MX Guarddog vs Sophos Secure Message

MX Guarddog is a hosted email gateway for standard SMTP servers serving owned domains. It scans incoming messages for spam, phishing, malware and viruses, quarantines offending mail, and forwards clean messages to the customer’s server. The service runs in the cloud, so it requires no hardware or software installation and no configuration changes to email clients or the server. Quarantine reports summarize stopped spam, and users can adjust report preferences; quarantine retention is seven days. If a customer’s server is unavailable, MX Guarddog says it holds mail for up to 168 hours and delivers it when the server returns. It can sync active addresses from Windows AD, LDAP or cPanel, and says it uses Transport Layer Security, including Perfect Forward Security, for email in transit. The listed per-address price is $0.25 per month; aliases are not charged. A free plan and 30-day trial are listed. The service is for web use and does not support consumer Gmail or Hotmail accounts.

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.