Avanan is praised for its advanced threat protection, ease of integration, competitive pricing, and valuable customer support. Users appreciate the machine learning capabilities and real-time alerts Avanan provides. On the other hand, Abnormal Security stands out for its behavioral AI engine, advanced threat protection and easy integration with email platforms.
The summary above is based on 30 interviews we conducted recently with Avanan and Abnormal Security users. To access the review's full transcripts, download our report.
"Microsoft Defender for Office 365 is a stable solution."
"The initial setup was easy."
"Microsoft Defender for Office 365's most valuable feature is its performance."
"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."
"Threat Explorer is an invaluable tool for me, and it plays a crucial role in helping me discern the origins of various email campaigns, pinpointing where they emanate from, and identifying the individuals within our organization who are affected."
"The good part is that you don't have to configure it, which is very convenient."
"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."
"The basic features are okay and I'm satisfied with the Defender."
"Ease of use is undoubtedly one of the most valuable features of Abnormal Security."
"It does some really cool stuff that other tools aren't doing. We found it to be really effective, and the AI/ML functionality is really what differentiates them."
"The features that appeal to me most are the combination of auto-remediation and Detection 360."
"I have never encountered any stability issues with Abnormal."
"Initial auto-remediation allows us to auto-remediate before the email lands in the end user's inbox for a split second."
"What I like about Abnormal Security is that it notifies me if any of my partners or suppliers are experiencing a security breach by analyzing their database and identifying potential cyber threats."
"Their ability to take things out of the mailbox and catch things much faster than users is excellent."
"One of the things that I love about them is that the setup and installation are super easy. All you do is give them access to your Microsoft 365 tenant, and through APIs, they are able to do their work. They are doing all this through APIs, so you do not have to install the software and take a month to get it all set up to even see the value of the solution. You could be up and running in less than an hour."
"Email Attachment Protection detects any insecure files and quickly blocks them to prevent the spread of viruses to other secure documents."
"The customizable rules allow you to change aspects."
"I like Avanan's SmartDLP module. It's seamless, and the administrative overhead is low. We aren't a very sophisticated operation. We just want to reduce our exposure, so we find ThreatCloud helpful. Avanan's acquisition by Check Point was beneficial for them."
"The integration with all our existing and new applications is great."
"The program has reduced the dangers related to phishing, malware, ransomware, and other vulnerabilities."
"It can detect corrupted files and filters out documents with viruses."
"Email encryption enhances end to end security of any data before it passes through the networking system."
"The ease of installation and the AI capacity of the product are valuable."
"We are always looking for others tools to increase automation on tasks. There can be better integration with other solutions, such as PowerPoint and email."
"The phishing and spam filters could use some improvement."
"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."
"Too many false positives and lacks an accurate capability to detect malicious SharePoint sites."
"The GUI is sometimes slow to fetch the device report and could be improved."
"I'd like some additional features any product can give me to protect our environment in a better way."
"The company should focus on adding threats that the solution is currently unable to detect."
"Configuration requires going to a lot of places rather than just accessing one tab."
"When we're working on something as engineers, and we find an idea or a method of doing something that would be greatly improved by doing it another way, there should be an ability for me to click the ideas button, type in an idea that I have, and submit it to a product review team or developers to have them think through the process a little bit more."
"The ideal scenario would be for Abnormal Security to work in tandem with Microsoft to analyze incoming emails."
"I would like to have the ability to customize the auto-remediation feature."
"There could be room for improvement in enhancing integration with other cybersecurity tools."
"The pricing for academic institutions and student mailboxes is challenging."
"One feature I'd love to see is outbound scanning."
"The biggest pain point for us is the lack of support for on-premise email systems."
"I, as such, do not have anything that I do not like or would like to add, but you could argue that because they are doing it API-based, there is a chance that something could slip through temporarily before they are able to pull it out. In theory, it could happen just because of the nature of the system. They are not in line with the delivery of the mail. They are kind of asynchronous, which is a pro as well as a con. If it is synchronous, then I know it would always stop them, but because it is asynchronous, things could get through temporarily or because of some system issues on the Microsoft side or their side. It is the nature of the beast, but it is a little bit of a con."
"They should come up with a mobile application so that it can be more flexible."
"When sending bulky emails, the system slows down and takes a long time before it responds effectively to our requests."
"The system could be designed to give corporate emails first priority due to demands."
"The unified dashboard that it displays needs some improvements in terms of the KPIs that they have."
"There are times when we have false positives."
"The system response in a slow computing device affects performance when sending and receiving emails."
"Being cloud first and because we are in the movie business, we use a lot of Macintoshes. So, there is absolutely no reason for us to have Active Directory whatsoever. However, if you are using Office 365, you must have Active Directory in order to reset passwords. Even though we have a single sign-on provider, we must have Azure Active Directory for Office 365, which is really stupid. As a cloud application, you would think that I don't need Active Directory, which I don't need for anything else except Office 365. We have one server inside that space to help us manage Active Directory just for Office 365. This is a very sore point, but it is what it is."
"It is complicated for new users unfamiliar with the modern cloud networking infrastructure."
More Microsoft Defender for Office 365 Pricing and Cost Advice →
Abnormal Security is ranked 12th in Email Security with 8 reviews while Avanan is ranked 6th in Email Security with 21 reviews. Abnormal Security is rated 9.6, while Avanan is rated 9.2. The top reviewer of Abnormal Security writes "Provides comprehensive email security management, effective in detecting a wide range of email threats". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Avanan writes "We've noticed a significant decline from people accidentally or intentionally clicking on things". Abnormal Security is most compared with Mimecast Email Security, Egress Intelligent Email Security, Cloudflare Area 1 Email Security, Cisco Secure Email and Microsoft Exchange Online Protection (EOP), whereas Avanan is most compared with Check Point Harmony Email & Collaboration, IRONSCALES, Perception Point Advanced Email Security, Mimecast Email Security and Fortinet FortiMail. See our Abnormal Security vs. Avanan report.
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