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Cisco Secure Email vs SonicWall Email Security vs Symantec Messaging Gateway comparison

 

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:
 

Mindshare comparison

Email Security
Email Security
Secure Email Gateway (SEG)
 

Featured Reviews

PaulGiles - PeerSpot reviewer
Provides good visibility into the traffic, valuable reporting, and secure remote access
A lot of our customers use another Cisco product already, so they have confidence in Cisco products. The firewalls they are currently deploying and using have evolved from their older ASA products. They are now moving to the new Firepower Threat Defense, which incorporates many more features and allows them to get the latest ALOFT download and feeds for any security vulnerabilities and they're able to react very quickly to any vulnerabilities that have been highlighted. Initially, when the firewalls were first marketed and came onto the market, the visibility wasn't very good. But as the software evolved over time, that visibility has increased a lot more, and that is giving customers a lot more competence in the traffic and the traffic flows that they're seeing through the actual devices, so they can better understand the types of applications that they have on their network. The good thing about the actual firewall itself is that it can integrate with other Cisco products, such as Cisco ISE so that it allows full end-to-end visibility of connectivity. It gives very good visibility. It's that integration with other products, not just what that individual firewall can do itself. Talos is obviously fundamental to the actual firewall, reporting on vulnerabilities that are happening day to day. And the regular downloads, obviously, give customers confidence that their products are as secure as they can actually be.
Constantnos Achilleos - PeerSpot reviewer
Provides strong email filtering and threat intelligence but pricing needs improvement
I work with SonicWall Email Security SonicWall Email Security uses multi-layer cloud security. It filters emails before they come to my provider, such as Office 365. It has real-time threat intelligence and provides strong data loss prevention. Additionally, it filters emails before they reach my…
Girish Vijay - PeerSpot reviewer
A stable and reasonably priced solution that performs well and has a very good malware database
Since Symantec merged with Broadcom, they might have lost some good technical engineers. Maybe that’s the reason why the product is performing poorly. When we have a good marketing and sales team, even though our product cannot perform, we will sell it at a high price because of the buzzwords. However, at the end of the day, the product should perform. Most of the products might not perform. Symantec is a very good product, but the services are basic. I rate the technical features of the product a nine out of ten. However, I would rate the services provided by the solution a six out of ten. Overall, I rate the tool an eight out of ten.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The most valuable feature is the different content filters we are using, such as DKIM."
"The system provides our service desk with the means to troubleshoot email delivery issues with ease."
"The product blocks spam emails."
"The security features are valuable."
"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 malicious URL scanning, as well as the anti-malware features, have been really useful for us in our environment."
"Administration of the email domains and custom filters are easily done via the web interface."
"It does a great job of preventing spam, malware, and ransomware. I can only go by what people have told me and what I've seen, but I have not seen spam in a year and a half to two years in my own company mailbox. And there are not a lot of catches where it's catching something that should have gotten through, either."
"According to our customers, the product's most valuable feature is the ability to detect spam and reduce phishing emails."
"The anti-spam aspect of the solution is its most valuable feature."
"The most valuable feature is that it protects from spam."
"The most valuable features are the anti-spam, anti-phishing, anti-virus, and anti-spoofing."
"The product is easy to manage in terms of configurations."
"There are no wasted extras and the interface is really simple."
"It is a very scalable solution."
"SonicWall Email Security uses multi-layer cloud security."
"Messaging Gateway is stable."
"The solution is stable and the performance is good."
"The solution is highly customizable. You can make rules for domains and configure policies for spam or malware. Messaging Gateway is an on-prem solution, so it's useful for companies without a cloud presence."
"The solution is excellent at blocking spam."
"It has very good capabilities for managing malware."
"The anti-malware and spam features are valuable."
"The setup is pretty simple."
"Symantec Messaging Gateway has a huge knowledge base about phishing, spamming, spoofing, etc."
 

Cons

"Cisco Email Secure's pricing needs to be less. We have vendors who provide cheaper solutions with the same features."
"We cannot manage multiple devices from a single UI."
"The UI is definitely one area of improvement because it doesn't match other interfaces and the navigation can be a little clunky."
"We have occasionally had hardware problems because we are using an appliance-based solution, but that might change. We may consider going to virtual systems."
"The primary areas for improvement are the pricing and the complexity of deployment."
"I have some frustrations with the user experience in the interface, specifically with regard to making a list of people for whom I want to allow email access."
"It is not user-friendly, and it is quite complicated. So, it should be more user-friendly."
"The tool's pricing can be improved."
"The reporting needs improvement."
"The pricing could be improved."
"The platform's control panel needs enhancement."
"The technical support from the company is not always very good at solving issues, but they offer access to a good community of users where problems are easily solved."
"We would like to see more information on a dashboard about what is happening when it comes to spamming and malware."
"They need well-trained partners in Nigeria."
"There could be definition updates included in the subscription."
"A lot of spoofed emails are still coming to the end-user, so the configuration for this option needs to be improved."
"It will provide Excel reports and PDF reports, but it would be great if they supported the concept of Crystal Reports."
"Sometimes the solution picks up false positive for viruses during scans."
"We've had issues in the past where the user finds spam, and Symantec does not recognize it as spam."
"In a later release, it would be nice if the messaging gateway supported the cluster feature."
"Symantec Messaging Gateway can improve detection because most of them are false negatives or false positives that we are trying to troubleshoot. Additionally, we are having routing problems and they are somehow connected to DNS issues."
"It could be more scalable."
"Messaging Gateway's advanced malware detection could be improved."
"This product would benefit from better integration with Symantec Endpoint Protection."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is not that costly. We pay for the solution through a contractor and pay an annual fee."
"It is expensive. I would rate it 2 out of 10, where 1 is the most expensive and 10 is the cheapest."
"We were using Proofpoint and then we switched to Cisco... reportability was one of the main reasons we switched, but the biggest one was cost. If you can get an equivalent functionality for a better price it's wise to do so. That's what our primary decision came down to: We could get equivalent functionality at a lower price point."
"I rate the product price as six on a scale of one to ten, where one means it is a very expensive tool."
"The licensing is a mess and needs sorting out. I am not really concerned about the pricing because I only make recommendations, not buying decisions."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"Our customers purchase the solution's yearly license."
"We have a two-year license subscription and the price is very high."
"The platform offers a yearly license."
"The overall price of SonicWall Email Security should be reduced and there should be an option to purchase one or two licenses more instead of their current policy of bulk increases only. There should be more flexibility in the licensing model. Each license cost approximately $33 annually."
"The cost is cheaper than Sophos. I would rate it as five out of ten."
"When compared with Cisco, it is very well priced. Cisco is very expensive."
"I rate the application’s pricing a five out of ten."
"A subscription for technical support costs extra."
"The cost of Symantec Messaging Gateway is too expensive in general. However, the appliance also includes the price of the license in the same bundle."
"They're a little costly compared to Microsoft."
"For 150 users, we pay INR 1,60,000."
"It's a bit expensive compared to its competitor Barracuda Email Security Gateway but cheaper than Sophos Email."
"Symantec Messaging Gateway’s pricing is very cheap."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
21%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Government
6%
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Educational Organization
9%
Construction Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
20%
Computer Software Company
16%
Government
9%
Manufacturing Company
6%
 

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 ...
What do you like most about SonicWall Email Security?
According to our customers, the product's most valuable feature is the ability to detect spam and reduce phishing ema...
What needs improvement with Symantec Messaging Gateway?
The solution takes up a lot of memory. The system becomes slow. The performance must be improved.
What is your primary use case for Symantec Messaging Gateway?
We use the solution to secure our data and emails.
 

Also Known As

Cisco Email Security, IronPort, Cisco Email Security, ESA, Email Security Appliances
Dell SonicWALL Email Security Platform, SonicWall Hosted Email Security
Symantec.cloud, Symantec Email Security.cloud
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

SUNY Old Westbury, CoxHealth, City of Fullerton, Indra
Star Kay White, Locala Community Partnerships
Doric, Joblink Plus, Our Lady of Mercy College, Parramatta, PPB Advisory, Slater & Gordon Lawyers, Sydney Adventist Hospital Ltd.
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft, Proofpoint, Abnormal Security and others in Email Security. Updated: July 2025.
864,574 professionals have used our research since 2012.