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Cisco Secure Email vs Vade Cloud Core Email Protection 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
Ranking in Email Security
6th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
62
Ranking in other categories
Cisco Security Portfolio (7th)
Vade Cloud Core Email Prot...
Ranking in Email Security
56th
Average Rating
0.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2026, in the Email Security category, the mindshare of Cisco Secure Email is 5.1%, down from 7.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Vade Cloud Core Email Protection is 0.3%, up from 0.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Email Security Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Cisco Secure Email5.1%
Vade Cloud Core Email Protection0.3%
Other94.6%
Email Security
 

Featured Reviews

BD
Chief Information Security Officer at Abcl
Threat intelligence with fast attack detection enables comprehensive email protection
In some cases, detection is missed, leading to false positives where genuine emails are flagged as spam. This could result in users not opening genuine emails. We have highlighted this to Cisco because sometimes phishing or marketing campaigns, which are genuine, are incorrectly flagged as spam. The solution should better analyze the actual content rather than only focusing on the email header or origin.
Bruno Rolland - PeerSpot reviewer
Commercial Director at DC Communication (DCC)
A stable and scalable solution to deal with spam and phishing emails
It is difficult for me to talk about areas that require improvement in the solution since I am quite new to the product, but I know that Vade provides an MSP solution. Vade Cloud Email Security doesn't provide sandboxing functionality. The lack of sandboxing functionality cannot be considered a weakness since there are other solutions to deal with faster when it comes to sandboxing. Overall it is a good solution with which we work in our company, so I don't see any clear weaknesses in the solution. It can take a long time for customers to study and operate straight away in a sandbox environment. The solution is okay if it makes the job faster for its users. I don't see ISO 27001 in Vade Cloud Email Security. While functioning on the solution, sometimes a customer needs to have a conformity level of SOC 1 or SOC 2 or some other conformity level. I did not see the aforementioned conformity levels added to Vade Cloud Email Security. Concerning a bank, data can be confidential, and when a bank needs to exchange or transfer such data, it has to be specific to a certain level of conformity, which I did not see in the tool.

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."
"It provides good IT assistance."
"There are a lot of filters for scam emails and things like that work out of the box. You can also use the antivirus features. I like its features."
"I can customize the configuration and policies."
"Cisco Secure Email's most valuable is email certification."
"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."
"The tool's most valuable feature in preventing security breaches revolves around the area of malware protection that the product provides."
"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 most valuable features of the solution are how the product works against phishing and provides centralization, allowing users to recognize phishing emails."
 

Cons

"We have Microsoft and we have the E5 licenses, they have more EDR responses on certain emails. That's something that Cisco ESA on the cloud doesn't have. They don't do anything about MITRE attacks. They only detect if there is a malicious email or a threat and they remove it."
"The solution does not have a strong outbound service. It should also integrate DLP."
"The product's GUI for the dashboard needs improvement."
"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."
"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 more functionality and how to use it for Level 2 type staff. The biggest issue is it needs to be easier to use and navigate."
"If you are not a technical guy, it is hard to maneuver, but as soon as you work on it, it gets better and better. If there was a better way to know how to do things or how to find things, it would be good."
"Many smaller businesses opt for more cost-effective solutions, such as Gmail or Hotmail accounts, instead of investing in Cisco Secure Email, given its higher cost."
"Vade Cloud Email Security doesn't provide sandboxing functionality...when a bank needs to exchange or transfer such data, it has to be specific to a certain level of conformity, which I did not see in the tool."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution is expensive."
"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."
"There were no other costs in addition to the standard licensing fees."
"Licensing costs depend on how many users there are. It could range between $5 and $7 per month, per user."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"Cisco Secure Email is not expensive, and licensing costs are yearly."
"It is a competitively-priced solution in the market...There are no additional payments for maintenance or support."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
15%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Comms Service Provider
5%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business22
Midsize Enterprise18
Large Enterprise25
No data available
 

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...
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Also Known As

Cisco Email Security, IronPort, Cisco Email Security, ESA, Email Security Appliances
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

SUNY Old Westbury, CoxHealth, City of Fullerton, Indra
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft, Proofpoint, Check Point Software Technologies and others in Email Security. Updated: January 2026.
881,757 professionals have used our research since 2012.