Avanan vs. McAfee Email Gateway (Discontinued)

This software is well-suited for a company that is looking to protect its data from common security breaches. It is very user-friendly and easy to implement, which is why these few things make it easily usable on a daily basis. This software also allows for much faster cloud performance and provides regular reports which provide security analytics.

Comparable to a Barracuda email appliance, these units retain email that is quarantined as well as provide cloud layer to support it. It is best suited for a medium size company as the devices are often not as scalable as Barracuda.

Incentivized

• The dashboard for Avanan makes all of the most important information easy to digest.
• Alerting - specifically, the Geo-Location alerts allow us to see if a user has possibly been compromised.
• The End-User Email Quarantine experience gives users the ability to request emails be released, which trains them to better spot legitimate emails.

Incentivized

• Filtering system is very strong, more often than not blocks bad email.
• Does fine job filtering and configuring content filtering for extension types such as ZIP or RAR.
• Intermediary between Internet and email system provides extra layer of security including ability to spool email in the event of an email system outage.
• Outbound encryption feature is very useful for security purposes.

Incentivized

• I only ever had one complaint, we had a few hiccups during the setup process. We have now been a customer for two years and have had no further issues. It is likely that the setup pain points have now been resolved as well. Overall the product does what it claims while providing a very intuitive interface.

Incentivized

• The onsite appliances have end-of-life forcing an upgrade to new unit.
• Many of the appliances have been end-of-life and seems McAfee may not be offering the service in the future.

Incentivized

Cost, need to make sure the cost is competitive for how many users are using email protection as we move users to MS Teams and don't rely so much on full access to email accounts (both sending and receiving internal and external).

Incentivized

Usability is so easy. It was a quick configuration with entering in some credentials, accepting terms and permissions and before you know it it's already going through and taking a look at existing emails. Portal is very easy to use and there are always updates with decent logs. The new UI is great and highly intuitive.

Incentivized

Always been available as needed.

Incentivized

It's not all the time, on occasion the platform can delay email by seven to ten minutes.

Incentivized

Avanan support always is ready to respond to user requests and typically does it in an exceptionally quick timeframe. Most requests are not even needed to be escalated as their team will look at active threats and deal with them before they are even a problem. Monthly meetups are also great in obtaining our needs as well as showing us what is new and in the horizon.

Incentivized

There was no in person training.

Incentivized

Takes a lot to get a 10 out of 10.

Incentivized

Ensure system administration and exchange admin are up to speed on Avanan

Incentivized

I have used Cisco's secure Email, one of the major dislike is User Interface that is buggy and not user friendly. It does not update it's database for spam sites. Integration process takes much time whereas Avanan takes very less time. Cisco Secure Email sometimes deletes the important emails and that is worst where as Avanan has good AI/ML integration there are very rare false positive in deleting emails.

Barracuda provides two product options, the ESS cloud-only filtering, and onsite Email Security Gateway appliances. Unless compliance needs require the on-premises device, the ESS option easily beats the McAfee Email Gateway.

Incentivized

It does what they claim and then some.

Incentivized

• Improved risk mitigation by providing additional layer protection for M365.
• Easy to setup and configure. No expert knowledge required and no downtime required.
• Customizable license count. No need to buy the same number of mailbox users if you really don't want to protect some unused mailboxes.

Incentivized

• The end-of-life of appliances is unfortunate as it forces a purchase of a replacement unit. Barracuda devices have a 4-year refresh cycle so purchasing additional hardware is rarely necessary.
• McAfee seems to be phasing out the service over time.

Incentivized