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PerfectMail Competitive Analysis
Overview
There are many e-mail security products on the market. All vendors claim outstanding
accuracy with low false positive rates – so how are you supposed to know which
product is the best?
You can easily short list potential vendors by asking yourself a few simple questions:
Desirable
- Which product has the best accuracy?
- Which product has the lowest false-positive (error) rate?
- Will the product consistently deliver e-mails from my peers?
- If accuracy and false-positive rates are comparable, which product gives me the lowest total cost of ownership?
Undesirable
- Do I need to pay monthly fees on top of the purchase price?
- Is antivirus included in the purchase price, or must I pay extra for it?
- Is there anything else (i.e.: hardware, operating systems, software modules) to buy?
- Are restrictions imposed on the number of users and/or domains I can protect?
- Will the product place an additional processing burden on my mail server?
In general, the product(s) that offer the highest accuracy, lowest false-positive rate, all needed components
for the lowest total cost is likely to be the best choice.
Competing Product Matrix
| Vendor | Filter Accuracy | False Positive Rate | Antispam Engine | Antivirus Engine | User Restrictions | Domain Restrictions | Base Price
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| PerfectMail³ | > 99.9% | < 1:100,000 | PerfectMail | Clam AV | no | no | $1,300.
| | SpamAssassin | varies | varies | SpamAssassin | Clam AV | no | no | free
| | Cloudmark | 93.0% | 0.4% | CloudMark | not included | $399 for 10 users | - | n/a
| | Commtouch | 97.0% | < 1:27,900 | Commtouch | not included | $13-$20/user | - | $2,500.
| | Clearswift | 94.0% | 4.1% | MIMEsweeper | not included | $30/user | - | n/a
| | iHateSpam | 96.2% | ≈ 2.4% | Sunbelt and/or Cloudmark | not included | $20/user | - | n/a
| | MX Logic | 96.1% | ≈ 3.0% | MX Logic, BrightMail | WormTraq, McAfee, Sophos | $1.75 per user per month | - | n/a
| | Barracuda Networks | 94.0% | ≈ 0.3% | SpamAssassin | Clam AV | ≤ 500 users | ≤ 50 Domains | $1,819.
| | Proofpoint | 94.0% | .2% | Proofpoint | F-Secure, McAfee | $2 - $20 per user | - | $5,750.
| | NetCleanse | 81.0% | .5% | NetCleanse | yes | $2.50 per user per month | - | n/a
| | IronPort | 94.4% | .4% | BrightMail | Sophos | ≤ 1000 users | - | $9,995.
| | BorderWare | 90.0% | .04% | MXtreme, BrightMail (optional) | Kaspersky | - | - | $7,995.
| | Postini | 97.0% | .08% | Postini | yes | $5 - $30 per user | - | minimum price $2,500
| | Sophos | ≤ 90.0% | .04% | PureMessage | Sophos | $40/user | - | hardware & O/S not included
| | Tumbleweed Communications | ≈ 99.0% | - | MailGate | Kaspersky, McAfee | - | - | $10,000. + hardware & O/S.
| MailFrontier m500  | ≈ 97.0% | .25% | MailFrontier | MailFrontier, Kaspersky, McAfee | - | - | $35,000.
| MailFrontier m1000 | ≈ 97.0% | .25% | MailFrontier | MailFrontier, Kaspersky, McAfee | - | - | $35,000.+++
| | WatchGuard | 97.0% | < 1% | Commtouch | proprietary | - | - | $500 plus FireWall appliance
| | MiraPoint | 97.0% | < 1% | Commtouch | Yes | User Licenses | - | $25,000.
| | BlueCat Networks | 97.0% | < 1% | Commtouch | F-Secure | ≤ 300 users | - | $9,999.
| | Symantec | 93.0% | 0.16% | BrightMail | Symantec | $25,900. for 1,000 users for 3 years | - | hardware & O/S not included
| | McAfee | 95.0% | 0.04% | SpamKiller | McAfee | $17.10 per user | - | hardware & O/S not included
| | IBM | -% | -% | Baysian Scan, 1,000's of Rules, Signatures | Multiple Commercial | $1.80 per user per month | - |
| | GFI | 98.0% | -% | Bayesian | - | Licensed by Inbasket | - | $450/25 inbaskets Runs on Exchange
| | Sybari | 54.0% | 1.3% | Sybari | Microsoft Antigen | ≤ 500 users | - | $2,000. + O/S & hardware
| SurfControl | - | - | SurfControl | McAfee | $19/user - Antispam $9.50/user - Antivirus | - | Hardware & MS Windows Server not included
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- Data not available.
Please E-Mail us with any updates you
may have including the latest numbers, additional products, etc. Please be prepared to
provide sources for your information.
Sources
The best comparative analysis of Antispam products available on the 'net is the review performed by
Network World and published on December 20, 2004. Click
here to go to
Network World's review.
Notes
- Information subject to change without notice
- This document is based on information provided by respected technical sources including Network World¹
and Osterman Research² or otherwise available on the World Wide Web
- Information believed to be correct at time of publishing
- Some information may taken from vendor's web site
- Vendor provided accuracy and false positive numbers tend to be higher than results reported by
independent studies
- Prices provided come from vendor web site or other published pricing information
- All information subject to change without notice
- Prices quoted are the lowest available. Higher priced products are (most likely) available from all
vendors except SpamAssassin.
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[1] Spam in the Wild. Network World. December 20, 2004.
[2] A Comparative Analysis of Leading Antispam Solutions. Osterman Research. 2004.
[3] XPMsoftware. Client reported results from PerfectMail appliances in production the field. XPMsoftware.com. 2005.
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