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IRONSCALES vs SonicWall Email Security comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 3, 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

Microsoft Defender for Offi...
Sponsored
Ranking in Email Security
1st
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
49
Ranking in other categories
Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) (1st), Microsoft Security Suite (11th)
IRONSCALES
Ranking in Email Security
18th
Average Rating
9.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
13
Ranking in other categories
Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) (18th), Secure Email Gateway (SEG) (7th)
SonicWall Email Security
Ranking in Email Security
32nd
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
13
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Email Security category, the mindshare of Microsoft Defender for Office 365 is 12.9%, down from 18.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IRONSCALES is 1.9%, down from 2.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SonicWall Email Security is 0.5%, down from 0.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Email Security
 

Featured Reviews

Tolu Omolaja - PeerSpot reviewer
Great URL scanning and attachment scanning, but I would like more proactive threat analysis
The two main features that prove most beneficial for us are URL scanning and attachment scanning. URL scanning involves an automatic scan of links and emails. When a user clicks on a link within an email, the system promptly checks the link's safety. If the link is deemed safe, access is granted automatically. However, if it is flagged as unsafe, we receive feedback and notification to caution us about the potentially harmful link. At this point, we are presented with the option to proceed or return. I have personally witnessed the system identify a few unsafe links, making this the primary advantage of using the solution. The second crucial aspect is the scanning of attachments. When an email containing an attachment arrives, we receive a notification of the new email, along with information that the attachment is being scanned for threats. This additional layer of security provides peace of mind for our organization. While Microsoft Defender for Office 365 offers numerous features, these two stand out as particularly impressive and valuable to us.
Orion Trist - PeerSpot reviewer
Saved us a big deal by catching malicious links and attachments sent directly to our staff and has also been helpful for educating our staff
It has helped immensely because it has gotten rid of malicious links and malicious attachments that have been targeted at our different staff members. It has definitely protected us on more than one occasion. Their integrated approach of combining email security and employee awareness training is excellent because the training is a reminder for staff to continually be on their feet and look out for the ever-changing landscape. It also lets us know who has been trained, who hasn't been trained, and what they're like. It integrates a risk ratio for all our employees. Its artificial intelligence and machine learning capabilities are very important because I don't want to have to manage 24/7. Having the AI to do a lot of the work for me is invaluable. Its automated detection and response capabilities are excellent. It does a wonderful job. They provide all the stats on what it has done. It gives you information about how much time is saved and all that kind of good information. Its automated detection and response capabilities have massively decreased the time we spend manually reviewing email events. Since May, it has taken care of 170 hours. So, it has saved 88 hours per analyst. It is very good in terms of the customization of the automated detection and response capabilities. It is granular, and you can adjust it however you want. If it is too high, you can turn it down. If it is too low, you can turn it up.
Constantnos Achilleos - PeerSpot reviewer
Provides strong email filtering and threat intelligence but pricing needs improvement
I work with SonicWall Email Security SonicWall Email Security uses multi-layer cloud security. It filters emails before they come to my provider, such as Office 365. It has real-time threat intelligence and provides strong data loss prevention. Additionally, it filters emails before they reach my…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Microsoft Defender for Office 365 facilitates efficient management and updates through the cloud. We do not have to worry about incompatibilities. It just works."
"Microsoft Defender for Office 365 helps people to work remotely. It is a secure solution. We don't need to use our company's computers or get VPN connections to the networks. I can control how they share screens and what they send to the devices. It keeps our organizations confidential and sensitive information safe."
"The initial setup was easy."
"The stability of Microsoft Defender for Office 365 is fantastic."
"The most valuable aspect of Microsoft Defender for Office 365 is its ability to protect us from malware."
"Defender for 365 is a comprehensive cloud-based solution. The value of the cloud is that you aren't alone. Threat intelligence and analytics are shared in the cloud. We don't have to find the solution alone. If you face an unknown threat with traditional solutions like Trend Micro and Symantec, you need to open a case and send your information to them to analyze forensically and identify the source of the attack."
"The good part is that you don't have to configure it, which is very convenient."
"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 report function through Gmail is probably the most valuable feature. The next most valuable features are simulation and training."
"The stability is good."
"Their anti-phishing platform is absolutely fantastic. The automated AI piece is amazing, and their technical support is fantastic."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"It is a totally stable solution."
"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."
"The most valuable feature is that it protects from spam."
"This solution provides very good email security that protects us against spamming and malware."
"SonicWall Email Security uses multi-layer cloud security."
"The anti-spam aspect of the solution is its most valuable feature."
"The most valuable features are the anti-spam, anti-phishing, anti-virus, and anti-spoofing."
"SonicWall Email Security uses multi-layer cloud security."
"The product is easy to manage in terms of configurations."
"It is a very scalable solution."
 

Cons

"About eight months ago, we started to measure the quantity of phishing and spam that we have been receiving, and it has been increasing a lot. That means that protection for our email is not as good as we were expecting."
"Microsoft Defender for Office 365 should improve the troubleshooting tools. It's unclear whether the device is blocked at the firewall level or at the device itself. The granularity needed for troubleshooting is currently lacking. From my perspective, Microsoft should address this issue to benefit many users who likely share the same sentiment."
"Configuration requires going to a lot of places rather than just accessing one tab."
"You should be able to deploy Defender for every subscription without the need to add servers."
"Configuring the default strategies and policies in Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps generates a lot of noise and false positives."
"Microsoft security solutions work as expected. They are constantly updating the solutions to make them better. At the same time, the changes can impact a customer's environment, and we need to adjust settings. Sometimes we aren't aware of the changes, and nothing is pushed from the backend automatically."
"This product's effectiveness could be improved, in terms of detecting unwanted spam or even malware between the emails, compared to other products."
"The product must provide better malware detection."
"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."
"The tool supports 15 to 16 languages, but the content it uses in the training in Spanish has certain limitations."
"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."
"Its UI could be improved. My pet peeve with a lot of these cloud-based systems is that a lot of times, the interface for the management is a little clunky. If you live and breathe IRONSCALES all day long, you'll obviously know where everything is just from muscle memory, but the system is not designed for people to be in it all day long. You're only supposed to occasionally look at it. When things get moved around, it is not necessarily that intuitive. I'm an IT guy, and I can pretty much take the worst UI and figure it out, but the menus and the options in the interface could be a little cleaner graphically. If you have a quick problem that you want to resolve, it takes a little bit of digging in the admin console, whereas it should take a few clicks up front."
"The only thing that I could say is that some of the reporting features could be better."
"I would like it if IRONSCALES had some sort of reminder mechanism, meaning IRONSCALES knows if a user completed the training or not. As long as it hasn't been completed, it keeps reminding every so often, alerts the manager, etc. Right now, it is all in the hands of the employee, and not all of them continue the process, which is a shame."
"I would love to see the indication of compromise and how the solution utilizes open source resources. It would be good to see that included in the paid versions. It would be a small addition but add a lot of value for clients."
"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 technical support from the company is not always very good at solving issues, but they offer access to a good community of users where problems are easily solved."
"The reporting needs improvement."
"They need well-trained partners in Nigeria."
"They should integrate the solution with third-party platforms."
"The pricing could be improved."
"The pricing could be improved."
"We would like to see more information on a dashboard about what is happening when it comes to spamming and malware."
"The platform's control panel needs enhancement."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Defender for 365 comes in various plans and licenses, along with other Microsoft security solutions. Purchasing this kind of package or security bundle gives good value for money, and that's what I recommend."
"From the pricing point of view, like any other product in the market, there is scope for negotiation."
"The product is expensive."
"The solution could be better by simplifying the business model of their licensing. It was hard to figure out how to get the licensing done for the environment, initially."
"While Microsoft Defender for Office 365 necessitates pricier E3 or E5 subscriptions, the extensive functionality offered by these licenses across various Microsoft products justifies the investment."
"The pricing has become expensive."
"It is much more expensive than using another solution because we have had to include some options and upgrade our license."
"I know that the product is incredibly expensive."
"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."
"We pay $3000 plus a little more a year for the number of employees we have, and we're not even that big. The solution is at the higher end in terms of cost. It's not the most expensive product, but I would say it's worth the price if you have a high volume of email traffic. In our case, the solution has inspected over 162,000 emails between three and four months. It saved us a lot of time and money. It's a worthwhile investment because a bad actor only has to succeed once; we must defend against everything in our business. IRONSCALES offers a sense of security and confidence from being well protected."
"As compared to everything else we looked at, it was good. It was the best value for the dollars."
"IRONSCALES is an expensive solution."
"They are pretty much the same as all the other competitors in the market."
"The tool is not very cheap, but it is affordable."
"The product is available as a middle-priced tool. I think it is not the cheapest solution."
"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."
"The platform offers a yearly license."
"I rate the application’s pricing a five out of ten."
"The cost is cheaper than Sophos. I would rate it as five out of ten."
"The overall price of SonicWall Email Security should be reduced and there should be an option to purchase one or two licenses more instead of their current policy of bulk increases only. There should be more flexibility in the licensing model. Each license cost approximately $33 annually."
"We have a two-year license subscription and the price is very high."
"When compared with Cisco, it is very well priced. Cisco is very expensive."
"Our customers purchase the solution's yearly license."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
16%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
6%
Computer Software Company
19%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
7%
University
5%
Computer Software Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Wholesaler/Distributor
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Microsoft Defender for Office 365?
Threat Explorer is an invaluable tool for me, and it plays a crucial role in helping me discern the origins of variou...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Microsoft Defender for Office 365?
Money-wise, it is a part of the Office 365 ( /products/office-365-reviews ) suite, making it slightly more expensive ...
What needs improvement with Microsoft Defender for Office 365?
The main area for improvement is simplifying the implementation and rollout process. There are many conditions to be ...
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...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IRONSCALES?
The product is available as a middle-priced tool. I think it is not the cheapest solution. There are other solutions ...
What needs improvement with IRONSCALES?
I think maybe on the side of the awareness training, the tool can improve a little more information and have some oth...
What do you like most about SonicWall Email Security?
According to our customers, the product's most valuable feature is the ability to detect spam and reduce phishing ema...
 

Also Known As

MS Defender for Office 365
No data available
Dell SonicWALL Email Security Platform, SonicWall Hosted Email Security
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Microsoft Defender for Office 365 is trusted by companies such as Ithaca College.
Allegheny Millwork, Ayrshire College, Nium, Orris, Paramount School District, Pres Les, PRT Staffing, Recovery Unplugged, Telit, WebHelp
Star Kay White, Locala Community Partnerships
Find out what your peers are saying about IRONSCALES vs. SonicWall Email Security and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
850,028 professionals have used our research since 2012.