Cisco Secure Web Appliance vs. Proofpoint Email Protection

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Cisco Secure Web Appliance
Score 8.0 out of 10
N/A
Cisco Secure Web Appliance (formerly Cisco Web Security Appliance [WSA]), powered by Cisco Talos, protects by automatically blocking risky sites and testing unknown sites before allowing users to link to them, helping with compliance. It is available models S690, S390, and S190.N/A
Proofpoint Email Protection
Score 8.8 out of 10
N/A
Proofpoint Email Protection is available as an on-premise or cloud based solution and blocks unwanted, malicious and impostor emails with granular search capabilities and visibility into all messages. Outbound controls include encryption and data loss prevention, while continuity capabilities ensure business communications can continue as normal in the event of an email outage. With Proofpoint's Email Protection, you can protect your people, data, and brand from today’s threats…N/A
Pricing
Cisco Secure Web ApplianceProofpoint Email Protection
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Cisco Secure Web ApplianceProofpoint Email Protection
Free Trial
NoYes
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details——
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Cisco Secure Web ApplianceProofpoint Email Protection
Considered Both Products
Cisco Secure Web Appliance

No answer on this topic

Proofpoint Email Protection
Chose Proofpoint Email Protection
It was only possible to select "Ironport Web Security Appliance" but this has nothing to do with emailing. Actually, we are using Cisco Ironport Email Security in another environment. The administration and management of Proofpoint Email Protection is way more straightforward …
Chose Proofpoint Email Protection
Proofpoint is the leader of the pack when it comes to email security services. I have used a range of other providers in the space and Proofpoint is the best. It's ability to identify and block malicious email and threats sets it above all other competitors.
Chose Proofpoint Email Protection
Being able to fine-tune and configure this appliance to suit our needs for any situation that can be thrown at us was one of the largest reasons we selected Proofpoint. Being able to access the shell of the appliance was also a reason we picked them because it allowed us to …
Chose Proofpoint Email Protection
Proofpoint allows more complex rules to be created at the gateway level. The features are more comprehensive and the interface provided is easy to learn, understand and manage.
Chose Proofpoint Email Protection
We replaced Cisco IronPort with Proofpoint. We also considered Zix. Both are good products, but this has proven to be very solid, very stable, widely used, and the standard amongst our peers. We did not choose it because it was popular, but we see why it is.
Top Pros
Top Cons
Features
Cisco Secure Web ApplianceProofpoint Email Protection
Secure Email Gateway
Comparison of Secure Email Gateway features of Product A and Product B
Cisco Secure Web Appliance
-
Ratings
Proofpoint Email Protection
9.2
78 Ratings
9% above category average
Anti-malware00 Ratings10.076 Ratings
Customizability00 Ratings10.075 Ratings
Data Loss Protection00 Ratings8.748 Ratings
Threat Detection00 Ratings9.075 Ratings
Sandboxing00 Ratings9.257 Ratings
End-to-End Encryption00 Ratings9.358 Ratings
Management Tools00 Ratings8.074 Ratings
Best Alternatives
Cisco Secure Web ApplianceProofpoint Email Protection
Small Businesses

No answers on this topic

Barracuda Essentials
Barracuda Essentials
Score 9.2 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Check Point Quantum Security Gateway
Check Point Quantum Security Gateway
Score 9.2 out of 10
Barracuda Essentials
Barracuda Essentials
Score 9.2 out of 10
Enterprises
Skyhigh Secure Web Gateway
Skyhigh Secure Web Gateway
Score 6.6 out of 10
Cisco Cloud Email Security
Cisco Cloud Email Security
Score 7.7 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
Cisco Secure Web ApplianceProofpoint Email Protection
Likelihood to Recommend
6.7
(9 ratings)
8.8
(95 ratings)
Usability
9.0
(1 ratings)
8.3
(2 ratings)
Availability
-
(0 ratings)
9.1
(1 ratings)
Performance
-
(0 ratings)
8.2
(1 ratings)
Support Rating
6.4
(2 ratings)
8.3
(5 ratings)
Product Scalability
-
(0 ratings)
8.2
(1 ratings)
User Testimonials
Cisco Secure Web ApplianceProofpoint Email Protection
Likelihood to Recommend
Cisco
We have both scenarios where we can describe that. For example, in the HQ, where we have about 3,000 users, Cisco IronPort Web Security Appliance is the ideal solution, because we can consolidate all the Internet access, policies, rules, etc. in the same box. However, if you have small offices with a few users, it's hard to justify one big and expensive box that could cost more than the whole office infrastructure.
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Proofpoint
Well suited: Proofpoint does a pretty good job at protecting us from spam emails. I was able to block a lot of emails coming from SendGrid by blocking SendGrid emails with a custom spam filter. However, SendGrid has a lot of legit emails too so I was able to create another rule to allow those emails from certain people, then block the rest. That way business need was met but spam emails are blocked. Less Appropriate If you are trying to monitor internal to internal emails Proofpoint is probably a little over featured for that.
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Pros
Cisco
  • SMA gave us central control over multiple servers, simplifying management.
  • Performance of the Appliance VM exceeded that of our old physical appliance-based solution.
  • Convenient licensing for virtualized environments that allows easy scaling.
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Proofpoint
  • Spam - catches these emails before hitting the inbox.
  • Daily digest - provides users with a list of the emails that were blocked and allows them to choose to release them if they are legitimate emails.
  • Ensures that emails coming into our organization is safe for our users and verifies the email is coming from stated senders email server.
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Cons
Cisco
  • I think that the interface could need updates to adapt it to a much more current system, achieve quick access to necessary tools and adapt the platform to a much more customizable and comfortable system to work with.
  • It is undoubtedly a platform that is worth having, however, the license costs could be better adjusted to small businesses so that it can be accessed more easily.
  • It could be a bit complex to use, the use of codes is quite extensive, it could be adjusted to something much more practical but just as efficient.
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Proofpoint
  • Proofpoint could offer more frequent training opportunities to customers at all levels of expertise.
  • Proofpoint can always continue to strive to keep its product a leader in the industry.
  • Proofpoint's support site could be overhauled to provide a more logical flow.
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Usability
Cisco
Because it's one of those products you almost don't realize it exists from the end user. From the administrator perspective, you can do everything on its web interface and it's very intuitive to manage, once you know the concepts behind identities, acls, etc. Also, once you build the control structure, I mean, you link 'local' groups with your own Active Directory groups, as we did here, you don't need to be managing those things on the appliance itself.
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Proofpoint
Very robust and solid product in protecting our emails. The engineers who assisted with our implementation was very knowledgable and great to work with. Easy to use by end-users. Administration and management are also easy for IT. Great dashboard and reporting tools for business reviews.
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Reliability and Availability
Cisco
No answers on this topic
Proofpoint
There were no appliance errors or unplanned outages during five years of operation.
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Performance
Cisco
No answers on this topic
Proofpoint
Most important thing is the performance of processing mails. Even in a complex environment the system keeps performing on a very high Level.
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Support Rating
Cisco
Our experience with Cisco's support was terrible. Other than the fact that they don't respond to service-related emails with urgency, they also keep on changing the policies that affected us. Recently, they came up with a new look for the same software, which was insanely slow. Renewal of keys for the old interface took months. Overall, the support was not very friendly from the users' point of view.
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Proofpoint
We use ProofPoint support quite often to fix issues and assist with setting up features and rules. Each time we have created a ticket, they have been very helpful and respectful. Each ticket has been treated with the appropriate SLA time and attention. We also enjoy the regular check-ins from the engineers when tickets are open but we get busy with other tasks.
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Alternatives Considered
Cisco
At home I have a McAfee service that does similar tasks and helps manage the users of my internet. McAfee seems more user friendly and easier to set exceptions.
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Proofpoint
We previously used halon anti-spam, which lasted us well until our organization really started to grow and it was not able to keep up with the amount of mail we were receiving. The support is also nothing compared to Proofpoint's professional services offering. Halon was also not able to have the complex rules that Proofpoint can offer.
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Scalability
Cisco
No answers on this topic
Proofpoint
You can add a lot of agents to your environment if you need them. And you can operate hardware appliances and virtual appliances in the same cluster.
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Return on Investment
Cisco
  • Security! Security! Security! We are financial company that work with very sensitive information. A lot of unsafe traffic was blocked on the Cisco IronPort WSA over years of using it. We did not earn on it but absolutely sure that we did not lose 'gazillion' of dollars being infected or scammed.
  • Easy to configure and use, no need to teach new personnel how work with this product (hopefully saving time = saving money).
  • Unfortunately the price of license subscription made financial managers push IT dept. to look for something cheaper.
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Proofpoint
  • Having easy-to-reach backups of all employee emails has made Proofpoint worth it by itself. That plus the countless times that spam/malicious emails did not make it through to the intended person that could have potentially cost the organization a lot of money.
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