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Cisco Secure Email vs Vade for M365 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
5th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
62
Ranking in other categories
Cisco Security Portfolio (6th)
Vade for M365
Ranking in Email Security
40th
Average Rating
0.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
Office 365 Protection (9th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the Email Security category, the mindshare of Cisco Secure Email is 5.6%, down from 7.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Vade for M365 is 0.8%, down from 0.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Email Security Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Cisco Secure Email5.6%
Vade for M3650.8%
Other93.6%
Email Security
 

Featured Reviews

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.
Bruno Rolland - PeerSpot reviewer
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

"The most significant enhancement we've gained is in terms of security through the upgrade we received."
"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."
"The system enables end users to manage their own whitelists/blacklists."
"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."
"Capital expenditure is a significant consideration, and the impact on major expenditures prompts a careful analysis before onboarding the new product."
"Spam controls are excellent because they are a powerful feature that operates almost effortlessly."
"The tool has a DLP solution which we can implement. Its database is updated regularly."
"This solution provides some benefits, like comfortable access to TAC support. You get prompt support when working directly with Cisco."
"It is a stable solution...My company has no worries about the deployment phase of Vade for Office 365."
 

Cons

"The solution needs to improve its advanced phishing filters. It is very good at filtering things which have bad reputations. However, when phishing or malicious emails are new or coming from a legitimate source, we don't feel that the solution is working."
"Cisco Email Secure's pricing needs to be less. We have vendors who provide cheaper solutions with the same features."
"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."
"While Cisco offers excellent solutions and innovations, the pricing may not be suitable for everyone. The cost of the software is relatively high. In the current market, there are numerous competitive alternatives that focus on security, enterprise networks, and various other aspects. Cisco, being a comprehensive provider, extends its expertise across data, servers, storage, and security, making them a preferred choice for many enterprises. However, when it comes specifically to security solutions, there are other vendors that specialize solely in this domain, offering competitive options."
"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."
"We would like to see more options for the customization of content filters."
"The product's GUI for the dashboard needs improvement."
"They could improve the filters. In my time at the company, there were several times we had to contact support to update the filters."
"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

"The pricing is good."
"I rate the pricing a ten out of ten on a scale where one means it is less cost-effective, and ten means it is the most cost-effective solution."
"I rate the product price as six on a scale of one to ten, where one means it is a very expensive tool."
"The product's price falls on the higher side when compared to the other products on the market."
"Cisco Secure Email is expensive, but we get what we pay for."
"In addition to the standard licensing, there is a cost for SMARTnet as well."
"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."
"There are additional fees for adding features."
"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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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
19%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Government
6%
Computer Software Company
17%
Comms Service Provider
13%
Insurance Company
10%
Real Estate/Law Firm
7%
 

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
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 Microsoft, Abnormal AI, Proofpoint and others in Email Security. Updated: September 2025.
869,095 professionals have used our research since 2012.