We compared Fortinet FortiMail and Microsoft Exchange Online Protection across several parameters based on our users' reviews. After reading the collected data, you can find our conclusion below:
Features: Fortinet FortiMail is highly praised for its simplicity, intuitive interface, and smooth compatibility with other Fortinet products. Microsoft Exchange Online Protection offers seamless integration with Windows, a central alert console, and real-time monitoring of suspicious URLs.
Room for Improvement: Fortinet FortiMail requires enhancements in integration, user management, and documentation. Microsoft Exchange Online Protection could offer more training and enhance its security features. Users also requested better encryption, gray email management, and integration with non-Microsoft platforms.
Service and Support: Fortinet FortiMail is considered to have a moderate and fair setup cost, which is seen as reasonable. While some users found Microsoft support to be helpful and responsive, others experienced slower response times.
Ease of Deployment: The setup process for Fortinet FortiMail is described as relatively easy and can be completed within a few hours or up to 14 working days. It is flexible and can be tailored to specific needs, although it may require help from technical professionals. Users had varied experiences setting up Microsoft Exchange Online Protection, ranging from easy to difficult. It may necessitate dedicated personnel for maintenance.
Pricing: Fortinet FortiMail is considered to have a moderate and fair setup cost, which is seen as reasonable. Some users said Microsoft Exchange Online Protection is expensive, but others considered it reasonable.
ROI: Fortinet FortiMail provides enhanced email communication, decreased spam, stabilized collections, and altered expenses. Microsoft Exchange Online Protection has proven to be a profitable investment.
Comparison Results: Fortinet FortiMail and Cisco Secure Email have distinct features and functionalities. Fortinet FortiMail is known for its simple setup, user-friendly interface, and effective email filtering. It can be customized and seamlessly integrated with other Fortinet products. Microsoft Exchange Online Protection is praised for its seamless integration with Windows and useful features like URL holding and threat management. At the same time, users say it could improve in areas such as pricing, documentation, and security features.
"Microsoft Defender for Office 365's most valuable feature is its performance."
"The basic features are okay and I'm satisfied with the Defender."
"Threat Explorer is one of the features that I very much like because it is a real-time report that allows you to identify, analyze, and trace security attacks."
"Defender for Office 365 has helped eliminate having to look at multiple dashboards and that is the aspect I like most about it. It is simpler, effective, and convenient. The users like the process efficiency."
"Defender is a SaaS platform, so it offers more flexibility. Managing the permissions is easier. The solution's automated detection and response features are scalable."
"At the moment we are satisfied with this product. It's a stable, scalable, and resilient solution for us."
"Defender enables us to secure all 365-related activity from a single place. It gives us visibility into everything happening in Outlook, protecting us against phishing and other email-based threats. Defender helps us detect any suspicious behaviors."
"The most valuable feature is the integration. It's a single console, so we don't have to switch around between multiple products. Another valuable feature is the ease of operations and maintenance."
"After implementing FortiMail, the spam, and malicious emails we receive have significantly reduced, making it much simpler to manage."
"The number of false positives is minimal."
"We found the initial setup to be mostly straightforward."
"FortiMail possesses notable strengths, and one key feature is its store-and-forward concept."
"It has a very high level of security through special licensing with solutions like FortiGuard, sandboxing solutions in the cloud, and URL rewriting solutions."
"They have a feature called CDR, Content Disarm, Reconstruction, click protection, and DLP for encryption purposes."
"The most valuable features of this solution are anti-spam, sender reputation, and antivirus."
"This excellent email gateway minimizes spam, inspects suspicious emails and isolates infected attachments with little administrative effort."
"The initial setup is just a standard process."
"It is an easy solution."
"It is easy to configure, easy to use, easy to add exclusions, easy to track, and easy to add anything else if you want."
"It has a really nice web-based administration console."
"It's all running in the backend, so it doesn't affect the app functionality."
"The product's most valuable feature is third-party integrations."
"The most valuable feature of Microsoft Exchange Online Protection is the accidental release of information protection capabilities. Additionally, the solution is easy to use."
"I like the product's ZAP feature."
"Microsoft Defender for Office 365 must improve the overall management style, including the GUI. It also needs to change the filters so that it is easy to whitelist and blacklist data."
"The XDR dashboard has room for improvement."
"The only thing they should improve is the licensing model. They should stop changing it. A year ago, the five features I mentioned were included in one product. Now, three of them are bundled into one product, and you have to pay extra for the other two. I don't mind paying extra, but I don't want them to change it every year or every six months. I need to know what I'm looking at and not worry about it next year."
"Configuration requires going to a lot of places rather than just accessing one tab."
"In some situations, it has not been able to pick impersonated emails having no attachments. Technical support definitely has a scope for improvement."
"We noticed that from time to time, Microsoft's stability does have problems. Sometimes the service goes up and down. Sometimes they change without prior notice."
"The company should focus on adding threats that the solution is currently unable to detect."
"One area for improvement is integration. For example, when it comes to external SaaS platforms, we were not able to get a lot of information on integrations with such apps for security and authentication."
"The only drawback to this solution is that the firmware is frequently updated, and each update results in downtime."
"High Availability needs improvement."
"I would like it if the solution could be more affordable."
"What's missing in Fortinet FortiMail is some sandbox information for some of the emails. It's probably configuration-based, where it could be configured on some emails. For example, there was malware in some emails that weren't detected in some of the Fortinet FortiMail sessions, but it should have been configured from my company's end to better catch scam emails, but overall, the solution is okay. At the moment, my company is okay with the current Fortinet FortiMail offerings, but in the past, because of a lack of understanding, my team wasn't able to quickly implement the geographical IP blocking feature. It was time-consuming to implement that feature, but that wasn't a fault of Fortinet FortiMail. The issue was from my team's end, but just by emailing the support team, that issue was resolved, so right now, there isn't any additional feature I'd like added to Fortinet FortiMail."
"The web console management interface could be improved."
"The Ui isn't that intuitive."
"I believe there is room for enhancement in content and web security features."
"The product's cybersecurity features could be better."
"Microsoft 365 Defender and EOP policies are stable with the proper license. However, with the basic policy, it's hard to say it's stable due to configuration limitations."
"The solution lacks to elaborate on its spam policies."
"The product could be more stable. Microsoft products could be more stable because sometimes, even though they are updating some things, we cannot find those updates."
"If a company wants to put in line back-to-back anti-spam solutions, they need to work on that part because Microsoft recommends either you use EOP as a front line or you don't use it."
"Having orchestration features added to Microsoft Exchange Online Protection, particularly automation and remediation, would be quite useful."
"Microsoft has some training portals, but more could be developed."
"It doesn't protect against everything. We do need protection for, for example, endpoints."
"Some features, like encryption, are not available."
More Microsoft Defender for Office 365 Pricing and Cost Advice →
More Microsoft Exchange Online Protection (EOP) Pricing and Cost Advice →
Fortinet FortiMail is ranked 5th in Email Security with 55 reviews while Microsoft Exchange Online Protection (EOP) is ranked 4th in Email Security with 34 reviews. Fortinet FortiMail is rated 8.6, while Microsoft Exchange Online Protection (EOP) is rated 8.2. The top reviewer of Fortinet FortiMail writes "Good GUI and configuring security policies is easy but the pricing needs improvement". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Microsoft Exchange Online Protection (EOP) writes "An effective email security solution that provides DLP, Safe Attachment, and Safe Links". Fortinet FortiMail is most compared with Cisco Secure Email, Barracuda Email Security Gateway, Fortinet FortiMail Cloud, Proofpoint Email Protection and Trend Micro Email Security, whereas Microsoft Exchange Online Protection (EOP) is most compared with Proofpoint Email Protection, Cisco Secure Email, Mimecast Email Security, Barracuda Email Security Gateway and Trend Micro Email Security. See our Fortinet FortiMail vs. Microsoft Exchange Online Protection (EOP) report.
See our list of best Email Security vendors.
We monitor all Email Security reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.