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Cisco Secure Email vs Vade for M365 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

Cisco Secure Email
Ranking in Email Security
5th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
63
Ranking in other categories
Cisco Security Portfolio (6th)
Vade for M365
Ranking in Email Security
34th
Average Rating
0.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
Office 365 Protection (10th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2026, in the Email Security category, the mindshare of Cisco Secure Email is 4.6%, down from 5.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Vade for M365 is 0.9%, up from 0.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Email Security Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Cisco Secure Email4.6%
Vade for M3650.9%
Other94.5%
Email Security
 

Featured Reviews

KS
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.
Bruno Rolland - PeerSpot reviewer
Commercial Director at DC Communication (DCC)
A stable tool capable of detecting malware while focusing on anti-phishing to protect its users
I don't see ISO 27001 in the solution. While working 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 the solution. Concerning a bank, data can be confidential, and when a bank needs to transfer such data, it has to be specific to a certain level of conformity, which I did not see in the product. Vade needs to incorporate the aforementioned aspects to improve their solution.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"This solution provides some benefits, like comfortable access to TAC support. You get prompt support when working directly with Cisco."
"Cisco Secure Email's most valuable is email certification."
"Overall, it is a very good product, and I'm very happy with it."
"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's a bit easy to handle Cisco Secure Email; it's not that difficult. For the logs, which are in PDF format, it's not hard to read them. We don't need Wireshark much to analyze the logs."
"It has an intuitive, clear graphical interface where you can deploy your policies and understand the overall flow. There are a lot of things that you cannot handle on the graphic interface, like message filters. For this, you need to go to a lower level where you have more power, like command line interface. So, this solution has the best of both worlds. There are not a lot of bells and whistles. It is more practical with access to most features that you can configure."
"You are never secure without some solution from Cisco."
"Compared with other mail security things, Cisco Secure Email was much better and easy to deploy also."
"It is a stable solution...My company has no worries about the deployment phase of Vade for Office 365."
 

Cons

"The tool's pricing can be improved."
"We didn't get any malware, but a few phishing emails, maybe one or two, slipped in."
"Scalability has certain shortcomings and needs to be improved because there are service providers who provide better scalability.v"
"We would like to see more options for the customization of content filters."
"Cisco Email Secure's pricing needs to be less. We have vendors who provide cheaper solutions with the same features."
"The product's GUI for the dashboard needs improvement."
"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 user interface of the Email Security Gateway should be improved."
"Concerning a bank, data can be confidential, and when a bank needs to transfer such data, it has to be specific to a certain level of conformity, which I did not see in the product."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"At times, we feel the pricing is a bit too high, but then, there is also room for discounts. We enjoy a lot of discounts, and that is why we are still with them. There are no costs in addition to the standard licensing fees."
"In addition to the standard licensing, there is a cost for SMARTnet as well."
"It is a relatively expensive option compared to other alternatives."
"As per market availability, this solution is more expensive than other vendors."
"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."
"The price is significantly high."
"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."
"The solution is expensive."
"Vade for Office 365 is a solution offered at competitive prices in the market...Payment has to be made for the whole bundle of Vade products."
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919,341 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Outsourcing Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Retailer
19%
Construction Company
14%
Comms Service Provider
14%
Outsourcing Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business22
Midsize Enterprise18
Large Enterprise27
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

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 was a database error or something, but we feel some slowness in configuring DLP ...
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 nearly 900 branches all over India. We have an on-premises mail server in which...
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Also Known As

Cisco Email Security, IronPort, Cisco Email Security, ESA, Email Security Appliances
Vade for Office 365, Vade Secure Office 365
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

SUNY Old Westbury, CoxHealth, City of Fullerton, Indra
HTG 360, Weida IT Solutions, KVC Health Systems
Find out what your peers are saying about Proofpoint, Microsoft, Check Point Software Technologies and others in Email Security. Updated: September 2026.
919,341 professionals have used our research since 2012.