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IRONSCALES vs MetaDefender Email Security Solutions comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 5, 2024

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

IRONSCALES
Ranking in Email Security
14th
Ranking in Secure Email Gateway (SEG)
5th
Average Rating
9.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
16
Ranking in other categories
Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) (16th)
MetaDefender Email Security...
Ranking in Email Security
28th
Ranking in Secure Email Gateway (SEG)
9th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Email Security category, the mindshare of IRONSCALES is 1.8%, down from 2.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of MetaDefender Email Security Solutions is 0.5%, up from 0.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Email Security Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
IRONSCALES1.8%
MetaDefender Email Security Solutions0.5%
Other97.7%
Email Security
 

Featured Reviews

reviewer2770017 - PeerSpot reviewer
Email Security Analyst at a computer software company with 51-200 employees
Has improved threat analysis by providing clear email correspondence history and reporting tools
The best features IRONSCALES offers are the investigation tabs, headers, and correspondence history, which stand out the most for me. The investigation tabs are valuable for my work because reporting goes a long way in terms of playbooks and having a full investigation. The investigation tab knows exactly how to put the information in a way that makes it very easy for reports to get done fast. Security awareness training is a big part of IRONSCALES. The platform offers a broad spectrum in terms of what campaigns can be run for security awareness for users as well as reporting back on how users interact with their mails and understanding where the vulnerabilities lie. IRONSCALES has positively impacted my organization by making email security simple in terms of controlling mails, understanding where the threats are, and protecting the organization itself.
RM
Senior Information Systems Engineer at Liberty Pumps, Inc.
Helpful support, and useful dashboards
They offer a feature called SmartLink neutralization. I have tried it before. It seemed to work most of the time; however, I had a few users for whom it just wouldn't work. Whenever they click on a link, it stays on the MetaDefender page, saying that it's scanning it and never moves forward. I haven't tried it in a while since then. Since I can't turn it off on a per-user basis, I had to turn it off globally. I have certain exceptions for not doing the sanitization, and how to set those up is not intuitive. It would be useful if there were a better way of doing that. Using digital certificates is hard. It would be better if it used Windows Servers' built-in certificate management.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"AI-driven phishing detection and incident remediation are valuable. It saves time from having to do manual analysis and investigation, and we also get alerts for phishing emails."
"Their anti-phishing platform is absolutely fantastic. The automated AI piece is amazing, and their technical support is fantastic."
"For me, the mobile app is most valuable. All other features are also very useful, but the mobile app makes it really easy for me to manage on the go. I don't have to be at my desk. I could be at the shops, or it could be in the evening when I am out, and I can get a notification on my phone that there is an incident that has been raised. I can sort it out very quickly without having to be at my work PC."
"The most valuable features of the solution are that it is easy to set it up, install, and manage the product."
"The fact that it is set-and-forget is valuable. Once you turn it on, you very rarely have to micromanage it, whereas, with a lot of spam filters, you have to go in very often."
"The best features of IRONSCALES are that most alerts are validated through AI, which reduces the fatigue of alerts that need to be worked on by the team handling the alerts investigation part."
"There is buzz around phishing awareness training. When I make a campaign, all of a sudden people in our organization are talking, thinking, and wondering about it. Therefore, it keeps people on their toes. That is perfect because it does exactly what we want it to do."
"I would say the most valuable feature is what they call Themis. It's like a virtual analyst that uses the decisions that system admins make to generate a score for whether an email is legitimate, spam, or phishing. It gets better based on the decisions that we make over time. The automation piece is great as well. The integrated approach of email security combined with employee awareness training is excellent."
"The sanitization is very good."
"The most valuable feature is called summary reconstruction which is used to deliver encrypted files to users."
"The most valuable feature of MetaDefender Email Security is the CDR. Customers purchase this solution specifically for data communication, as the other features can be obtained through other technologies that most customers already possess. Therefore, data communication serves as the foundation for the platform."
 

Cons

"There is a feature called Account Takeover, which isn't what I want it to be able to do. I know that they're working on that, but when they first started the Account Takeover feature in incident management, it didn't have much information. It didn't have any usability to it. I already had tools in place that were better."
"IRONSCALES should bundle more features together instead of separating them and charging additional licensing fees."
"Even though they have been continuously improving it, it is not 100% there. We have had a few incidents where legitimate emails were getting blocked, and we had to manually remove those emails from quarantine. It is 90% effective or accurate because, on rare occasions, some emails from customers were not getting delivered. In one or two instances, their emails got blocked by IRONSCALES, and we had to manually remove the emails from quarantine. I would like them to improve their algorithm to avoid flagging genuine emails as malicious. I would also like to be able to whitelist certain email addresses. I'd love to be able to whitelist a particular customer."
"In addition to integrated training, they should also have personalized training that you don't have to do as part of a phishing campaign or a simulation."
"The simulation and training piece could be improved by having more granularity in terms of scheduling how campaigns are run and allowing people to directly take the training rather than having to go through an official campaign. That's not available yet."
"The only thing that I could say is that some of the reporting features could be better."
"There's room for improvement in the campaign management. IRONSCALES has many built-in templates that I use, but you can also build templates from scratch. However, the interface for creating custom templates needs to be updated."
"I would really prefer to drill down more on correspondence history. It provides detailed background information to actually understand what's going on."
"They offer a feature called SmartLink neutralization. I have tried it before. It seemed to work most of the time; however, I had a few users for whom it just wouldn't work. Whenever they click on a link, it stays on the MetaDefender page, saying that it's scanning it and never moves forward."
"Although the number of AV engines is good, it could be better."
"The DLP should be upgraded and has room for improvement."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Considering the value it provides, it is definitely worth the cost. We don't have to do manual analysis and remediation of phishing emails, which saves us a lot of hours. Its licensing is based on the number of users being supported and the number of email addresses being protected. I'm not aware of any additional costs."
"As compared to everything else we looked at, it was good. It was the best value for the dollars."
"The product is available as a middle-priced tool. I think it is not the cheapest solution."
"There is an installation cost. Since we have this as a managed service, we pay for licensing and the managed service itself. Other than that, there are no additional costs."
"IRONSCALES is an expensive solution."
"The tool is not very cheap, but it is affordable."
"They are pretty much the same as all the other competitors in the market."
"I don't know about its pricing because I don't run the budget or pay the bills, but if it was extortionate, we probably would be looking to scrap it, and because we are not, I assume its price is okay."
"According to our customers, the price of MetaDefender is high and it continues to increase by almost 15 percent each year."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
18%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Construction Company
6%
Comms Service Provider
6%
Comms Service Provider
16%
Educational Organization
14%
Computer Software Company
9%
Recreational Facilities/Services Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business7
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise4
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about IRONSCALES?
The solution captures a bit more of the unknown, quantifies it, and applies intelligence to it to pick out and stop a lot of phishing emails that come through.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IRONSCALES?
While I don't specifically oversee the pricing details, I understand that IRONSCALES is in the range of similar solutions while offering better results.
What needs improvement with IRONSCALES?
I would really prefer to drill down more on correspondence history. It provides detailed background information to actually understand what's going on. If there were clickable drill downs on specif...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for MetaDefender Email Security Solutions?
We paid for a three-year agreement. The cost is kind of high. For smaller companies, it may be outside of their budget. However, for us, management knows how important this product is. It's worth t...
What needs improvement with MetaDefender Email Security Solutions?
They offer a feature called SmartLink neutralization. I have tried it before. It seemed to work most of the time; however, I had a few users for whom it just wouldn't work. Whenever they click on a...
 

Also Known As

No data available
OPSWAT MetaDefender Email Security, MetaDefender Email Gateway Security, MetaDefender Email Security
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Allegheny Millwork, Ayrshire College, Nium, Orris, Paramount School District, Pres Les, PRT Staffing, Recovery Unplugged, Telit, WebHelp
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about IRONSCALES vs. MetaDefender Email Security Solutions and other solutions. Updated: January 2026.
881,082 professionals have used our research since 2012.