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Cisco Secure Email vs Trend Micro ScanMail 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:
 

Categories and Ranking

Cisco Secure Email
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
62
Ranking in other categories
Email Security (5th), Cisco Security Portfolio (6th)
Trend Micro ScanMail
Average Rating
7.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
7
Ranking in other categories
Anti-Malware Tools (18th)
 

Mindshare comparison

Cisco Secure Email and Trend Micro ScanMail aren’t in the same category and serve different purposes. Cisco Secure Email is designed for Email Security and holds a mindshare of 6.2%, down 8.5% compared to last year.
Trend Micro ScanMail, on the other hand, focuses on Anti-Malware Tools, holds 0.7% mindshare, down 1.0% since last year.
Email Security
Anti-Malware Tools
 

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.
Jaffar Ali - PeerSpot reviewer
Ensures continuous protection with real-time scanning of emails and mailboxes
ScanMail needs improvement in its reporting, as it is currently weak in some areas. Additionally, the response time of their technical support is slow and needs enhancement. Overall, Trend Micro's technical support has deteriorated, and pricing is another area that requires attention. The list pricing is high, and we lose deals against competitors because of this. Trend Micro should consider reducing their prices, especially for large customers.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Cisco Secure Email Cloud Gateway has allowed our users to be able to concentrate on the emails that they do receive. Previously, our users had to deal with nine million additional emails across the organization, which is nearly 1,000 emails per user to have to deal with a month. That's a massive amount for our staff to deal with and probably several hours of their time. We have a lot of clinical staff, being a hospital. We want to make our staff as productive as possible. By removing a lot of that spam and phishing type emails, this allows them to do their job."
"The tool has a DLP solution which we can implement. Its database is updated regularly."
"The technical support from Cisco is perfect."
"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."
"The system provides our service desk with the means to troubleshoot email delivery issues with ease."
"I can customize the configuration and policies."
"Cisco Secure Email has strong inbound services."
"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."
"The most effective feature of ScanMail is its real-time antivirus behaviors, particularly when it scans URLs."
"Its integration with mail platforms is valuable."
"The analysis part is good."
"The most effective feature of ScanMail is its real-time antivirus behaviors, particularly when it scans URLs."
"It does the job. Even when our clients have a very high rate of emails per second, there has been no problem."
"I like that Trend Micro ScanMail is very effective and quite strong."
"I find Trend Micro ScanMail to be a stable solution, and I would rate its stability as nine out of ten."
"What I like the most about Trend Micro ScanMail is its easiness."
 

Cons

"I would like to see sandboxing for email, where suspicious emails received by the system are analyzed through online services."
"In future releases, I would like to see two main improvements come to mind. First, the current solution requires maintaining two separate operating systems for FTD, which can be cumbersome. I'd love to see a single operating system for the FTD box."
"The product's GUI for the dashboard needs improvement."
"It is not user-friendly, and it is quite complicated. So, it should be more user-friendly."
"The graphical user interface is not user-friendly like other vendors. I find it very difficult at times to find some options on the UI."
"One of the things that Cisco could improve on with IronPort is the support. Cisco doesn't really have enough engineers who have full, hands-on knowledge of IronPort. Knowledge of it is not something you can find easily compared to other security appliances."
"The solution does not have a strong outbound service. It should also integrate DLP."
"The UI is definitely one area of improvement because it doesn't match other interfaces and the navigation can be a little clunky."
"ScanMail needs improvement in its reporting, as it is currently weak in some areas."
"The price could be better. I think it's pretty good compared to other solutions as far as the features are concerned. It basically covers most of the stuff which we require for email security. But it would be better if they made it a little cheaper and more cost-effective. That would make it easier for us to sell it."
"I believe there is room for improvement in better signatures, better reporting features, and more insight into the spam emails database."
"Its user interface is pretty old-fashioned, and sometimes, it's hard to find the features that you are looking for. The user interface definitely needs some improvement."
"ScanMail needs improvement in its reporting, as it is currently weak in some areas."
"ScanMail was one of the best solutions a few years ago, but it is no longer the best solution because of its old-fashioned management console. Customers associate it with something that is old because there is no change in the management console. It has old icons, and it is not fresh enough. It is also not easy to use or play with. The report engine is also old-fashioned. Customers want something easier, quicker, and cleaner."
"The weaknesses of Trend Micro ScanMail are that it doesn't fully protect ad-based web access and lacks proper security for Outlook, iOS, and web browser access."
"The sandboxing part can be improved."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Pricing depends on your environment and which model you want to buy."
"The pricing for the Cisco Email Security Appliance involves recurring costs for licenses based on the contracted time frame, such as one year, three years, or five years. Renewals are required after the license expires."
"We do annual licensing for Cisco Secure Email Gatewayand SMA together, and possibly SmartNet support. Packaged together, the cost is just under $38,000."
"The product's price falls on the higher side when compared to the other products on the market."
"There were no other costs in addition to the standard licensing fees."
"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."
"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."
"Compared to Cisco's on-prem service, the cost is the same, but you don't have to pay for the hardware and you don't have to maintain the system, as far as upgrades and hardware failures are concerned. It is cheaper to operate on their cloud service than it is to operate with their on-prem service."
"It's a yearly subscription, but the price could be better."
"Its price is okay. It is not too high."
"It is an expensive solution. I rate the pricing a seven out of ten."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
22%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Government
6%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Government
10%
Computer Software Company
9%
 

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 be beneficial to have the functionality of the Email Threat Defense integrated i...
What do you like most about Trend Micro ScanMail?
What I like the most about Trend Micro ScanMail is its easiness.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Trend Micro ScanMail?
Trend Micro ScanMail is priced in the middle range—not too expensive and not too cheap. In my experience, there are more costly solutions available, but this one provides a balanced cost.
What needs improvement with Trend Micro ScanMail?
I believe there is room for improvement in better signatures, better reporting features, and more insight into the spam emails database.
 

Also Known As

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

Overview

 

Sample Customers

SUNY Old Westbury, CoxHealth, City of Fullerton, Indra
L&T Chiyoda, Assaf Harofeh Medical Center, Atlanta Gastroenterology Associates, Atma Jaya Catholic University of Indonesia, Bishop Luffa School, Brooks Rehabilitation, CHR de la Citadelle, CHRU de Nancy
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft, Proofpoint, Abnormal Security and others in Email Security. Updated: July 2025.
863,429 professionals have used our research since 2012.