Mimecast Email Security Alternatives

Phishing continues to be the prime way to manipulate employees with the result of malware infection and/or data theft. Year on year, research from industry stalwarts including the Verizon Data breach Investigations Report reflects the serious impact that phishing and email scams have on organizations.

To stem the flow of data, and to harden the enterprise against ransomware attacks, companies the world over are turning to email security gateway solutions.

However, there are several contenders on the market for the place of the best secure email gateway. This guide will explore the pros and cons of Mimecast Secure Email Gateway and compare it to its competitors to help you choose the best email protection solution for your organization:

• Barracuda Essentials
• Proofpoint Essentials
• SpamTitan

 

What is Mimecast Secure Email Gateway?

Mimecast has a portfolio of security products including an email security gateway known as Mimecast Secure Email Gateway. This cloud-based solution provides phishing and email spam detection, along with an email archive service, to protect corporate email.

Mimecast Secure Email Gateway uses layers of protection to create an email perimeter.

These layers cover:

• URL filtering
• Malicious attachment blocking
• Prevention of impersonation via email to alleviate social engineering
• Browser isolation to help prevent phishing success
• Email archiving for business continuity
• Email controls extend to protect internal emails from spreading security threats

Mimecast Secure Email Gateway is designed for larger enterprises, but a subscription plan with various price points makes it a potential package for an SMB.  

 

Pros and Cons of Mimecast Secure Email Gateway

Like all solutions, email filters offer both positives and negatives in their application, deployment, and use. The key to making the right choice is to know which are the functions most needed within your organization’s environment. And to balance these with other requirements such as cost and ease of administration.

Mimecast Secure Email Gateway pros and cons include:

Pros:

• Protection for all cloud or perimeter-based inbound emails.
• Delivery of email protection is cloud-based
• Real-time threat analysis is performed
• The email protection prevents attacks via malware, phishing, and other web-borne threats
• Mimecast offers outbound email protection via data loss prevention (DLP) to stop sensitive data from leaving an organization
• DMARC-compliant brand protection to help stop attacks that are based on a spoof URL made to look like it is owned by the company

Cons:

A review of the user ratings of Mimecast Secure Email Gateway reveals a few areas of the product that could be improved:

• The administration of the gateway could be improved especially in the areas of intelligence reporting and email integration. The admin console was described as “less than intuitive” and sometimes “confusing”
• Policy management has been described as ‘also lacking intuitiveness’
• No on-premise deployment options
• No account takeover protection

 

Choices, choices...Mimecast alternatives

The choice of which email protection gateway to deploy comes down to knowing what your organization needs and then researching the best product to meet those needs.

Evaluation of Mimecast alternatives in the email protection gateway space should be based on the features, ease of use, threat detection functionality, and ease of administration.

The deployment and configuration of companywide solutions such as email protection are potentially a long-term commitment, so picking the best product for your circumstances is essential. Some of the top Mimecast alternatives are:

 

Mimecast vs. Proofpoint Essentials

Proofpoint Essentials is an email security gateway that is tailored for an SMB. Price points are used to differentiate packages based on available functionality.

The email protection provided by Proofpoint Essentials offers a wide range of features including prevention of phishing and attachment scanning to prevent malware infection.

Other features of Proofpoint Essentials include:

• URL spoof protection
• Policy-driven DLP
• Automated email encryption
• Per-user controls and quarantine access for emergencies and email continuity

 

Proofpoint Essentials, as compared to Mimecast:

• Quarantining is more limited
• Pricing is more geared towards an SMB
• Proofpoint has an advanced MLX machine learning solution used to detect phishing
• Administration can be complicated to configure

 

Mimecast vs. Barracuda Essentials?

Barracuda Essentials for email is a cloud-based spam filter used to protect against web-borne email threats. Barracuda Essentials is packaged as an ‘all-in-one’ solution providing:

• Email continuity
• Encryption
• Data leakage protection
• Archiving

Other features differentiating Barracuda Essentials from Mimecast are:

• Cloud-to-cloud email backup

• AI-enabled email protection
• AI-enabled blocking of social engineering attacks
• Limited email detection analytics and response
• Account takeover protection
• More holistic forensics

 

Mimecast vs. SpamTitan Email Security

SpamTitan leads the field in email protection gateways. SpamTitan is designed for all sizes of enterprises and can also be delivered by an MSP. The cloud-based solution delivers a holistic, multi-layered approach to web-borne threat prevention.

SpamTitan provides the most advanced threat prevention applying AI-enabled detection and prevention to detect threats, including zero-days.

The SpamTitan email protection system is designed to be easy to deploy and administrate. SpamTitan is a market leader in catching spam with a 99.9% Catch Rate.

 

Features of SpamTitan include:

• Easy deployment and configuration
• Automatic updates pushed out to end-user devices
•  Inbound and outbound email protection
• Easy to administer using a central web console
• Supports existing identity systems and robust authentication
• No hardware or endpoint software needed, fully cloud-based
• Collaborative spam fingerprint checks based on “community intelligence“ from over 650 million users
• Advanced threat detection using AI
• Multi-layered email protection to prevent modern threats
• DMARC email authentication

 

SpamTitan, as compared to Mimecast Secure Email Gateway:

• Pricing of SpamTitan is significantly lower than Mimecast
• SpamTitan has an easy-to-use administration console
• Deployment and setup of SpamTitan is straightforward

 

The best option: SpamTitan

In this short analysis, one area, poor and confusing administration, was a clear issue across many of the solutions. Being able to easily and effectively configure an email gateway is essential.

A single phishing email that is not caught by the net can go on to infect an entire corporate network with ransomware.SpamTitan consistently outperforms other email protection gateways on ease of use and deployment.

Cost is another consideration; again, SpamTitan came out as a cost-effective way to protect against web-borne attacks.

Finally, functionality and use of advanced AI-enabled threat detection is an essential feature in a modern threat landscape that continues to find ways to evade threat detection engines.

It is recommended that when you evaluate an email protection gateway that you do your homework, but also try out trials to ensure that the features fit your needs.

Sign up for a Free 14-Day Trial of SpamTitan.