No more typing reviews! Try our Samantha, our new voice AI agent.

MetaDefender Email Security Solutions vs SonicWall Email Security comparison

 

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

MetaDefender Email Security...
Ranking in Email Security
32nd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
Secure Email Gateway (SEG) (13th)
SonicWall Email Security
Ranking in Email Security
25th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
15
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the Email Security category, the mindshare of MetaDefender Email Security Solutions is 1.0%, up from 0.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SonicWall Email Security is 0.8%, up from 0.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Email Security Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
SonicWall Email Security0.8%
MetaDefender Email Security Solutions1.0%
Other98.2%
Email Security
 

Featured Reviews

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.
Swapnil Kulkarni - PeerSpot reviewer
System Administrator at Ador Powertron Ltd.
Has consistently supported security needs for mid-sized teams with affordable deployment
I do not work with Cloud Secure Edge, CSE, or SMA apart from SonicWall NSA. I am not satisfied with phishing protection, as it falls completely under the email domain security. The customizable policy configuration does not help to tailor email security overall because our systems are not integrated with SonicWall Email Security. We are not using reporting and analytics because it requires completely different software. While all required features are available in SonicWall Email Security for SMBs and startups, we lack analytics features. They provide an option to purchase a complete separate product for analytics, but despite initially having purchased the paper license, due to technical limitations or changes, we cannot use that product. Now they require additional fees to access the analytics feature.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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."
"It is a very scalable solution."
"SonicWall Email Security has benefited the company by preventing attacks, protecting us from threats such as ransomware and phishing, and notifying the IT team when phishing emails have been blocked."
"The pricing for SonicWall Email Security is reasonable and budget-friendly."
"This solution has been really good for us and I recommend using it."
"The most valuable feature of SonicWall Email Security is the blocking of emails using keywords. If there are any particular keywords in the subject, that we want to block from receiving from a particular person we can do it. Additionally, the blocking of emails is easy. we can release that one and we can block some of the keywords also like that."
"We always get ROI from the product we are using; it is completely flexible and acceptable according to our security requirements over the last four years and currently."
"The product is easy to manage in terms of configurations."
"Behind the reason we chose SonicWall for my company is it has excellent packet analysis of normal and SSL encrypted traffic, application intelligence visualization and control, multiple Gigabit Ethernet LAN and WAN ports, flexible configuration and redundancy options."
 

Cons

"The DLP should be upgraded and has room for improvement."
"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 pricing could be improved."
"The protection level for email security isn't 100%. I'm still getting some spam and junk mail."
"A lot of spoofed emails are still coming to the end-user, so the configuration for this option needs to be improved."
"They need well-trained partners in Nigeria."
"Overall, this is a solution that provides good security but at a very high cost."
"Policy deployment could be time consuming and represents an area for improvement in SonicWall Email Security."
"They should integrate the solution with third-party platforms."
"We would like to see more information on a dashboard about what is happening when it comes to spamming and malware."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"According to our customers, the price of MetaDefender is high and it continues to increase by almost 15 percent each year."
"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."
"We have a two-year license subscription and the price is very high."
"Our customers purchase the solution's yearly license."
"When compared with Cisco, it is very well priced. Cisco is very expensive."
"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."
"The platform offers a yearly license."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Email Security solutions are best for your needs.
909,725 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Construction Company
14%
Comms Service Provider
14%
Financial Services Firm
6%
Pharma/Biotech Company
6%
Construction Company
17%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Marketing Services Firm
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business12
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise3
 

Questions from the Community

Ask a question
Earn 20 points
What needs improvement with SonicWall Email Security?
Policy deployment could be time consuming and represents an area for improvement in SonicWall Email Security.
What is your primary use case for SonicWall Email Security?
SonicWall Email Security was used for security purposes, which aligns with the product's core function.
 

Also Known As

OPSWAT MetaDefender Email Security, MetaDefender Email Gateway Security, MetaDefender Email Security
Dell SonicWALL Email Security Platform, SonicWall Hosted Email Security
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Star Kay White, Locala Community Partnerships
Find out what your peers are saying about MetaDefender Email Security Solutions vs. SonicWall Email Security and other solutions. Updated: August 2026.
909,725 professionals have used our research since 2012.