Gartner’s 2025 Magic Quadrant for Email Security paints a clear picture: this market is moving fast, the leaders are investing heavily in AI and social engineering detection, and buyers are increasingly comfortable running more than one email security product to stay ahead of phishing and BEC attacks.
Leaders such as Microsoft, Mimecast, Proofpoint, Abnormal, Darktrace and KnowBe4 are doubling down on advanced detection, automation and integration with wider security stacks. Visionaries like Cloudflare and IRONSCALES are pushing into deepfake and collaboration security, while other players such as Libraesva and RPost focus on data sovereignty and specialised compliance needs.
Two big themes stand out for security and IT leaders:
1. Multi-layered email security is the new normal
Gartner highlights that relying on a single tool is increasingly risky. Organisations are layering native cloud controls (e.g. Microsoft Defender for Office 365) with API-based or SEG-style tools to boost detection rates, add collaboration security, and reduce SOC workload through automation. Overlapping coverage, unified quarantine and strong integrations are becoming buying criteria, not “nice to haves”.
2. Cost and complexity still matter
Even as attacks become more sophisticated, buyers are under pressure to reduce total cost of ownership. Vendors are responding with aggressive pricing, bundles and consolidation stories – but the message is clear: “right fit” beats “one size fits all”. Email security has to align with the organisation’s wider security, compliance and budget reality.
Where your archive fits into all this
One thing the Magic Quadrant doesn’t solve for you: what happens to your archive when you change vendors.
Many of the leaders and niche players in the report also provide archiving and continuity services. When you decide to move from a gateway to an API solution, consolidate onto Microsoft 365, or change provider for commercial reasons, you still have years – sometimes decades – of email locked into a legacy archive.
Without a plan, that data becomes:
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expensive technical debt
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a compliance risk for FOI/SAR/eDiscovery
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a barrier to switching, even when a better security fit exists
That’s where Ultimate Migrator comes in. We specialise in extracting legacy email archives from platforms like Mimecast, Zantaz, Enterprise Vault, and Barracuda, and moving them safely into your chosen target (often Microsoft 365 or Google), with full chain of custody and minimal disruption.
The 2025 Magic Quadrant confirms you now have more choice than ever in email security. The key is making sure your archive doesn’t trap you with yesterday’s vendor.
Got a question? Get in touch: https://ultimatemigrator.com/contactus/
Source: https://www.gartner.com/doc/reprints?id=1-2MBYOAFM&ct=251118&st=sb