We compared Fortinet FortiMail 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: Fortinet FortiMail is highly praised for its simplicity, intuitive interface, and smooth compatibility with other Fortinet products. Microsoft Exchange Online Protection offers seamless integration with Windows, a central alert console, and real-time monitoring of suspicious URLs.
Room for Improvement: Fortinet FortiMail requires enhancements in integration, user management, and documentation. 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: Fortinet FortiMail is considered to have a moderate and fair setup cost, which is seen as reasonable. While some users found Microsoft support to be helpful and responsive, others experienced slower response times.
Ease of Deployment: The setup process for Fortinet FortiMail is described as relatively easy and can be completed within a few hours or up to 14 working days. It is flexible and can be tailored to specific needs, although it may require help from technical professionals. Users had varied experiences setting up Microsoft Exchange Online Protection, ranging from easy to difficult. It may necessitate dedicated personnel for maintenance.
Pricing: Fortinet FortiMail is considered to have a moderate and fair setup cost, which is seen as reasonable. Some users said Microsoft Exchange Online Protection is expensive, but others considered it reasonable.
ROI: Fortinet FortiMail provides enhanced email communication, decreased spam, stabilized collections, and altered expenses. Microsoft Exchange Online Protection has proven to be a profitable investment.
Comparison Results: Fortinet FortiMail and Cisco Secure Email have distinct features and functionalities. Fortinet FortiMail is known for its simple setup, user-friendly interface, and effective email filtering. It can be customized and seamlessly integrated with other Fortinet products. 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.
"The email protection is excellent, especially in terms of anti-phishing policies."
"At the moment we are satisfied with this product. It's a stable, scalable, and resilient solution for us."
"Does a thorough job of examining email and URLs for malicious content."
"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."
"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 deployment capability is a great feature."
"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."
"I like its investigation capabilities, as that is what is most important to me. It is fairly simple with a user-friendly interface."
"It is a scalable solution."
"The solution has a user-friendly interface. It is easy to deploy and handle. You can easily troubleshoot the issues of the solution."
"This solution is good for small and medium enterprise companies."
"The user quarantine feature in the solution is good...It is a stable solution."
"The solution is very, very stable."
"When combining this solution with other Fortinet products, such as FortiGate, it integrates well and provides a comprehensive protection package."
"The biggest implementation my team has done for Fortinet FortiMail was for more than five thousand people, and the most valuable feature was its anti-spam feature."
"The most valuable features are the endpoint defense features, it is very secure."
"What I like most about Microsoft Exchange Online Protection is its integration with Windows, so we have one central view for all alerts and incidents."
"The product's most valuable feature is third-party integrations."
"We like the holding facility that is available for potentially suspicious URL's. This allows a real-time review to be performed before the email reaches a users inbox."
"We use the solution in all our environments. We use it for remedy tickets and give them updates. It was our main communication point."
"We can migrate seamlessly without any disruptions to our operations."
"The most valuable features of Microsoft Exchange Online Protection are the EOP, ATP, safe links, fishing, and antispam."
"Online Protection's most valuable feature is its admin interface."
"The most valuable feature of Microsoft Exchange Online Protection is the accidental release of information protection capabilities. Additionally, the solution is easy to use."
"There is room for improvement in terms of reporting."
"The GUI is sometimes slow to fetch the device report and could be improved."
"There's room for improvement regarding the time frame for retrieving emails."
"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."
"Microsoft wants its well-paying customers to finish testing some of its half-baked products, find bugs, and report bugs back to Microsoft's team, which is a little frustrating for those who have to manage it and roll it up to thousands of people across the organization."
"The XDR dashboard has room for improvement."
"Too many false positives and lacks an accurate capability to detect malicious SharePoint sites."
"There is room for improvement with the UI."
"FortiMail's dashboard is somewhat complex and could be made simpler."
"Sometimes it takes a little bit too long to determine if an email is good or not. If they could shorten that time span, it'd be so much better. It does delay our email, which does not make users happy. That said, I would have to say we have not been blacklisted for quite a while now."
"Fortinet FortiMail could improve general user management. There are no password policies for users."
"Fortinet FortiMail's pricing could be improved."
"What's missing in Fortinet FortiMail is some sandbox information for some of the emails. It's probably configuration-based, where it could be configured on some emails. For example, there was malware in some emails that weren't detected in some of the Fortinet FortiMail sessions, but it should have been configured from my company's end to better catch scam emails, but overall, the solution is okay. At the moment, my company is okay with the current Fortinet FortiMail offerings, but in the past, because of a lack of understanding, my team wasn't able to quickly implement the geographical IP blocking feature. It was time-consuming to implement that feature, but that wasn't a fault of Fortinet FortiMail. The issue was from my team's end, but just by emailing the support team, that issue was resolved, so right now, there isn't any additional feature I'd like added to Fortinet FortiMail."
"It is not easy to install."
"I would like it if the solution could be more affordable."
"It's difficult for me to talk about areas for improvement in Fortinet FortiMail because I'm the general manager of the company and I'm an engineer with knowledge about the solution, but I'm not deeply involved in its implementation. As I mentioned previously, Fortinet FortiMail is also being used within the company, and I'm happy with its functionality, but sometimes, attacks pass and avoid the Fortinet FortiMail filters, but those could be very sophisticated attacks. There could still be an improvement in the filtering feature of the solution, though the security of Fortinet FortiMail is okay for me because I believe you can't implement one hundred percent security in any solution. The initial setup for the solution also needs improvement. The setup is supposed to be simple, but then the customer starts to complain that some of the false positive emails are reaching quarantine, so my team has to configure it again. There have been instances when Fortinet FortiMail rejects valid emails because some of the service partners of the customer have not been configured accurately, so the system considered valid mails as attacks to be quarantined, so aside from improving the filters, there should also be an improvement in the categorization of emails in the server. My team has to modify the configuration so that valid emails could pass and for Fortinet FortiMail to correctly filter the SPAM traffic. A feature that could be added to Fortinet FortiMail in its next release is advanced AI, so it can analyze and decide accurately on which mail is valid and which mail is SPAM."
"It would be helpful for customers if Plan 1 features were included with EOP."
"If a company wants to put in line back-to-back anti-spam solutions, they need to work on that part because Microsoft recommends either you use EOP as a front line or you don't use it."
"I would like to get reports about vulnerable connections from our clients with information about domains, public IPs, etc. That would be highly useful."
"The tool's classification for bulk email is cumbersome."
"The management interface of Microsoft Exchange Online Protection (EOP) could be intuitive."
"The licensing can be on the expensive side, especially in the cloud space."
"When you're using a Microsoft product solution, you can scale it, but if you're not, there are limitations."
"The reporting needs a little bit of improvement."
More Microsoft Defender for Office 365 Pricing and Cost Advice →
More Microsoft Exchange Online Protection (EOP) Pricing and Cost Advice →
Fortinet FortiMail is ranked 5th in Email Security with 55 reviews while Microsoft Exchange Online Protection (EOP) is ranked 4th in Email Security with 34 reviews. Fortinet FortiMail is rated 8.6, while Microsoft Exchange Online Protection (EOP) is rated 8.2. The top reviewer of Fortinet FortiMail writes "Good GUI and configuring security policies is easy but the pricing needs improvement". 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". Fortinet FortiMail is most compared with Cisco Secure Email, Barracuda Email Security Gateway, Fortinet FortiMail Cloud, Proofpoint Email Protection and Trend Micro Email Security, whereas Microsoft Exchange Online Protection (EOP) is most compared with Proofpoint Email Protection, Cisco Secure Email, Mimecast Email Security, Barracuda Email Security Gateway and Trend Micro Email Security. See our Fortinet FortiMail vs. Microsoft Exchange Online Protection (EOP) report.
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