We performed a comparison between Cisco Secure Email vs Proofpoint Email Protection based on our users’ reviews in five categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Comparison Results: In this comparison, reviewers give similar ratings in most categories. The main difference between the two products is that the majority of Cisco users find the interface to be dated.
"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 deployment capability is a great feature."
"The product is not resource-intensive."
"The benefit that stands out to me is the ability for multiple individuals to collaborate simultaneously within the same document. Additionally, there is the option to save the document directly in the integrated OneDrive or SharePoint."
"The risk level notifications are most valuable. We get to know what kind of intrusion or attack is there, and we can fix a problem on time."
"The solution is very easy to use. All you have to do is to assign the license to the end-user and it's done. The customer will only have the feature activated, and the solution will monitor the emails to determine if they are a threat or not."
"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."
"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 tech engineers are very knowledgeable."
"It sends us reports, where we can see if there have been attacks, e.g. DDoS. If so, we can switch to a clean IP."
"I love the Advanced Malware Protection feature. It works very well... The appliance has more security such as SDF, DKIM, DMARC, and encryption."
"There are a lot of filters for scam emails and things like that work out of the box. You can also use the antivirus features. I like its features."
"It integrates with Active Directory and we can limit specific users to using specific applications."
"What I find the most valuable about Cisco Secure Email is that the logs are not that difficult to see even if you're not used to them. The logs are reasonably readable and diagnosing the problem is not too hard with them."
"It's a bit easy to handle Cisco Secure Email; it's not that difficult. For the logs, which are in PDF format, it's not hard to read them. We don't need Wireshark much to analyze the logs."
"Administration of the email domains and custom filters are easily done via the web interface."
"The Phish Alarm button allows users to submit questionable emails for review and complete analysis."
"The anti-spam features are excellent on the email firewalls."
"It is a very scalable solution."
"I like all the features with Proofpoint, such as how it filters the spam and marketing mail, lost reality mail, blocks phishing attacks, blocks malicious attachments, and stops phishing links. Also it can defend against the business email compromise impersonation technique. It is a complete solution for all email attacks. It filters for the bad, malicious attachments. If there is any executable file, it can be deleted. It is a good, complete solution."
"The most valuable feature of Proofpoint Email Protection is the central location dashboard for viewing all the related information for risk."
"The most valuable feature of Proofpoint Email Protection is the TAP Dashboard. It provides more detailed information that can be used for forensic analysis. This is an advantage that other email security providers, such as Cisco, IronPort, or Microsoft do not offer in their dashboards."
"Proofpoint is the main tool for blocking spam because it denies the connection altogether."
"The solution scales well."
"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."
"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 product must provide better malware detection."
"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."
"One area for improvement is support, in terms of being able to reach them and, especially, technical support for configuration."
"Too many false positives and lacks an accurate capability to detect malicious SharePoint sites."
"You should be able to deploy Defender for every subscription without the need to add servers."
"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."
"The interface is dated. It has looked pretty much the same for 15 years or so. It would be helpful to be able to do everything from one spot. The centralized quarantine and reporting are completely separate from policy administration."
"Cisco Secure Email can be improved from the administrator's point of view. Usually, you have to work with different areas, and they can try to make it easy for the administrator to use different functions."
"Cisco is already providing a very good environment with the IronPort solution, but there could be some more integration with other products. For instance, an integration with the EDR solution could be there to raise an alert."
"I have some frustrations with the user experience in the interface, specifically with regard to making a list of people for whom I want to allow email access."
"The user interface could be updated."
"We cannot manage multiple devices from a single UI."
"Many smaller businesses opt for more cost-effective solutions, such as Gmail or Hotmail accounts, instead of investing in Cisco Secure Email, given its higher cost."
"The pricing needs to be reconsidered or enhanced."
"There is room for improvement in detecting and preventing phishing attacks. While the solution performs well in some aspects, it struggles with phishing threats."
"Proofpoint Email Protection is an expensive solution."
"Proofpoint Email Protection could improve the Mail Trace feature and make navigation easier."
"Integration for reporting needs to be improved, it's too complex."
"The solution's server console and cluster dashboard have been the same for four years so need to be upgraded."
"You only receive one model in Proofpoint Email Protection and the other ones you have to purchase at a high price. There should be more available with the solution and additional models should be less expensive."
"It's scalable, but the devil's in the details — you have to know your email volumes."
"Proofpoint Email Protection could improve by reducing the price."
More Microsoft Defender for Office 365 Pricing and Cost Advice →
Cisco Secure Email is ranked 2nd in Email Security with 56 reviews while Proofpoint Email Protection is ranked 1st in Secure Email Gateway (SEG) with 46 reviews. Cisco Secure Email is rated 8.4, while Proofpoint Email Protection is rated 8.4. The top reviewer of Cisco Secure Email writes "Has effortless spam control, improves security posture, and frees up our IT department's time". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Proofpoint Email Protection writes "A reasonably priced product that offers protection to emails, along with spam filters". Cisco Secure Email is most compared with Trellix Collaboration Security, Fortinet FortiMail, Microsoft Exchange Online Protection (EOP), Trend Micro Email Security and Cisco Secure Email Threat Defense, whereas Proofpoint Email Protection is most compared with Microsoft Exchange Online Protection (EOP), Palo Alto Networks WildFire, Fortinet FortiMail, KnowBe4 and Perception Point Advanced Email Security. See our Cisco Secure Email vs. Proofpoint Email Protection report.
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.