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Cisco Secure Email vs Sublime Security 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

Microsoft Defender for Offi...
Sponsored
Ranking in Email Security
1st
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
52
Ranking in other categories
Email Archiving (1st), Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) (2nd), Microsoft Security Suite (10th), Secure Email Gateway (SEG) (1st)
Cisco Secure Email
Ranking in Email Security
3rd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
62
Ranking in other categories
Cisco Security Portfolio (7th)
Sublime Security
Ranking in Email Security
22nd
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2025, in the Email Security category, the mindshare of Microsoft Defender for Office 365 is 12.6%, down from 17.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Cisco Secure Email is 6.4%, down from 8.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Sublime Security is 1.5%, up from 0.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Email Security
 

Featured Reviews

Tolu Omolaja - PeerSpot reviewer
Great URL scanning and attachment scanning, but I would like more proactive threat analysis
The two main features that prove most beneficial for us are URL scanning and attachment scanning. URL scanning involves an automatic scan of links and emails. When a user clicks on a link within an email, the system promptly checks the link's safety. If the link is deemed safe, access is granted automatically. However, if it is flagged as unsafe, we receive feedback and notification to caution us about the potentially harmful link. At this point, we are presented with the option to proceed or return. I have personally witnessed the system identify a few unsafe links, making this the primary advantage of using the solution. The second crucial aspect is the scanning of attachments. When an email containing an attachment arrives, we receive a notification of the new email, along with information that the attachment is being scanned for threats. This additional layer of security provides peace of mind for our organization. While Microsoft Defender for Office 365 offers numerous features, these two stand out as particularly impressive and valuable to us.
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.
LARK IT - PeerSpot reviewer
Easy to setup, stable and highly scalable
The ability for users to look at their own quarantine box needs improvement. So at the moment, it doesn't give you the ability to see every email that has been quarantined. No end-user has the ability to see what's being quarantined. It's only people who have access to the back-end platform that can actually see what has been quarantined. The end user doesn't know if they have an email that has been quarantined, only if they're expecting something that didn't come through. In future releases, I would just like to see that ability for users to see what's being quarantined and what's not quarantined but safe. Just those genuine false positives.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"My experience with customer support and technical support for Microsoft Defender for Office 365 has been excellent."
"The email protection is excellent, especially in terms of anti-phishing policies."
"Microsoft Defender for Office 365 is a stable solution."
"The DLP feature of Microsoft Defender for Office 365 is valuable, and we also use the DLP feature for email real-time detection."
"The most valuable feature is protection against malicious links, fishing, and impersonation. You can train people to be aware of these threats, but they're not always careful. When they're using their phones between meetings, they click on a link, and it's game over."
"It has significantly decreased my time to detection and response."
"Microsoft Defender for Office 365 facilitates efficient management and updates through the cloud. We do not have to worry about incompatibilities. It just works."
"We use Microsoft Defender for its ability to integrate with existing business technologies, which is beneficial for protecting business areas."
"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."
"Cisco Secure Email is a budget-friendly solution."
"The tool's most valuable feature in preventing security breaches revolves around the area of malware protection that the product provides."
"Cisco Secure Email has strong inbound services."
"Capital expenditure is a significant consideration, and the impact on major expenditures prompts a careful analysis before onboarding the new product."
"It has the ability to tell us, after an email has been delivered, where else it went, once it got inside. Maybe it's something we wanted it to stop and it didn't stop it, but it notified us later that it was something that it should have stopped. It can give us a trajectory of all the other places that it went internally and it can tell us what files were transferred as well."
"It sends us reports, where we can see if there have been attacks, e.g. DDoS. If so, we can switch to a clean IP."
"The most valuable features are Advanced Malware Protection, URL filtering, and of course Reputation Filtering."
"I like its ability to detect and block."
 

Cons

"One area for improvement is integration. For example, when it comes to external SaaS platforms, we were not able to get a lot of information on integrations with such apps for security and authentication."
"The product must provide better malware detection."
"The certification training for Defender for 365 needs to be deeper and incorporate Sentinel. I took all the security courses except one, and Sentinel isn't included."
"The changes to customer service, specifically the new model for support agreements, are not favorable."
"Microsoft Defender for Office 365's Mac functionality requires improvement to deliver the same level of protection found on Windows devices."
"The custom alerts have to improve a lot."
"We noticed that from time to time, Microsoft's stability does have problems. Sometimes the service goes up and down. Sometimes they change without prior notice."
"In some situations, it has not been able to pick impersonated emails having no attachments. Technical support definitely has a scope for improvement."
"In some cases, detection is missed, leading to false positives where genuine emails are flagged as spam."
"The Forged Email Detection feature needs improvement, particularly with domain. The sensors are not that good and the rules sets are unclear."
"The configuration UI should be made more intuitive. Currently, it takes a while to understand how to do the basic configurations."
"Typically, in a phishing email, they try to use a name everybody's going to recognize, like the CEO's name or the CFO's name... With this appliance, the way it's designed at the moment, for us to really stop that with any level of confidence, we have to build a dictionary of all the names of the people we want it to check, and all the ways they could be spelled. My name would be in there as Phillip Collins, Phillip D. Collins, Phillip Dean Collins, Phil Collins, Phil D. Collins. There could be eight or 10 variations of my name that we'd have to put in the dictionary. There's no artificial intelligence to say "Phil Collins" could be all these other things, and to stop phishing from coming through in that way."
"The hardware is not up to the mark. Two to three times a year we have complete downtime."
"The product's GUI for the dashboard needs improvement."
"The user interface needs some improvement to become more user-friendly. The graphics could be better. It's designed more for a technical user rather than a business user."
"The user interface could be updated."
"The ability for users to look at their own quarantine box needs improvement. So at the moment, it doesn't give you the ability to see every email that has been quarantined. No end-user has the ability to see what's being quarantined. It's only people who have access to the back-end platform that can actually see what has been quarantined. The end user doesn't know if they have an email that has been quarantined, only if they're expecting something that didn't come through."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Microsoft Defender is expensive. I typically recommend it only if clients have the budget. Otherwise, I would suggest an alternative."
"It is much more expensive than using another solution because we have had to include some options and upgrade our license."
"While Microsoft Defender for Office 365 necessitates pricier E3 or E5 subscriptions, the extensive functionality offered by these licenses across various Microsoft products justifies the investment."
"Microsoft Defender for Office 365 is an add-on to the Office license. Many customers are purchasing this solution."
"For large enterprise organizations, they can definitely afford it, but for small and medium organizations, they might struggle to cover the expenses."
"I was working in the government and it was too expensive for us to use our Microsoft products."
"For licensing, it's usually a yearly package for customers who are subscribed to Office 365, but they can also pay on a monthly basis."
"The pricing has become expensive."
"It is not that costly. We pay for the solution through a contractor and pay an annual fee."
"The pricing is good."
"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."
"In addition to the standard licensing, there is a cost for SMARTnet as well."
"The licensing was all transferred."
"I rate the product price as six on a scale of one to ten, where one means it is a very expensive tool."
"Pricing depends on your environment and which model you want to buy."
"It is an expensive product. I rate its pricing an eight or nine."
"I would rate the pricing of Sublime Security as a seven out of ten. It is reasonably well-priced."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
16%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
6%
Educational Organization
28%
Computer Software Company
17%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Manufacturing Company
5%
Computer Software Company
16%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Manufacturing Company
8%
University
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Microsoft Defender for Office 365?
Threat Explorer is an invaluable tool for me, and it plays a crucial role in helping me discern the origins of variou...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Microsoft Defender for Office 365?
Microsoft is quite affordable with a lot of features available for any size organization.
What needs improvement with Microsoft Defender for Office 365?
Microsoft could improve by offering recommendations for domain spoofing attacks, especially scenarios where DNS recor...
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 Sublime Security?
I like its ability to detect and block.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Sublime Security?
I would rate the pricing of Sublime Security as a seven. It is reasonably well-priced.
What needs improvement with Sublime Security?
The ability for users to look at their own quarantine box needs improvement. So at the moment, it doesn't give you th...
 

Also Known As

MS Defender for Office 365
Cisco Email Security, IronPort, Cisco Email Security, ESA, Email Security Appliances
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Microsoft Defender for Office 365 is trusted by companies such as Ithaca College.
SUNY Old Westbury, CoxHealth, City of Fullerton, Indra
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft, Proofpoint, Cisco and others in Email Security. Updated: May 2025.
855,080 professionals have used our research since 2012.