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.
"Microsoft Defender for Office 365 has improved my organization's security. It makes it easier to manage the infrastructure without the help of third-party applications."
"Microsoft Defender for Office 365 is a stable solution."
"Some of the valuable features on the email side are anti-phishing, anti-malware, and Safe Links."
"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."
"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."
"Safe attachments, safe links, policies, and the ability to protect from zero-day threats are the most valuable features."
"Microsoft Defender for Office 365's most valuable features are safe attachments and safe links."
"The product is not resource-intensive."
"It integrates with Active Directory and we can limit specific users to using specific applications."
"It has the ability to tell us, after an email has been delivered, where else it went, once it got inside. Maybe it's something we wanted it to stop and it didn't stop it, but it notified us later that it was something that it should have stopped. It can give us a trajectory of all the other places that it went internally and it can tell us what files were transferred as well."
"The system enables end users to manage their own whitelists/blacklists."
"The most valuable features are Advanced Malware Protection, URL filtering, and of course Reputation Filtering."
"It is doing its work. It is doing what it was actually designed to do. It has ensured we don't have business email compromises, and it has also ensured that our brand Galaxy is unique all year round."
"The system provides our service desk with the means to troubleshoot email delivery issues with ease."
"It blocks bulk marketing messages, graymail, spam, and provides advanced malware protection."
"There were detailed logs available. That was a seriously good feature... It turns out these were actually spoof emails that came into our environment. I got to know about them from the log system."
"The solution has very strong detection for most of the phishing and malicious emails received from the outside."
"It's a mature product. It does a good job in detection."
"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 stability is very good."
"Proofpoint Email Protection is a good product, and its most beneficial feature is the Threat Response Auto-Pull. I also like that it's an integrated email security solution."
"The archive feature is valuable."
"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."
"It is a very scalable solution."
"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 product must provide better malware detection."
"The XDR dashboard has room for improvement."
"Configuration requires going to a lot of places rather than just accessing one tab."
"There needs to be an improvement in integrating the product to work across multiple operating systems, and to have better support for non-Microsoft file types."
"The phishing and spam filters could use some improvement."
"The custom alerts have to improve a lot."
"We need to be able to whitelist data at the backend."
"The user interface is a bit complex."
"In future releases, I would like to see two main improvements come to mind. First, the current solution requires maintaining two separate operating systems for FTD, which can be cumbersome. I'd love to see a single operating system for the FTD box."
"It is not user-friendly, and it is quite complicated. So, it should be more user-friendly."
"The solution needs to improve its advanced phishing filters. It is very good at filtering things which have bad reputations. However, when phishing or malicious emails are new or coming from a legitimate source, we don't feel that the solution is working."
"One of the things that Cisco could improve on with IronPort is the support. Cisco doesn't really have enough engineers who have full, hands-on knowledge of IronPort. Knowledge of it is not something you can find easily compared to other security appliances."
"It would be nice to have an easier way to check on the health of the system, how stressed these appliances are. Sure, you can do it, but it would be helpful to have an easier way to do it, maybe even at a glance."
"The hardware is not up to the mark. Two to three times a year we have complete downtime."
"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."
"The largest complaint that we hear from our customers is that there is no local support."
"It's scalable, but the devil's in the details — you have to know your email volumes."
"The price could be improved."
"I would want better spear phishing protection in the essentials package."
"The scalability can be improved, and the solution can be optimized."
"Proofpoint has a lot of false alarms."
"Proofpoint Email Protection could improve the Mail Trace feature and make navigation easier."
"The reporting section could be enhanced. I like some reports but if they could allow us to create custom reports with more flexibility it would enhance the reports more."
More Microsoft Defender for Office 365 Pricing and Cost Advice →
Cisco Secure Email is ranked 2nd in Email Security with 55 reviews while Proofpoint Email Protection is ranked 1st in Secure Email Gateway (SEG) with 44 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), Cisco Secure Email Threat Defense and Trend Micro Email Security, whereas Proofpoint Email Protection is most compared with Microsoft Exchange Online Protection (EOP), Palo Alto Networks WildFire, Fortinet FortiMail, KnowBe4 and Barracuda Email Security Gateway. 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.