We compared Cisco Secure Email and Microsoft Exchange Online Protection across several parameters based on our users' reviews. After reading the collected data, you can find our conclusion below:
Features: Cisco Secure Email offers advanced protection against phishing attacks, reputation-based filtering, and robust tracking functionalities. Microsoft Exchange Online Protection offers seamless integration with Windows, a central alert console, and real-time monitoring of suspicious URLs.
Room for Improvement: Cisco Secure Email should improve global malicious email defense, data loss prevention, and integration with third-party solutions. Microsoft Exchange Online Protection could offer more training and enhance its security features. Users also requested better encryption, gray email management, and integration with non-Microsoft platforms.
Service and Support: Cisco support is generally considered knowledgeable and helpful, but a few users reported slow response times and difficulty navigating the support process. While some users found Microsoft support to be helpful and responsive, others experienced slower response times.
Ease of Deployment: Cisco Secure Email is generally straightforward and seamless to set up. It provides a modular and adaptable environment, but new users may need training. Users had varied experiences setting up Microsoft Exchange Online Protection, ranging from easy to difficult. It may necessitate dedicated personnel for maintenance.
Pricing: Opinions on the pricing of Cisco Secure Email are mixed. Some find it expensive but worth the investment, while others find it reasonably priced and competitive with other vendors. Some users said Microsoft Exchange Online Protection is expensive, but others considered it reasonable.
ROI: Cisco Secure Email's return on investment is influenced by factors such as use case, organization size, and industry. Microsoft Exchange Online Protection has proven to be a profitable investment.
Comparison Results: Cisco Secure Email is highly regarded for its intelligence threat detection, reputation filtering, and robust tracking abilities. The solution’s areas for improvement include data loss prevention and third-party integration. Microsoft Exchange Online Protection is praised for its seamless integration with Windows and useful features like URL holding and threat management. At the same time, users say it could improve in areas such as pricing, documentation, and security features.
"There are several features that I consider valuable."
"The email protection is excellent, especially in terms of anti-phishing policies."
"Defender helps us prioritize threats across our organization."
"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."
"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."
"Microsoft Defender has a feature to protect each and every attachment. Even if it's an encrypted attachment, it will check for any potential threats."
"Threat Explorer is one of the features that I very much like because it is a real-time report that allows you to identify, analyze, and trace security attacks."
"At the moment we are satisfied with this product. It's a stable, scalable, and resilient solution for us."
"Cisco Secure Email's most valuable is email certification."
"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."
"Because we scan products, and there is a lot of critical data, security is very important in these cases."
"The filtering is definitely better at catching both spam and malicious messages, and there's a lot of extremely granular ability for setting up rules. You can do it the way you want to. The Microsoft solution tends to be pretty limited in how it allows some of that to be done."
"Anti-Spam and Advanced Malware Protection are the most valuable features... and we also have the option to block Zero-day attacks."
"Spam controls are excellent because they are a powerful feature that operates almost effortlessly."
"At one point, there was a zero-day attack. The Cisco appliance detected it and stopped it, helping us out. We avoided the attack and potential damage."
"The malicious URL scanning, as well as the anti-malware features, have been really useful for us in our environment."
"Microsoft Exchange Online Protection has features like DLP (data loss protection), Safe Attachment, and Safe Links."
"We use the solution in all our environments. We use it for remedy tickets and give them updates. It was our main communication point."
"The scalability is pretty good; it does what it is supposed to do."
"The solution's stability is very, very good. I didn't face any problems in the last year."
"You can use the product to create special accounts."
"The initial setup was easy. The configuration process is very straightforward."
"We can migrate seamlessly without any disruptions to our operations."
"The initial setup of Microsoft Exchange Online Protection was easy."
"The custom alerts have to improve a lot."
"The certification training for Defender for 365 needs to be deeper and incorporate Sentinel. I took all the security courses except one, and Sentinel isn't included."
"It would be better if it were more scalable. It depends on the architecture, but we would like to make it more scalable for both data centers."
"The pre-sales cost calculations could be more transparent."
"The company should focus on adding threats that the solution is currently unable to detect."
"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."
"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."
"The XDR dashboard has room for improvement."
"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."
"The user interface needs some improvement to become more user-friendly. The graphics could be better. It's designed more for a technical user rather than a business user."
"We have been struggling in the last month with Cisco encryption and with the S/MIME encryption. I don't know if it is an issue on our side or if these features of the solution are not working very well."
"We cannot manage multiple devices from a single UI."
"They can do it better with web links, with the URLs. They have a technology called Outbreak but it doesn't work as well as we would like."
"We have Microsoft and we have the E5 licenses, they have more EDR responses on certain emails. That's something that Cisco ESA on the cloud doesn't have. They don't do anything about MITRE attacks. They only detect if there is a malicious email or a threat and they remove it."
"The graphical user interface is not user-friendly like other vendors. I find it very difficult at times to find some options on the 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."
"Not all settings can be configured automatically and most still require manual configuration. However, there is an automation tool available that can be used to input all the configurations either as a script or a tool it would be helpful."
"The tool's classification for bulk email is cumbersome."
"The licensing can be on the expensive side, especially in the cloud space."
"Online Protection has an issue in that it doesn't provide an option to stop impersonation."
"The solution must improve the user experience."
"The management interface of Microsoft Exchange Online Protection (EOP) could be intuitive."
"The tool is not 100% stable."
"Microsoft 365 Defender and EOP policies are stable with the proper license. However, with the basic policy, it's hard to say it's stable due to configuration limitations."
More Microsoft Defender for Office 365 Pricing and Cost Advice →
More Microsoft Exchange Online Protection (EOP) Pricing and Cost Advice →
Cisco Secure Email is ranked 2nd in Email Security with 56 reviews while Microsoft Exchange Online Protection (EOP) is ranked 3rd in Email Security with 34 reviews. Cisco Secure Email is rated 8.4, while Microsoft Exchange Online Protection (EOP) is rated 8.2. 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 Microsoft Exchange Online Protection (EOP) writes "An effective email security solution that provides DLP, Safe Attachment, and Safe Links". Cisco Secure Email is most compared with Trellix Collaboration Security, Fortinet FortiMail, Proofpoint Email Protection, Trend Micro Email Security and Cisco Secure Email Threat Defense, whereas Microsoft Exchange Online Protection (EOP) is most compared with Proofpoint Email Protection, Fortinet FortiMail, Mimecast Email Security, Barracuda Email Security Gateway and Trend Micro Email Security. See our Cisco Secure Email vs. Microsoft Exchange Online Protection (EOP) report.
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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.