# Cisco Secure Email alternative: an honest comparison

URL: https://iblockspam.com/compare/cisco-secure-email-alternative
Last updated: 2026-10-22

> Cisco Secure Email Gateway and iBlockSpam compared: cloud or virtual gateway vs per-domain MX filter, per-user bundles via Cisco, quarantine and fit. Sourced.

Cisco Secure Email Gateway, the product once known as IronPort and the Email Security Appliance, is an enterprise gateway you run in Cisco's cloud, on your own virtual machines or both. iBlockSpam is a per-domain MX filter a business can buy directly. Here's how they compare on facts checked in October 2026.

## The short answer

Cisco Secure Email Gateway suits large organizations and enterprises that want deep policy control: content and outbreak filters, data loss prevention, outbound encryption, a choice of Cisco-hosted cloud, virtual appliances or a hybrid of both, and central management across many gateways, bought through Cisco or a Cisco partner. iBlockSpam suits small and mid-sized businesses that want hosted inbound filtering they can buy themselves, with a flat per-domain price, unlimited mailboxes, flexible digests, free DNS tools and a 30-day money-back guarantee.

Competitor details below were checked on Cisco's own pages in October 2026.

## Side by side

| | Cisco Secure Email Gateway / Cloud Gateway | iBlockSpam |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | Email gateway (formerly IronPort ESA); Cloud Gateway is the Cisco-hosted version (formerly Cloud Email Security) | Hosted inbound MX filter with outbound relay |
| Deployment | Cisco-hosted cloud, dedicated per customer in Cisco data centers; virtual appliances (VMware ESXi, Hyper-V, Red Hat Virtualization, AWS, Azure); or hybrid. x95 hardware appliances are no longer sold | Hosted only; you change your MX records and follow platform steps |
| Who runs it | Cloud: Cisco hosts, you configure policy. Virtual: you run and update the appliances | We run the filtering; you manage settings, lists and quarantine in a web panel |
| Licensing | Per user, in Essentials or Advantage bundles plus add-ons; subscriptions of 1, 3 or 5 years; tiered by mailbox count | Per domain, unlimited mailboxes (mailbox count, not message volume) |
| Published price | Not published | Protect $12 per domain/month billed annually ($144/year) or $15 month-to-month; Protect Plus $19 annually or $24 monthly. Beta pricing, USD, excluding tax |
| How you buy | Through a Cisco account team or a Cisco partner, with an ordering guide and sizing tool for partners | Sign up online; partners (MSPs and web hosts) by conversation |
| Trial or guarantee | Free 45-day Cloud Gateway evaluation arranged by a Cisco account team or partner | No free trial; 30-day money-back guarantee on a domain's first annual subscription |
| Quarantine | Spam Quarantine with end-user notifications on an admin-set schedule, release links, per-user safelists and blocklists; separate policy quarantines for admins | Personal quarantine for every user; digests hourly, daily, on a chosen weekday or custom; shared admin quarantine |
| Policy depth | Content and outbreak filters, graymail detection, file analysis; DLP and outbound encryption in Advantage or as add-ons | Spam, virus, malware, phishing and spoofing filtering; geographic, attachment-type and Office macro filters; custom domain rules |
| Outbound | Outbound filtering, DLP with nearly 200 prebuilt policies, encryption service | Outbound relay with DKIM signing and outbound filtering, 500 messages a month |
| Management | Central management included in cloud licences; required as an add-on (Secure Email and Web Manager) for on-premises and hybrid | One web panel per domain plus the iBlockSpam portal |
| Free tools | Not a feature of the gateway pages we checked | Email Health Check, MX, SPF, DKIM, DMARC, blacklist, PTR, MTA-STS, BIMI, header analyzer, SPF and DMARC generators |

## What it costs at 10 and 50 mailboxes

Assumptions: one domain, published prices only, USD, excluding tax.

| | 10 mailboxes | 50 mailboxes |
|---|---|---|
| Cisco Secure Email (any bundle) | Not published (quoted by Cisco or a partner) | Not published |
| iBlockSpam Protect, annual | **$12/month** ($144/year) | **$12/month** ($144/year) |
| iBlockSpam Protect Plus, annual | **$19/month** ($228/year) | **$19/month** ($228/year) |
| iBlockSpam Protect, month-to-month | $15/month | $15/month |

Cisco says its Secure Email portfolio uses tiered pricing by mailbox count, but it doesn't publish the tiers. If you also run virtual appliances, add the cost of the servers or cloud instances they run on and the time to keep them updated.

## When Cisco Secure Email is the better choice

- **You're a large organization that needs deep policy control.** Content filters, outbreak filters, DLP policies and per-group mail policies go well beyond a per-domain filter.
- **You must keep the gateway on your own infrastructure.** Cisco's virtual appliances run on your own hypervisors or in AWS or Azure; iBlockSpam is hosted only.
- **You need outbound encryption and DLP from the same vendor.** Both are in the Advantage bundle or available as add-ons.
- **You already run Cisco security products** and want one vendor, one support contract, or a Cisco Enterprise Agreement.
- **You handle mail at a volume beyond our limits.** iBlockSpam includes 100,000 inbound messages per domain a month and a 400 MB maximum message size.
- **Your team knows AsyncOS.** Years of tuned mail policies are worth a lot; don't throw them away for a lower price.

## When iBlockSpam is the better choice

- **You're a small or mid-sized business without a mail admin.** There's no appliance, hypervisor or policy engine to maintain.
- **You want prices you can read.** Prices and per-domain limits are on the [pricing page](https://iblockspam.com/pricing), and you can sign up without a quote.
- **You have many mailboxes or aliases on one domain.** One price per domain covers unlimited mailboxes and domain aliases; see [per-domain vs per-user pricing](https://iblockspam.com/compare/per-domain-vs-per-user-pricing).
- **Your Cisco x95 hardware appliances are nearing end of support** and a full enterprise gateway is more than you now need.
- **You want each user to choose their digest schedule.** [Digests](https://iblockspam.com/features/quarantine-and-digests) can run hourly, daily, on a chosen weekday or custom.
- **You want DNS drift alerts and free tools.** [Domain monitoring](https://iblockspam.com/features/domain-monitoring) is included, and our [tools](https://iblockspam.com/tools) need no sign-up.

If you're weighing a gateway against an API product such as Cisco's Threat Defense, read [secure email gateway vs API email security](https://iblockspam.com/blog/secure-email-gateway-vs-api-email-security).

## How to switch from Cisco Secure Email

1. If a Cisco partner manages your gateway, agree a cutover date with them, and check when your subscription term ends.
2. Export what you rely on: safelists and blocklists, content and message filters you want to recreate, and any DLP or encryption rules. iBlockSpam doesn't replace DLP or encryption, so decide where those will live.
3. Save your current DNS with the [Email Health Check](https://iblockspam.com/tools/email-health-check) and lower the MX TTL a day or two ahead.
4. Add your domain in iBlockSpam and follow the guided setup for [Microsoft 365](https://iblockspam.com/platforms/microsoft-365), [Google Workspace](https://iblockspam.com/platforms/google-workspace) or your mail server.
5. Update any connector or firewall rule that only accepts inbound mail from your Cisco gateway, and move your outbound relay if mail leaves through Cisco.
6. Change MX, test with the [Email Header Analyzer](https://iblockspam.com/tools/email-header-analyzer), and keep the Cisco gateway accepting mail until the old TTL has passed and no new mail arrives there.

Our [migration plan](https://iblockspam.com/migrate) covers each step and the rollback.

Cisco, Cisco Secure Email, IronPort and AsyncOS are trademarks of Cisco Systems, Inc.; iBlockSpam is not affiliated with Cisco.

## Sources

Checked October 2026.

- [Cisco: Secure Email gateway licensing (Essentials and Advantage bundles, per-user licences, add-ons, management included in cloud licences and required for on-premises and hybrid)](https://www.cisco.com/site/us/en/products/security/secure-email/licensing.html)
- [Cisco: Secure Email Gateway and Secure Email and Web Manager data sheet (cloud, virtual and hybrid deployment, dedicated cloud in Cisco data centers, supported hypervisors, 1/3/5-year terms, tiered pricing by mailbox count, 45-day Cloud Gateway evaluation, Spam Quarantine, DLP and encryption)](https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/products/collateral/security/cloud-email-security/datasheet-c78-742868.html)
- [Cisco: AsyncOS 16.0.1 user guide, Spam Quarantine (end-user notifications, release links, safelists and blocklists, local and external quarantine)](https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/security/esa/esa16-0-1/user_guide/b_ESA_Admin_Guide_16-0-1/b_ESA_Admin_Guide_12_1_chapter_0100000.html)
- [Cisco: end-of-sale and end-of-life notice for the x95 hardware appliances (last order October 31, 2023; end-of-life milestones; migration options)](https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/products/collateral/security/email-security-appliance/email-security-x95-hardware-appliance-eol.html)
- [Cisco: Secure Email Gateway support page (formerly Email Security Appliance)](https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/support/security/email-security-appliance/series.html)
- [Cisco: Secure Email Threat Defense data sheet (Essentials via journaling with no inline change; Advantage inline gateway)](https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/products/collateral/security/cloud-email-security/secure-email-threat-defense-ds.html)
- [Cisco: Secure Email product page (Threat Defense per-user subscriptions of 1, 3 or 5 years; how to buy)](https://www.cisco.com/site/us/en/products/security/secure-email/index.html)
- [Cisco newsroom: Cisco announces agreement to acquire IronPort, a maker of messaging security appliances (January 2007)](https://newsroom.cisco.com/c/r/newsroom/en/us/a/y2007/m01/cisco-announces-agreement-to-acquire-ironport.html)

## Frequently asked questions

### Is Cisco Secure Email Gateway the same product as IronPort?

Yes, in lineage. Cisco bought IronPort and sold its gateway as the Email Security Appliance (ESA). Cisco now calls it Secure Email Gateway, and its hosted version, once Cloud Email Security, is the Cloud Gateway. Both still run AsyncOS. iBlockSpam is a separate, hosted MX filter with no appliance to manage.

### What's the difference between Cisco Secure Email Gateway and Secure Email Threat Defense?

The gateway sits in your mail flow as the MX destination and filters mail before delivery. Threat Defense is Cisco's cloud email product focused on Microsoft 365: its Essentials tier uses journaling and Microsoft APIs without changing mail flow, and its Advantage tier sits in the mail flow and inspects mail before delivery. iBlockSpam works like the gateway: your MX points to us.

### Do Cisco users get spam quarantine digests like iBlockSpam's?

Yes. Cisco's Spam Quarantine sends end users notifications on a schedule the administrator sets, and users can release messages from links, depending on how quarantine login is configured. Admins can also let each user manage their own safelist and blocklist. In iBlockSpam, each user has a personal quarantine with digests hourly, daily, on a chosen weekday or custom.

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