Honest thoughts about Avanan
Updated May 25, 2021

Honest thoughts about Avanan

Eric Rise | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Overall Satisfaction with Avanan

Avanan is being used as our primary email security platform. End-users have the ability to report junk and phishing emails via [the] Outlook plugin, administrators are the ones primarily in the tool on a daily basis. It's our front-line defense against email-based threats and has been doing a good job, has outperformed [our] previous product.

Pros

  • Easy to setup
  • Easy to administer
  • Easy to report junk and spam emails
  • Easy to report threats and resolve issues

Cons

  • Emails the platform sends out after setup require customization they're very basic and unreadable
  • Support is overwhelmed at this point
  • [The] initial implementation we fast but confusing to a point some things we skipped that were discussed during the demo and never got done when put into production.
  • Email is kept more secure.
  • Provides [users] with [the] ability to request an email to be delivered if needed out of quarantine.
  • The amount of time administrators spend working on email security issues has been cut in half from what they were with our previous vendor.
Support is overwhelmed right now at the rate the company is growing. Initial contacts with support are cold, very automated, cookie-cutter replies and responses. Once they get to [work] on your support issue it's all email-based, takes some time, and more often than not there's no solution for what you're asking about. Creating tickets for them is very easy from the portal. I hope with time the support process and knowledge will get better.

Do you think Avanan delivers good value for the price?

Yes

Are you happy with Avanan's feature set?

Yes

Did Avanan live up to sales and marketing promises?

No

Did implementation of Avanan go as expected?

No

Would you buy Avanan again?

Yes

From start to finish this product only takes a few minutes to get up and running. After the initial setup, you can log into the portal to complete the customization for your organization. Working with Avanan on the process is quick but things can and do get [forgotten] about and or left off and a revisit tends to happen to finish the job.
If you use Office 365 for email i.e. Exchange Online Avanan will work and integrate without issue and takes a matter of minutes to fully deploy. I don't use a hybrid environment so I can't speak to that. Might not be the solution for you if you're on prem exchange server.

Avanan Feature Ratings

Secure Email Gateway
10.0
Anti-malware
10
Customizability
10
Data Loss Protection
10
Threat Detection
10
Sandboxing
10
End-to-End Encryption
Not Rated
Management Tools
10

Using Avanan

700 - Sale, support, customer service, IT, IS, AR, AP, all business units are protected using this solution.
9 - help desk, and other IT infrastructure techs use/ administer the product.
  • Email spam blocker
  • Malware protection
  • Shadow IT documentation and notification
  • Phishing protection
  • Hidden email security gateway
  • Office 365 account take over notification alerts without having to buy into P1 licensing via O365
  • Possibly to stop out going spam flow
  • Usage and user monitoring and tracking for email use
We've just started using the product and have another 7 months to go under contract. At this point I'd renew, Avanan continues to improve the product as well as their support.

Evaluating Avanan and Competitors

Yes - We were using Barracuda email security gateway. Needless to say it was allowing an alarming number of emails phishing our employee's to the point we had many accounts being taken over. The ESS and Sentinel products were terrible and way under performed as to what they were supposed to be capable of doing. We made the move away from Barracuda with a year left on our contract after Barracuda refused to address our issues.
  • Price
  • Product Features
  • Product Usability
Our displeasure with our current email security gateway platform pushed us into finding a new solution vs waiting out our contract.
I wouldn't have changed a thing.
We were using Barracuda Email Security Gateway. Needless to say it was allowing an alarming number of emails phishing our employee's to the point we had many accounts being taken over. The ESS and Sentinel products were terrible and way under performed as to what they were supposed to be capable of doing. We made the move away from Barracuda with a year left on our contract after Barracuda refused to address our issues.

Avanan Implementation

  • Implemented in-house
Change management was minimal - Nothing, this solution takes minutes to deploy live.
  • Nothing
  • Nada

Avanan Training

  • Online training
There was no in person training.
Takes a lot to get a 10 out of 10.
Yes, the self help under support and documentation is very easy to use and to follow along with as needed.

Configuring Avanan

Just right and very easy from what I have seen thus far.
Other than to work with your sales rep from the start nothing else.
No - we have not done any customization to the interface
No - we have not done any custom code
Nothing as we have not customized it.

Avanan Support

ProsCons
Good followup
Kept well informed
Immediate help available
Quick Initial Response
Slow Resolution
Less knowledgeable
Problems left unsolved
Escalation required
Need to explain problems multiple times
No, there was no option for this.
Multiple times I've had to get not only my sales rep on the phone but also VP's of development have joined calls in the past as well. Every time they've solved my issues, even though it had to escalate to that level of support.

Using Avanan

ProsCons
Like to use
Relatively simple
Easy to use
Technical support not required
Well integrated
Consistent
Quick to learn
Convenient
Feel confident using
Familiar
None
  • Dashboard
  • Setting up the protection models
  • Setting up custom reports

Avanan Reliability

It does what they claim and then some.
Always been available as needed.
It's not all the time, on occasion the platform can delay email by seven to ten minutes.

Integrating Avanan

Relationship with Avanan

Sales was very easy to work with and were always available.
After sales no matter the issue Avanan has been easy to work with.
Only a one year contract to try them out being the new vendor on the block.
Document exactly what you're trying to accomplish with a product and what are you trying to protect your companies from then choose several vendors, preferably the top three or four vendors and demo each of those before making a decision.

Upgrading Avanan

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