GFI MailEssentials: An Excellent Anti-Spam and Email Security Solution (Page 2 of 2)

For organizations with on-site support staff, management of MailEssentials is very easy. Via a browser-based management console, an administrator can choose one of several methods for handling spam, including:

• Delete
• Forward
• Move to junk folder
• Move to sub-folder

These and other settings, such as blacklist or keyword filtering parameters, are managed using tabbed views, like those shown below. Once configured, settings can be synchronized across multiple servers.

Online and vendor help is good, providing all the information necessary for implemention and maintenance for knowledgeable staff. however, this might still be a stretch for organizations with no IT staff or staff with little understanding of managing messaging security. Because of this, I was tempted to drop the ease of use rating to a four. However, the overall strength of the product forced me to go with a five.

The cost of implementing MailEssentials is reasonable, as shown at the product site. And you can try before you buy with a free full-featured evaluation copy, available for download. However, it's important to note that MailEssentials does not include anti-virus protection. If you need both anti-spam and an email anti-virus solution, GFI provides them in the GFI MailDefense Suite.

Although the price is right for the features provided, I have an issue with the licensing model. GFI tracks license use, which is fine. However, when the number of users (based on number of mailboxes) exceeds the number of licenses purchased, filtering stops. Even though GFI allows a 15-day grace period following a detected licensing issue, I have a problem with any security vendor automatically dropping protection. For this reason, I dropped the licensing rating to four.

Overall, this is an excellent solution for stopping spam from reaching employee mailboxes and for combating phishing. It has a feature set that effectively meets the challenges I listed at the start of this review. Although not as hands-off as an appliance- or service-based solution, MailEssentials is very easy to manage if you have on-site IT staff. Other than the auto-stop for licensing issues, I couldn't find anything I didn't like.

I highly recommend GFI MailEssentials to anyone looking for an SMB anti-spam solution.

Would you like to read more reviews? Look around Bright Hub and you’ll find reviews of numerous other leading security solutions including SpamTitan, GFI LANguard, Norton Internet Security, Kaspersky Internet Security, ESET Smart Security, McAfee Total Protection, Blink Professional and ZoneAlarm Internet Security Suite.