Fortinet FortiMail vs Mimecast Email Security comparison

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Microsoft Logo
12,858 views|10,247 comparisons
97% willing to recommend
Fortinet Logo
6,822 views|4,504 comparisons
93% willing to recommend
Mimecast Logo
979 views|813 comparisons
91% willing to recommend
Comparison Buyer's Guide
Executive Summary
Updated on Sep 6, 2023

We compared Fortinet FortiMail and Mimecast Email Security 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. Mimecast Email Security is appreciated for its efficient archiving capabilities and effective protection against targeted threats. Its seamless integration with Microsoft 365 also earned high marks.

  • Room for Improvement: Fortinet FortiMail requires enhancements in integration, user management, and documentation. Mimecast Email Security should focus on improving its administrative aspect, filtering capabilities, and ease of setup.

  • Service and Support: Fortinet FortiMail is considered to have a moderate and fair setup cost, which is seen as reasonable. Mimecast's customer service elicits varied opinions, with some customers expressing satisfaction with its responsiveness and effectiveness, while others perceive it as unsatisfactory.

  • 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 mixed experiences with Mimecast Email Security's setup. Some users found it fast and uncomplicated, while others found it moderately complex.

  • Pricing: Fortinet FortiMail is considered to have a moderate and fair setup cost, which is seen as reasonable. Mimecast Email Security is generally seen as costly, and some users struggle to justify the expense. It’s perceived as more expensive than competing solutions.

  • ROI: Fortinet FortiMail provides enhanced email communication, decreased spam, stabilized collections, and altered expenses. It is challenging to measure the return on investment for Mimecast Email Security.

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. Mimecast is commended for its archiving and targeted threat protection capabilities. On the other hand, Mimecast faces challenges with its administrative aspect, filtering capabilities, and high pricing.

To learn more, read our detailed Fortinet FortiMail vs. Mimecast Email Security Report (Updated: January 2024).
768,740 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Featured Review
Quotes From Members
We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use.
Here are some excerpts of what they said:
Pros
"It gives us visibility into threats and, for endpoints, it helps us to prioritize threats. We used to have a lack of visibility, but now our time to detect and respond has decreased.""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.""Our customers are satisfied with Defender for 365 because Microsoft products are easy to use and customize to meet the client's needs. Everything is in one place, so we can adjust policies as needed for phishing, DLP, ATP, or any other security features that our clients want to apply.""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.""Since we have started using the solution, there have been fewer compromises.""The product's scalability is good.""The initial setup was easy.""The most valuable feature of Microsoft Defender for Office 365 is the ease of use."

More Microsoft Defender for Office 365 Pros →

"Fortinet FortiMail's most valuable features are antispam, antivirus, database, and data loss prevention (DLP).""Clean user interface and good sandbox.""The solution has a user-friendly interface. It is easy to deploy and handle. You can easily troubleshoot the issues of the solution.""A full-featured email gateway solution that contains security threats reliably.""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 anti-spam feature is very valuable.""We found the initial setup to be mostly straightforward.""Fortinet’s support services are good."

More Fortinet FortiMail Pros →

"The solution is pretty straightforward to use and easy to set up.""The interface of this solution is very easy to navigate and user-friendly. There is no delivery in email and other communications, making it reliable. The configuration is relatively easy.""We like Mimecast's spam filtering. The email signature feature is also a big plus for our users.""Mimecast certainly helped my customers reduce phishing emails.""It does a good job for us, and its admin console is easy to use.""It offers an easy initial setup.""URL inspection works pretty well.""The solution's performance is good."

More Mimecast Email Security Pros →

Cons
"Microsoft Defender for Office 365 should be more proactive.""There is room for improvement in terms of reporting.""The only thing they should improve is the licensing model. They should stop changing it. A year ago, the five features I mentioned were included in one product. Now, three of them are bundled into one product, and you have to pay extra for the other two. I don't mind paying extra, but I don't want them to change it every year or every six months. I need to know what I'm looking at and not worry about it next year.""The product must provide better malware detection.""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.""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.""The custom alerts have to improve a lot."

More Microsoft Defender for Office 365 Cons →

"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.""I think the security of the product could improve.""Fortinet FortiMail could improve general user management. There are no password policies for users.""Maybe FortiMail's integration could be better.""The solution lacks to provide more visibility when there is a problem, and it needs to be tracked.""I believe there is room for enhancement in content and web security features.""The solution is user-friendly to a degree but the dashboard needs improvement.""The solution's pricing is flexible and can be adjusted for African utility companies. Microsoft often offers special pricing formulas for African governments and organizations and it is similar to Fortinet FortiMail. In my country, government institutions receive discounted pricing from Fortinet FortiMail."

More Fortinet FortiMail Cons →

"The detection rates are an area for improvement.""We have subscribed to an archival service, and yet, when we have to get our data out, we have to pay a fee to get our own data. They charge an extraction fee.""The filtering needs more flexibility.""Lately, Mimecast's outbound mail servers have been regularly blocklisted by spam filters. That didn't happen a few years back, but it seems to be a more frequent problem these days. When a server is blocklisted, it means all of my outgoing mail ends up in the recipient's junk mail. That affects my reputation and business confidence.""The attachment scanning feature doesn't work properly.""The installation is not so straightforward.""I did have a problem with Mimecast. That is why I was looking for an alternative solution because their sender IP address gets poorly rated by Microsoft.""The solution is complex and not easy to use."

More Mimecast Email Security Cons →

Pricing and Cost Advice
  • "It's a user-base subscription."
  • "From the pricing point of view, like any other product in the market, there is scope for negotiation."
  • "Defender is a little bit more expensive as compared to others. We are in the manufacturing environment. So, we don't have a high budget for all of our endpoint devices. Its cost is a major concern for us."
  • "For licensing, it's usually a yearly package for customers who are subscribed to Office 365, but they can also pay on a monthly basis."
  • "Microsoft Defender for Office 365 is an add-on to the Office license. Many customers are purchasing this solution."
  • "Microsoft Defender for Office 365 comes with Microsoft Windows. It is free with the operating system."
  • "The solution saves money so we have seen a return on investment."
  • "Defender for 365 comes in various plans and licenses, along with other Microsoft security solutions. Purchasing this kind of package or security bundle gives good value for money, and that's what I recommend."
  • More Microsoft Defender for Office 365 Pricing and Cost Advice →

  • "The licensing model for this solution is better because it is based on the box and not the number of users."
  • "It is an expensive product."
  • "The annual cost is $55,000."
  • "Pricing is straight-forward and renewable without complicated pricing structures."
  • "Pricing is based on initial license purchase and use volume."
  • "In the future I would like it if there's a possibility to lower the price of the bandwidth and UTM. It is quite expensive."
  • "This is a good solution and value for the money."
  • "If you don't need the full bundle that includes everything, you have options for the small or medium enterprise environments."
  • More Fortinet FortiMail Pricing and Cost Advice →

  • "It's an expensive solution."
  • "The licensing costs are per-user for the product that you get with them."
  • "It is a bit expensive."
  • "I'm always going to say the price needs to be lower, but it's reasonable."
  • "The customers can select the license packages as per their requirements."
  • "On a scale of one to ten, where one is cheap, and ten is expensive, I rate the pricing a ten."
  • "Compared to the other solutions in the market, Mimecast Email Security with Targeted Threat Protection's pricing is fine."
  • "For what it is, the product is overpriced."
  • More Mimecast Email Security Pricing and Cost Advice →

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    Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Email Security solutions are best for your needs.
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    Questions from the Community
    Top Answer:Threat Explorer is an invaluable tool for me, and it plays a crucial role in helping me discern the origins of various… more »
    Top Answer:The product must provide better malware detection. The detection algorithms don't perform the way I hope they would.
    Top Answer:FortiMail possesses notable strengths, and one key feature is its store-and-forward concept.
    Top Answer:It could benefit from enhancing its functionality, especially in terms of advanced filtering. Introducing features such… more »
    Top Answer:The interface of this solution is very easy to navigate and user-friendly. There is no delivery in email and other… more »
    Top Answer:Compared to the other products in the market, it is neither cheap but nor very expensive. I would rate it somewhere in… more »
    Top Answer:The feature that should be included is to remove the block on the encrypted files.
    Comparisons
    Also Known As
    MS Defender for Office 365
    FortiMail
    Mimecast Email Security with Targeted Threat Protection
    Learn More
    Overview

    Microsoft Defender for Office 365 is a comprehensive security solution designed to protect organizations against advanced threats in their email, collaboration, and productivity environments. It combines the power of Microsoft's threat intelligence, machine learning, and behavioral analytics to provide real-time protection against phishing, malware, ransomware, and other malicious attacks.

    With Microsoft Defender for Office 365, organizations can safeguard their email communication by detecting and blocking malicious links, attachments, and unsafe email content. It employs advanced anti-phishing capabilities to identify and prevent sophisticated phishing attacks that attempt to steal sensitive information or compromise user credentials.

    This solution also offers robust protection against malware and ransomware. It leverages machine learning algorithms to analyze email attachments and URLs in real-time, identifying and blocking malicious content before it reaches users' inboxes. Additionally, it provides advanced threat-hunting capabilities, allowing security teams to proactively investigate and respond to potential threats.

    Microsoft Defender for Office 365 goes beyond email protection and extends its security features to other collaboration tools like SharePoint, OneDrive, and Teams. It scans files and documents stored in these platforms, ensuring that they are free from malware and other malicious content. It also provides visibility into user activities, helping organizations detect and mitigate insider threats.

    Furthermore, this solution offers rich reporting and analytics capabilities, providing organizations with insights into their security posture and threat landscape. It enables security administrators to monitor and manage security incidents, track trends, and take proactive measures to enhance their overall security posture.

    As cyber attacks become more sophisticated, it is crucial for email security solutions to offer multi-layered protection. Fortinet's proven email security platform, FortiMail, is a comprehensive multi-layered threat protection solution designed to secure users from the full spectrum of email-based threats, which includes zero-day threats, credential impersonation, spam, phishing, malware, and business email compromise (BEC) attacks.

    Fortinet FortiMail offers a variety of deployment models to best fit your organization’s email security needs. On-premises, private or public cloud, or hybrid email environments can be deployed and managed in-house by your team or managed by Fortinet’s data centers. FortiMail also employs virtual machines that provide robust scalability options and flexible deployment of email security infrastructure.

    Fortinet FortiMail Benefits

    Fortinet FortiMail provides your organization with the following benefits:

    • Eliminate message-based threats by using FortiMail’s advanced inspection capabilities before they can harm your users.
    • Flexible licensing ensures that you don’t have to create a license for each user as you scale your network upwards.

    • Achieve regulatory compliance with sophisticated messaging content archiving, quarantining, and routing tools.
    • Stop spam before it takes over your messaging system and network resources, ensuring that your messaging performance remains optimized.

    Fortinet FortiMail Benefits

    Some of Fortinet FortiMail’s top features include:

    • Spam and malware prevention: FortiMail employs advanced techniques and technologies, such as outbreak protection, impersonation detection, content disarm and reconstruction, and sandbox analysis to provide users with high-performing antispam and antimalware tools designed to prevent unwanted bulk email, ransomware, and other targeted attacks.
    • Powerful data loss prevention: Identity-based email encryption and archiving help prevent the loss of sensitive and important information and ensure that your organization adheres to compliance with corporate and industry regulations.
    • Automatic updates: Receive dynamic updates from the FortiGuard subscription services that automatically upgrade your antispam and antivirus functionality using intelligence gathered by Fortinet's dedicated global threat research team.
    • Seamless integration: Integrations with other Fortinet products and external third-party components enable companies to enhance their security by sharing indicators of compromise (IoCs) across a unified security system.
    • Easy email management: Gain full visibility over real-time email traffic with Fortinet FortiMail’s intuitive dashboards, rich reporting features, centralized quarantine tools, and end-user controls. Control email traffic with the solution’s full mail transfer agent and mail-handling capabilities. The solution’s quick-start setup wizard greatly reduces the complexity of deployment and management.

    Reviews from Real Users

    Fortinet FortiMail stands out among its competitors for a number of reasons. Two major ones are its powerful anti-virus tool and its robust spam protection capabilities.

    Flamur P., head of security management at Ipko Telecommunications, writes, "Fortinet FortiMail has a lot of valuable features. It works great. It also has an antivirus feature. Support for Fortinet FortiMail was also great when my team wanted to block some geographic IPs, but couldn't figure out how to do it. The support team provided clear communication on how to resolve that issue. Another valuable feature of Fortinet FortiMail is spam filtering which tells you how many spammy emails you've received. Based on my current use cases, I'm happy with Fortinet FortiMail."

    Mimecast Email Security is a comprehensive solution designed to safeguard organizations against advanced email threats. With an array of advanced security features, it provides robust protection against phishing attacks, malware, ransomware, and other targeted threats.

    This product leverages Mimecast's extensive threat intelligence network to identify and block malicious emails before they reach the user's inbox. It employs sophisticated algorithms and machine learning techniques to analyze email content, attachments, and URLs, ensuring that only legitimate and safe emails are delivered.

    One of the key features of Mimecast Advanced Email Security is its URL Protect capability. This feature scans all URLs within emails in real-time, checking for any signs of malicious activity. It blocks access to suspicious websites, preventing users from inadvertently clicking on harmful links and falling victim to phishing attacks or drive-by downloads.

    Another notable feature is Attachment Protect, which scans all email attachments for malware and ransomware. It uses multiple layers of defense, including sandboxing and file conversion, to detect and neutralize any threats. This ensures that users are protected from opening malicious attachments that could compromise their systems.

    Mimecast Advanced Email Security also includes Impersonation Protect, which guards against CEO fraud and other impersonation attacks. It analyzes email headers, domains, and sender behavior to identify suspicious emails that attempt to deceive users. By alerting users and administrators to potential impersonation attempts, it helps prevent financial loss and data breaches.

    Furthermore, Mimecast Advanced Email Security provides comprehensive data loss prevention (DLP) capabilities. It scans outgoing emails for sensitive information, such as credit card numbers or social security numbers, and prevents accidental or intentional data leaks. This helps organizations comply with data protection regulations and maintain the privacy of their customers' information.

    Sample Customers
    Microsoft Defender for Office 365 is trusted by companies such as Ithaca College.
    Magromer Cueros y Pieles S.A.
    Azizi Developments, Affinity Credit Union, Aftercare, Al Abbar Group
    Top Industries
    REVIEWERS
    Manufacturing Company16%
    Computer Software Company16%
    Comms Service Provider13%
    Government6%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Computer Software Company17%
    Financial Services Firm9%
    Manufacturing Company7%
    Government7%
    REVIEWERS
    Comms Service Provider17%
    Computer Software Company14%
    Government14%
    Manufacturing Company14%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Educational Organization44%
    Computer Software Company9%
    Comms Service Provider6%
    Government5%
    REVIEWERS
    Retailer17%
    Transportation Company17%
    Financial Services Firm11%
    Construction Company11%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Computer Software Company16%
    Financial Services Firm7%
    Construction Company6%
    Manufacturing Company6%
    Company Size
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business42%
    Midsize Enterprise16%
    Large Enterprise42%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business30%
    Midsize Enterprise19%
    Large Enterprise51%
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business46%
    Midsize Enterprise31%
    Large Enterprise24%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business18%
    Midsize Enterprise54%
    Large Enterprise28%
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business54%
    Midsize Enterprise15%
    Large Enterprise31%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business33%
    Midsize Enterprise22%
    Large Enterprise45%
    Buyer's Guide
    Fortinet FortiMail vs. Mimecast Email Security
    January 2024
    Find out what your peers are saying about Fortinet FortiMail vs. Mimecast Email Security and other solutions. Updated: January 2024.
    768,740 professionals have used our research since 2012.

    Fortinet FortiMail is ranked 5th in Email Security with 55 reviews while Mimecast Email Security is ranked 5th in Secure Email Gateway (SEG) with 23 reviews. Fortinet FortiMail is rated 8.6, while Mimecast Email Security is rated 7.8. 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 Mimecast Email Security writes "It gives clients peace of mind and helps them educate their users about threats". Fortinet FortiMail is most compared with Cisco Secure Email, Microsoft Exchange Online Protection (EOP), Barracuda Email Security Gateway, Fortinet FortiMail Cloud and Sophos Email, whereas Mimecast Email Security is most compared with Microsoft Exchange Online Protection (EOP), Abnormal Security, Check Point Harmony Email & Collaboration, Cisco Secure Email and Darktrace. See our Fortinet FortiMail vs. Mimecast Email Security 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.