Astaro Security Gateway 7.5

The Astaro Security Gateway is a hardware appliance that provides many different security features rolled into one appliance. For the purposes of this review, we focused on email security and content management features. However, it's noteworthy that the appliance is actually an all-in-one security device and includes VPN, IPS, firewall and other security capabilities out of the scope for this review. The vendor should be contacted for specifics on licensing and feature enablement.

Setup for the Astaro device was a breeze. The web GUI was one of the most responsive we tested. Navigating through modules and enabling/disabling options was effortless. The Security Gateway GUI is one of the most well-organized and informative we've tested in quite awhile.

From a performance perspective, the device reacts very well. The market for this particular appliance is for mid-sized businesses up to 150 users. For this particular segment, the appliance packs a lot of well-organized email security features into the price. Although not as granular as some higher-end pure-play email security devices, the device offers great anti-spam, anti-virus and gateway encryption (TLS) options. Content filtering is available as well; however, the device does not come with any pre-populated dictionary files to search for sensitive information. Additionally, policies are not applied at a granular message level, but at a bit higher "domain" level, which provides enough profiling flexibility for any mid-sized business. Overall, we were impressed with the features given the market for this particular device.

Documentation was adequate, but not great. We would have preferred seeing a few more explanations, because there are a lot of features and options to pack into a help file given the role of this device. Still, the Astaro website provides a wealth of information for any type of buyer and is very informative and helpful.

Support for the product is bundled into Gold (12/5) and Platinum (24/7) packages and both are available for additional fees beyond the base cost of the product.