Fortinet FortiMail and Microsoft Defender for Office 365 compete in the email security solutions category. FortiMail seems to have the upper hand in terms of pricing flexibility due to its absence of per-user pricing, appealing to large enterprises, while Microsoft Defender leverages seamless integration within the Microsoft ecosystem.
Features: Fortinet FortiMail provides comprehensive antispam features, sender reputation, antivirus capabilities, and supports flexible deployment modes. It also handles inbound and outbound inspection and is scalable, making it suitable for large enterprises. Microsoft Defender for Office 365 excels in integrating with Office 365 applications, providing strong antiphishing protection and zero-day threat detection. Its integration with broader Microsoft security solutions adds significant value.
Room for Improvement: Fortinet FortiMail users often seek better integration with third-party solutions and improvements in dashboard and logging capabilities. They also cite deployment difficulties and a desire for more AI-driven features. Users of Microsoft Defender for Office 365 report challenges with licensing complexity and request better integration capabilities as well as enhanced spam filtration and deduplication features.
Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Fortinet FortiMail is mainly deployed on-premises, leading to some complexity in deployments, whereas Microsoft Defender for Office 365 performs well in cloud and hybrid environments. Fortinet's technical support receives mixed reviews, requiring improvement in response times, while Microsoft's global support network is beneficial, despite occasional licensing complications.
Pricing and ROI: Fortinet FortiMail is competitively priced, appealing with its scalability and elimination of per-user pricing. Microsoft Defender for Office 365's pricing is integrated into Microsoft licensing plans, offering cost-effectiveness for existing Office 365 users. Both demonstrate strong ROI by improving security workflows and reducing email-related threat costs, with Defender's integration into the broader Microsoft suite adding value.
It offers cost savings compared to Cisco, which was very expensive.
It has also decreased our time to detection and response by about 15 to 20 percent.
Overall, cost of owning and operating our system goes down.
It's hard to quantify the return on investment we've seen from Microsoft Defender for Office 365.
I have direct communication with Kenyan system engineers and local support in Ethiopia, enabling good support.
Fortinet's technical support offers high-quality support.
Over the past two years, there have been no critical problems.
we opened tickets, and they typically resolve them quickly.
Customer service and support have been fantastic.
We have never faced scalability problems, and Microsoft manages it effectively.
Microsoft Defender for Office 365 scales transparently for us, as we grew from 1,000 users to 3,000 users, and we didn't notice much difference.
This stability is consistent across Fortinet products, including FortiGate firewall.
The solution is stable, as we have been using it for the past two years.
I would assess the stability and reliability of Microsoft Defender for Office 365 as very stable, with barely any issues.
Overall, the stability and reliability of Microsoft Defender for Office 365 are good.
Providing comprehensive documentation on how to deploy and configure would improve the solution.
The transition from on-premises devices to virtual appliances may be necessary as more organizations migrate email services to the cloud.
The area that could use some improvement in Fortinet FortiMail is the integration process.
The main area for improvement is simplifying the implementation and rollout process.
Microsoft could improve by offering recommendations for domain spoofing attacks, especially scenarios where DNS records like SPF, DKIM, and DMARC are not properly published.
There is a different console for different things; I just want one consolidated console.
Fortinet FortiMail is considered overpriced by Indian rupee standards.
We've likely saved 30% of costs.
Money-wise, it is a part of the Office 365 suite, making it slightly more expensive compared to Trend Micro.
Microsoft is quite affordable with a lot of features available for any size organization.
Its threat detection capabilities have been beneficial.
The most valuable features are Fortinet FortiMail's ability to protect from advanced features of email-based attacks, including protection against ransomware and malware attacks.
Fortinet FortiMail offers capabilities like settings for mail delivery, mail filtering, spam controls, and email bursting prevention.
It ranks the threats and allows us to prioritize those hitting us the hardest, such as email threats.
It provides end-to-end visibility on email threats such as phishing, extending beyond Exchange Online Protection.
The value of the DLP feature is significant to us because we have internal data, sometimes sensitive, and the users may not always be aware of security and privacy, which might lead them to send out information mistakenly to external parties.
As cyber attacks become more sophisticated, it is crucial for email security solutions to offer multi-layered protection. Fortinet's proven email security platform, FortiMail, is a comprehensive multi-layered threat protection solution designed to secure users from the full spectrum of email-based threats, which includes zero-day threats, credential impersonation, spam, phishing, malware, and business email compromise (BEC) attacks.
Fortinet FortiMail offers a variety of deployment models to best fit your organization’s email security needs. On-premises, private or public cloud, or hybrid email environments can be deployed and managed in-house by your team or managed by Fortinet’s data centers. FortiMail also employs virtual machines that provide robust scalability options and flexible deployment of email security infrastructure.
Fortinet FortiMail Benefits
Fortinet FortiMail provides your organization with the following benefits:
Fortinet FortiMail Benefits
Some of Fortinet FortiMail’s top features include:
Reviews from Real Users
Fortinet FortiMail stands out among its competitors for a number of reasons. Two major ones are its powerful anti-virus tool and its robust spam protection capabilities.
Flamur P., head of security management at Ipko Telecommunications, writes, "Fortinet FortiMail has a lot of valuable features. It works great. It also has an antivirus feature. Support for Fortinet FortiMail was also great when my team wanted to block some geographic IPs, but couldn't figure out how to do it. The support team provided clear communication on how to resolve that issue. Another valuable feature of Fortinet FortiMail is spam filtering which tells you how many spammy emails you've received. Based on my current use cases, I'm happy with Fortinet FortiMail."
Microsoft Defender for Office 365 is a comprehensive security solution designed to protect organizations against advanced threats in their email, collaboration, and productivity environments. It combines the power of Microsoft's threat intelligence, machine learning, and behavioral analytics to provide real-time protection against phishing, malware, ransomware, and other malicious attacks.
With Microsoft Defender for Office 365, organizations can safeguard their email communication by detecting and blocking malicious links, attachments, and unsafe email content. It employs advanced anti-phishing capabilities to identify and prevent sophisticated phishing attacks that attempt to steal sensitive information or compromise user credentials.
This solution also offers robust protection against malware and ransomware. It leverages machine learning algorithms to analyze email attachments and URLs in real-time, identifying and blocking malicious content before it reaches users' inboxes. Additionally, it provides advanced threat-hunting capabilities, allowing security teams to proactively investigate and respond to potential threats.
Microsoft Defender for Office 365 goes beyond email protection and extends its security features to other collaboration tools like SharePoint, OneDrive, and Teams. It scans files and documents stored in these platforms, ensuring that they are free from malware and other malicious content. It also provides visibility into user activities, helping organizations detect and mitigate insider threats.
Furthermore, this solution offers rich reporting and analytics capabilities, providing organizations with insights into their security posture and threat landscape. It enables security administrators to monitor and manage security incidents, track trends, and take proactive measures to enhance their overall security posture.
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