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Cisco Secure Email vs Fortra's Agari comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 3, 2024

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

Cisco Secure Email
Ranking in Email Security
5th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
63
Ranking in other categories
Cisco Security Portfolio (6th)
Fortra's Agari
Ranking in Email Security
35th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
4
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2026, in the Email Security category, the mindshare of Cisco Secure Email is 4.6%, down from 5.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Fortra's Agari is 0.8%, up from 0.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Email Security Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Cisco Secure Email4.6%
Fortra's Agari0.8%
Other94.6%
Email Security
 

Featured Reviews

KS
Technical Associate Network Security at Valuepoint Systems
Email security has protected financial data and provides clear tracking for every branch message
The areas of Cisco Secure Email that could be improved or enhanced are the slowness in the console. I don't think it was a database error or something, but we feel some slowness in configuring DLP and other content filters compared to other consoles. It may have been due to on-premises, but it was much noisy at some times while configuring DLP. When we tried to configure a DLP policy, the console became much slower. In that case, we cannot see what had happened in the mail which was blocked at that time. It may take nearly an hour to get back to normal while configuring policies. That is the major issue in the product.
Tom Foal - PeerSpot reviewer
CTO at Klaatu IT Security Ltd
Helps to detect and generate reports on phishing emails and saves from email compromises
We use the solution for marketing and brand protection.  I am impressed with the tool's discovery capabilities which help me find out who is sending the emails on the company's behalf. I also find the ability to detect and generate reports on phishing emails a valuable feature.  The product's…

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"Cisco Secure Email has strong inbound services."
"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."
"IronPort really helped with the mail filtering and load balancing between the Exchange servers they had."
"We chose Cisco Iron Port as it delivers strong email security protection and our company needed it to protect the company's email systems from spam, email viruses, .exe files, unwanted email from unwanted sender etc."
"The reasons I chose Cisco Secure Email Gateway are the interface is - it's easy to use - and the support is great."
"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."
"Comparing Microsoft Defender and Cisco's Email Secure service, partners have noted that while Microsoft Defender offers email security, the tool's additional layer of protection provides further defense against threats like spam and phishing emails."
"The product's initial setup phase was easy."
"They are very flexible as far as feature requests go."
"Agari gives us visibility of our domain security, helps us manage our SPF, DKIM and DMARC records, prevents spoofing of our domains for phishing and ensures that our marketing and other emails are received correctly and not rejected as spam."
"It is really important for large companies to have the brand protection that is provided by Agari."
"I am impressed with the tool's discovery capabilities which help me find out who is sending the emails on the company's behalf. I also find the ability to detect and generate reports on phishing emails a valuable feature."
"It comes with a lot of helpful tips for complicated areas."
"If spam or some kind of malicious email gets past Mimecast and gets into our email environment, we can go into Agari and we can search for it."
"Agari offers very good brand protection and they are the core founder of the DMARC standard."
 

Cons

"Cisco Email Secure's pricing needs to be less. We have vendors who provide cheaper solutions with the same features."
"The tool's pricing can be improved."
"We would like to see more options for the customization of content filters."
"I would rate the stability a six out of ten. We had multiple issues with the stability."
"Licensing is quite complicated for a number of customers, including ourselves."
"The discontinuation of physical hardware solutions is a significant area for improvement in Cisco Email Security Appliance. This decision has posed challenges as virtual appliances are now the only option, which may not be suitable for all industries. The uncertainty regarding the future of the hardware aspect of the solution is a notable concern."
"There could be additional DLP functionality for it."
"The management features of the product are not up to date."
"The product's user interface is clunky. We have difficulty in finding what we need. I would also like to see automation in the onboarding processes."
"The protocol is quite complicated, which may not be something that could be improved, but it would be better if it was simplified."
"Some customers in the financial sector do not like the cloud solution because they don't want data to be transferred to a US-based cloud."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The licensing is a mess and needs sorting out. I am not really concerned about the pricing because I only make recommendations, not buying decisions."
"I rate the pricing a ten out of ten on a scale where one means it is less cost-effective, and ten means it is the most cost-effective solution."
"Licensing costs depend on how many users there are. It could range between $5 and $7 per month, per user."
"In addition to the standard licensing, there is a cost for SMARTnet as well."
"You're going to get what you pay for. If you're not willing to pay the price of Cisco, you're not going to get a product that's as good as Cisco. I don't think Cisco is overpriced, because for the last two years I've been comparing it to Microsoft and Cisco has been cheaper and given us more features."
"As per market availability, this solution is more expensive than other vendors."
"Cisco Secure Email and the support are priced well. It's not cheap, but there are other solutions that offer less and cost so much. For example, Microsoft is more expensive than Cisco."
"It's adapted to the market. It's similar to other vendors. We at least don't have many problems regarding that because Cisco is adaptable on that side. When we present the solutions to the customers, we tend to achieve the goals that the customer has in terms of the budget for such implementations."
"The pricing depends on the number of users; per how many mailboxes you have, but they're pretty negotiable with that, too."
"The tool is not expensive and I would rate its pricing a four out of ten."
"The price of the licensing is based on the volume of email."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Outsourcing Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Outsourcing Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Healthcare Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business22
Midsize Enterprise18
Large Enterprise27
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Cisco Secure Email?
The pricing structure is good as it is user-based or email client-based, which is positive for clients.
What needs improvement with Cisco Secure Email?
The areas of Cisco Secure Email that could be improved or enhanced are the slowness in the console. I don't think it was a database error or something, but we feel some slowness in configuring DLP ...
What is your primary use case for Cisco Secure Email?
We are using Cisco Secure Email to monitor the outgoing and incoming mail traffic in our financial institute. We have nearly 900 branches all over India. We have an on-premises mail server in which...
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Also Known As

Cisco Email Security, IronPort, Cisco Email Security, ESA, Email Security Appliances
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

SUNY Old Westbury, CoxHealth, City of Fullerton, Indra
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Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco Secure Email vs. Fortra's Agari and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
917,403 professionals have used our research since 2012.