Hermes Secure Email Gateway vs Sophos Secure Message

Hermes Secure Email Gateway is a self-hosted Docker Compose stack for email security, mail hosting, encryption, and collaboration. It can sit in front of Microsoft 365, Google Workspace, Exchange, or Postfix, run as a full mail server, or combine those roles in a hybrid setup. Incoming mail passes through Postfix postscreen and RBL checks, followed by scanning orchestrated by Amavisd-new with SpamAssassin and ClamAV. Hermes checks SPF, signs and verifies DKIM, enforces and aggregates DMARC, and signs and verifies ARC. Encryption options include SMTP TLS, S/MIME, PGP, encrypted PDF fallback, and Dovecot mail-crypt at rest. Full-server mode adds Dovecot mailboxes, IMAPS, POP3S, Submission, LMTP, quotas, shared mailboxes, and Sieve rules. Bundled Nextcloud supplies file sync, webmail, calendars, and contacts; Authelia provides single sign-on and multi-factor options. The free Community Edition is open source. Pro costs $750.00 per year per server and has a free 30-day trial. Hermes requires a Linux host with Docker Engine 24.0 or later and Docker Compose v2.

Sophos Secure Message is part of Sophos Email, a cloud service for protecting inboxes from phishing, business email compromise, spam, and email-delivered malware. Sophos Email uses AI and machine-learning models, natural-language processing, sender authentication, URL rewriting, and attachment sandboxing to detect threats. Post-delivery protection can retrieve messages later identified as malicious after they reach inboxes. Organizations can set Secure Message policies for selected users, groups, domains, and external recipients. Outbound policies support TLS, S/MIME, push encryption, and portal encryption. With portal encryption, recipients can read and reply to encrypted messages through a secure web portal without maintaining their own encryption infrastructure. Multi-rule data-protection and content-control policies can detect sensitive email data and encrypt it automatically. Sophos Email integrates with Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace and connects threat telemetry with Sophos MDR and XDR. Secure Message policies cannot be configured in Sophos Email Monitoring System mode. A free trial is available through an active Sophos Fusion account or the trial form. Pricing is on request, and there is no free plan.