yearly payments towards the licensing costs attached to the solution. There are no hidden charges apart from the licensing costs of the solution."

"Cloudflare Zero Trust Platform's pricing is good."

"The pricing is somewhere in the middle. I would rate the pricing a seven out of ten."

"The prices are slightly expensive."

"The solution's pricing lacks transparency."

"The solution is not that expensive."

"The licensing was all transferred."

"Cisco Secure Email is expensive, but we get what we pay for."

"It is a relatively expensive option compared to other alternatives."

"Cisco Secure Email and the support are priced well. It's not cheap, but there are other solutions that offer less and cost so much. For example, Microsoft is more expensive than Cisco."

"There were no other costs in addition to the standard licensing fees."

"There are additional fees for adding features."

"The pricing is good."

"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."

More Cisco Secure Email pricing and cost advice

"The pricing is not cheap, but I can see the value. In security, if you are trying to save by giving up quality, that's a very bad decision."

"When compared to other solutions on the market, it is relatively fair."

"We would always like it to be cheaper and save more money. However, we are getting the value from it."

"It has very reasonable pricing. Normally, the end user is paying. Perception Point is already in the Amazon marketplace, so we cannot sell it as a distribution partner. For example, we cannot take more than that margin of what they offer in the marketplace. Whatever the end user is paying, it is definitely worth it and it is not that high."

"There is room for improvement for them with an MSP partner. The pricing is good and fair. Our customers don't complain. The only thing is that it's a little bit old school. They don't have a system that automatically checks the number of users that our customers have so we can just update the licenses ourselves through a website. It is still done manually. They have a person who checks invoicing monthly to determine if there have been any changes. A nice improvement would be if they could get automated licensing counts."

"They are not the most expensive vendor. There are much more expensive vendors. They are not cheap, but they are not the most expensive. They are somewhere in the middle."

"The price of the solution is high."

"If a user only wants protection for email, then the price of the product is okay, but if they opt for the collaboration options offered by the product, then it becomes a little expensive."

More Perception Point Advanced Email Security pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Construction Company

19%

Comms Service Provider

11%

Outsourcing Company

Financial Services Firm

12%

Manufacturing Company

Outsourcing Company

Computer Software Company

Financial Services Firm

11%

Outsourcing Company

Comms Service Provider

Computer Software Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	10
Midsize Enterprise	1
Large Enterprise	12

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	22
Midsize Enterprise	18
Large Enterprise	27

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	15
Midsize Enterprise	4
Large Enterprise	6

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Cloudflare Zero Trust Platform?

Pricing is competitive. Akamai is more expensive, in my view.

What needs improvement with Cloudflare Zero Trust Platform?

In my opinion, Cloudflare One can be improved mainly through compatibility, as the integration should be much simpler...

What is your primary use case for Cloudflare Zero Trust Platform?

Cloudflare One's primary use case for my organization is to protect servers and to provide remote access with the VPN...

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 ...

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...

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Perception Point Advanced Email Security?

In Brazil, the dollar price affects the cost. Perception Point Advanced Email Security is about 50 percent less expen...

What needs improvement with Perception Point Advanced Email Security?

The primary area for improvement in Perception Point Advanced Email Security is the need for more integrations with X...

What is your primary use case for Perception Point Advanced Email Security?

Perception Point Advanced Email Security specializes in email security, though it includes different products like co...

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Product Reports

Cloudflare One

Download Cloudflare One product report

Cisco Secure Email

Download Cisco Secure Email product report

Perception Point Advanced Email Security

July 2026

Perception Point Advanced Email Security report

Download Perception Point Advanced Email Security product report

Also Known As

Cloudflare Area 1 Email Security, Cloudflare Bot Management, Cloudflare Gateway, Cloudflare Zero Trust Platform, Cloudflare DDoS, Cloudflare SASE & SSE Platform

Cisco Email Security, IronPort, Cisco Email Security, ESA, Email Security Appliances

No data available

Overview

Cloudflare One is a comprehensive platform for security, performance, and connectivity. It provides features like rate limiting, DDoS protection, and application access, tailored to enhance user experience while securing internet access and accelerating communications.

Designed to integrate security measures with ease of use and scalability, Cloudflare One offers a secure web gateway and zero trust network access. These features ensure seamless setup and operation, making connectivity reliable and protected. Users appreciate its integrated console, intuitive interface, and the ability to manage risk effectively. It offers straightforward deployment, improves latency, and boasts cost-effectiveness. While its onboarding process and documentation need enhancement, its value in content delivery and application shielding is notable. Despite challenges in integrating Cloudflare Access with existing VPNs and the need for better automation and support, it remains vital for DNS and infrastructure protection.

What features make Cloudflare One stand out?

Rate Limiting: Controls the traffic rate to prevent abuse.
DDoS Protection: Shields applications from distributed denial-of-service attacks.
Secure Web Gateway: Provides secure internet access with seamless operation.
Zero Trust Network Access: Ensures secure, application-based connectivity without relying on traditional VPNs.
Access for Connectivity: Facilitates access to internal applications securely.

What benefits should users look for in reviews?

Security: Robust measures for DNS and browsing protection.
Performance: Enhanced site accessibility and communication speed.
Cost-Effectiveness: Offers competitive pricing for its features.
Ease of Deployment: Straightforward and efficient setup process.

In industries like finance, retail, and technology, Cloudflare One is crucial for enabling secure remote access and protecting web applications against dynamic threats. It supports compliance access policies and enhances content delivery, playing a key role in safeguarding digital infrastructure.

Cloudflare

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?

Advanced Threat Protection: Guards against cyber threats like malware and phishing
Spam Blocking: Efficiently filters unwanted emails to maintain inbox integrity
Policy Customization: Allows granular control over email security policies
Integration with Cisco Talos: Enhances threat intelligence with global insights
Active Directory Integration: Simplifies user management and enhances security

What benefits and ROI should users consider?

Ease of Use: Intuitive interface provides a straightforward user experience
Network Performance: Maintains speed and reliability while securing emails
Comprehensive Reporting: Offers detailed insights into email threats and responses
No Additional Hardware: Provides complete email security without hardware costs
Enhanced Email Security: Protects against a wide range of email-based threats

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.

Cisco

Perception Point Advanced Email Security is a cutting-edge platform designed to safeguard email communications with extensive threat detection and efficient response capabilities, leveraging AI and machine learning for advanced protection against email threats.

Focusing on dynamic multi-layer threat detection, Perception Point Advanced Email Security provides robust protection against phishing, spam, and malicious content. Its powerful anti-phishing capabilities, account takeover protection, and AI-driven analysis enhance email security in both hybrid and cloud-based environments. The platform offers real-time scanning, detailed threat analysis, and low false positives, further augmented by an efficient incident response team. While the solution excels at improving operational efficiency and user experience, it seeks enhancements in reporting, policy customization, integration with tools like XDR and SIEM, and spam filtering. Organizations benefit from Perception Point's strong reporting capabilities and easy integration options, though improvements in analysis speed, spam filtering, and more intuitive interfaces are desired.

What are the key features of Perception Point Advanced Email Security?

Dynamic Multi-layer Threat Detection: Advanced AI and ML-driven systems for comprehensive threat analysis.
Real-time Scanning: Continuous scanning to detect and neutralize threats instantly.
Account Takeover Protection: Safeguards against unauthorized account access and compromise.
AI-driven Anti-phishing: Employs AI to identify and block phishing attempts effectively.
Incident Response Team: Provides immediate support and quick resolution of security incidents.

What benefits should users consider when evaluating this solution?

Improved Efficiency: Streamlines email security operations with real-time threat detection.
Enhanced User Experience: Reduces false positives for accurate threat detection.
Strong Reporting: Offers in-depth insights into threat landscapes and security status.
Easy Integration: Seamlessly connects with existing systems for improved security posture.

Organizations in compliance-focused industries, especially those utilizing cloud-based platforms like Office 365, benefit significantly from Perception Point's comprehensive scanning and filtering features. Leveraging its sandboxing and API capabilities, they achieve deeper threat analysis, meeting regulatory requirements while exploring additional features for collaboration and file-sharing security.

Fortinet

Sample Customers

23andMe

SUNY Old Westbury, CoxHealth, City of Fullerton, Indra

Information Not Available

Cisco Secure Email vs. Perception Point Advanced Email Security