8 Avanan Alternatives for Cloud Email Security and Threat Protection

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Cloud email remains one of the most targeted business systems, and products such as Avanan have become popular because they sit close to the inbox and use API-based inspection to detect phishing, malware, account takeover, and data loss risks. However, not every organization wants the same licensing model, administration style, integration depth, or security stack. If you are evaluating Avanan alternatives, the best choice depends on your email platform, risk profile, compliance needs, and how much control your security team wants over detection and response.

TLDR: Strong Avanan alternatives include Microsoft Defender for Office 365, Proofpoint, Mimecast, Abnormal Security, IRONSCALES, Material Security, Trend Micro Email Security, and FortiMail. For example, a 500-user Microsoft 365 organization may prefer Defender for Office 365 to consolidate security tools, while a highly targeted financial firm may choose Proofpoint or Abnormal Security for advanced impersonation and business email compromise protection. In many environments, email security tools can reduce reported phishing investigation volume by 30% to 60% when paired with automated remediation and user reporting workflows.

What to Look for in an Avanan Alternative

Before choosing a replacement or complementary tool, define what Avanan currently does well for your organization and where gaps remain. The most important capabilities usually include phishing detection, malware and attachment sandboxing, URL rewriting and time of click protection, account takeover detection, and automated post delivery remediation.

You should also consider whether the product uses a secure email gateway, API-based deployment, or a hybrid approach. API-based tools are often easier to deploy in Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace because they do not require MX record changes, while gateway tools can provide strong filtering before messages reach the mailbox.

1. Microsoft Defender for Office 365

Best for: Organizations already standardized on Microsoft 365.

Microsoft Defender for Office 365 is one of the most practical Avanan alternatives for companies that want native integration with Exchange Online, Microsoft Teams, SharePoint, and OneDrive. It provides anti-phishing policies, Safe Links, Safe Attachments, impersonation protection, automated investigation, and response capabilities.

The main advantage is consolidation. Security teams can manage alerts through Microsoft Defender XDR and correlate email threats with endpoint, identity, and cloud activity. This is especially useful for organizations using Microsoft Sentinel or Entra ID. However, some teams may find that Defender requires careful tuning to reduce noise and improve detection quality.

  • Strengths: Native Microsoft integration, strong automation, broad ecosystem coverage.
  • Considerations: Best value often requires higher tier Microsoft licensing.

2. Proofpoint Email Protection

Best for: Enterprises with high phishing, fraud, and compliance risk.

Proofpoint is a long standing leader in enterprise email security. Its platform focuses heavily on stopping phishing, malware, ransomware, credential theft, and business email compromise. It also offers strong user risk analytics, threat intelligence, and security awareness capabilities.

Proofpoint is especially compelling for organizations that need mature policy controls and detailed reporting. It can help security teams understand who is being attacked, how often, and with what techniques. This user-centric risk model is valuable in industries such as finance, healthcare, legal services, and government.

  • Strengths: Enterprise-grade controls, excellent threat intelligence, strong compliance features.
  • Considerations: Can be more complex and costly than simpler cloud-native tools.

3. Mimecast Email Security

Best for: Businesses needing email security, continuity, and archiving in one platform.

Mimecast offers a broad cloud email security suite covering threat protection, impersonation defense, data loss prevention, encryption, continuity, and archiving. It is often selected by organizations that want more than inbound threat filtering and need a wider email governance platform.

One of Mimecast’s key advantages is business continuity. If Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace experiences an outage, users can still access email through Mimecast’s continuity services. This can be valuable for organizations where email downtime directly affects operations.

  • Strengths: Broad feature set, continuity options, archiving and compliance support.
  • Considerations: Administrators may need time to configure policies effectively.

4. Abnormal Security

Best for: Stopping business email compromise and socially engineered attacks.

Abnormal Security takes a behavioral approach to email protection. Rather than relying mainly on signatures or known indicators, it analyzes communication patterns, identity context, vendor relationships, and message intent. This makes it particularly effective against sophisticated attacks that contain no malware or malicious links.

For example, an attacker may impersonate a trusted vendor and request a bank account change. Traditional filters may miss the message because it appears clean. Abnormal Security is designed to detect unusual sender behavior, suspicious financial language, and relationship anomalies.

  • Strengths: Strong BEC detection, fast API deployment, behavioral analytics.
  • Considerations: Best suited for organizations prioritizing advanced social engineering defense.

5. IRONSCALES

Best for: Teams that want email security combined with phishing simulation and user reporting.

IRONSCALES focuses on collaborative email security, blending machine learning, mailbox-level protection, phishing simulation, and employee reporting. It is a strong option for organizations that want to involve end users in threat detection while automating much of the response process.

The platform can help reduce the time between a user reporting a suspicious email and the security team removing similar messages from other inboxes. This is important because phishing campaigns often target multiple employees at once. Faster remediation can limit credential theft and lateral movement.

  • Strengths: Phishing simulation, user reporting, automated remediation.
  • Considerations: May appeal more to mid-market teams than very complex enterprise environments.

6. Material Security

Best for: Organizations focused on mailbox resilience and account takeover impact reduction.

Material Security approaches email protection differently from traditional filtering tools. It emphasizes securing the mailbox itself, limiting post-compromise damage, and protecting sensitive messages even if an account is breached. This includes controls for message access, identity verification, and historical email protection.

This approach is useful because attackers often use compromised mailboxes as intelligence sources. Old invoices, password reset emails, legal documents, and executive conversations can all become valuable assets. Material Security helps reduce the blast radius of an account takeover.

  • Strengths: Strong post-compromise protection, identity-aware controls, modern mailbox security model.
  • Considerations: It may complement rather than fully replace traditional inbound filtering.

7. Trend Micro Email Security

Best for: Companies wanting reliable cloud email protection from an established security vendor.

Trend Micro Email Security provides protection against spam, phishing, ransomware, malware, malicious URLs, and targeted attacks. It supports Microsoft 365, Google Workspace, and hybrid environments. Trend Micro also offers sandboxing and advanced threat analysis through its broader security ecosystem.

This is a dependable option for organizations that already use Trend Micro endpoint, server, or cloud workload security. Consolidating vendors can simplify procurement and improve incident correlation across environments.

  • Strengths: Established vendor, malware protection, integration with broader Trend Micro products.
  • Considerations: Interface and workflows should be evaluated against newer API-first competitors.

8. Fortinet FortiMail

Best for: Organizations using Fortinet infrastructure or requiring flexible deployment options.

FortiMail is Fortinet’s secure email solution, available as hardware, virtual appliance, cloud, and managed service options. It protects against spam, phishing, malware, zero day threats, impersonation, and data leakage. It also integrates with Fortinet Security Fabric, which can be useful for organizations already invested in FortiGate firewalls, FortiSandbox, or FortiSIEM.

FortiMail is a serious option for security teams that prefer appliance-style control or need deployment flexibility across cloud and on-premises infrastructure. It may be particularly relevant for regulated industries with strict architectural requirements.

  • Strengths: Flexible deployment, strong integration with Fortinet ecosystem, gateway protection.
  • Considerations: Organizations seeking a purely API-native product may prefer other options.

How to Choose the Right Alternative

The right Avanan alternative is not simply the product with the longest feature list. It is the one that fits your operating model. A small IT team may value easy deployment and automated remediation, while a large security operations center may prioritize threat intelligence, custom policies, and SIEM integration.

Use the following criteria during evaluation:

  1. Email platform fit: Confirm support for Microsoft 365, Google Workspace, or hybrid mail.
  2. Detection quality: Test real phishing, impersonation, attachment, and URL scenarios.
  3. Response automation: Look for automatic message removal, alert enrichment, and playbooks.
  4. User experience: Assess false positives, quarantine workflows, and reporting buttons.
  5. Compliance needs: Review DLP, encryption, archiving, and audit reporting.
  6. Total cost: Include licensing, implementation, training, and administration time.

Final Thoughts

Avanan is a capable cloud email security platform, but it is not the only strong option. Microsoft Defender for Office 365 is attractive for Microsoft-centric environments, Proofpoint and Mimecast suit larger organizations with mature requirements, and Abnormal Security is particularly strong against business email compromise. IRONSCALES, Material Security, Trend Micro, and FortiMail each offer distinct advantages depending on security priorities.

For the best result, run a proof of concept with your own email traffic, not just vendor demos. Measure phishing catch rates, false positives, administrative effort, and remediation speed. A trustworthy cloud email security decision should be based on evidence from your environment, because the most effective tool is the one that reduces real risk without slowing down the business.