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Forcepoint Email Security [EOL] vs Proofpoint Email Protection comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

Cloudflare One
Sponsored
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
22
Ranking in other categories
Email Security (20th), Secure Web Gateways (SWG) (16th), Data Loss Prevention (DLP) (21st), Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB) (11th), Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection (7th), Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) Solutions (13th), Access Management (11th), Bot Management (3rd), ZTNA as a Service (8th), ZTNA (2nd), Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) (10th), Remote Browser Isolation (RBI) (3rd)
Forcepoint Email Security [...
Average Rating
7.8
Number of Reviews
14
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Proofpoint Email Protection
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
62
Ranking in other categories
Email Security (2nd), Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) (4th), Digital Risk Protection (3rd), Office 365 Protection (1st), Secure Email Gateway (SEG) (2nd)
 

Featured Reviews

CV
Network Architect at IP Dimension
Cloud security has improved remote access and has reduced costs for smaller client sites
I have used Cloudflare One's Identity-Aware Proxy, and it is quite straightforward from what I have seen so far. The app registration on the Azure side integrates fully into Cloudflare, and I am very satisfied with that part because it is easy to set up. The integration of Cloudflare One's Secure Web Gateway and Zero Trust Network Access works without any issues. That part is pretty automatic, and if you complete the rest of the setup, it comes together by itself with no issues from my side. What makes it nice is that we can actually start replacing on-site firewalls at this stage for the smaller clients because it does not matter if they go to a coffee shop or work from home; they are still secured by the same connection. The hops get shorter and you get better latency. We have done testing to see if it is better. One thing that we did notice with our proof of concept with our current client is that they have people connecting from the UK. When they used their previous VPN solution, uploading CAD drawings and other files to the server took a long time. They mentioned that it is much quicker on Cloudflare One's solution. I definitely believe that is part of the improved performance, and I am satisfied with that as well. What is nice about Cloudflare One is that it makes the setup easier and also easier to train technicians to maintain it. Compared to legacy systems, we do not need to get fancy firewalls in place that are costly. That is definitely also a cost-saver with Cloudflare One.
MB
Senior IT Security at ALEXBANK
Easy to use and setup and expands well
We primarily use the solution for email security The solution is very easy for administration. The interface is very good.  It's easy to set up initially. We have found the product to be stable.  It can scale well.  The solution could use better integration capabilities.  There are other…
IS
Threat Hunter at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees
Email protection has reduced phishing workload and keeps unwanted messages out of inboxes
A few things about how Proofpoint Email Protection can be improved include implementing artificial intelligence within their platform to start really understanding the organization that is using their product, what sort of emails they are expecting and if the emails that are being expected should be let in and if the emails that are not being expected should not be let in. I'll give you a further example for this. If someone just tries to send an email from a Gmail address, which is a free public service email service provider, then because anyone in the world can create a Gmail account, I think it is nice and good for Proofpoint Email Protection to actually first check and do a reality check if we have received an email from this address and look at the intent of the email to really see what the email is trying to do and then classify based on that. I still see there is a lack. Hence why I started this conversation with AI and hoping that Proofpoint Email Protection will bring AI in and to really start analyzing these emails, the intent, and whether they really fit the customer organization. We are a manufacturing company, so whether it really fits that profile. I would say if we can get a better user experience from Proofpoint Email Protection products, that would be good. For example, other service providers that provide secure email gateway have the functionality where you can split promotional and bulk email and have them sent to a separate folder. I think if we can have that sort of feature, that would be great where Proofpoint Email Protection just keeps the important emails in the inbox folder and move everything else that is not really business related into a promotional, spam, bulk folder. This is an improvement that I would really like to see. I give it an eight because I am expecting a lot more from Proofpoint Email Protection, more automations, more understanding of who their customer is, what sort of business they do, and what sort of email they are supposed to be receiving and letting through. I think the day when I really have only 1% of work to do and 99% is automated by whatever automation services Proofpoint Email Protection uses would be ideal. I think I have covered any other improvements needed for Proofpoint Email Protection pretty well right from AI to splitting emails based on priorities. I think I have given some pretty broad and good examples.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"Cloudflare, in my opinion, was easy to implement."
"This solution is easy to understand and easy to configure."
"The solution has different options that can be used to differentiate DDoS attacks."
"The blocking feature is very good."
"Enables me to work from two locations."
"Cloudflare Zero Trust Platform removes the risk of exposing the applications to the public."
"Cloudflare is by far the most effective solution that I have come across."
"The best feature is rate limiting. If I'm expecting 500 visits per hour, Cloudflare will limit the requests if I suddenly get 50,000."
"The feature I find most valuable is the web, email and DLP integration."
"I like how versatile the options are. For example, we can set it where we are able to access and browse Facebook but we are denied the ability to post photos. There is also that ability integrate with Office 365 - SharePoint app."
"The filtering of the solution is very good. You can do URL filtering and, while you need a custom URL to filter under other solutions like Symantec, here the solution covers most categories and the database."
"Unlike other competitors, it doesn't cause any performance issues."
"Forcepoint Email Security is a good solution, and I don't have any issues with it. I found anti-spam and anti-spyware the most valuable features of Forcepoint Email Security."
"The most valuable features of Forcepoint Email Security are the integration with other solutions. It provides a more secure infrastructure and views for the customers from the DLP. You can work on URLs, files, and advanced inspections that will protect the customers."
"It is good at data leakage prevention (DLP). You can create the data exfiltration profile while sending the emails, which is one of the key advantages of the solution."
"All of the filtering features are very nice."
"The power, flexibility, configurability, and Proofpoint Email Protection's professional services were some of the biggest selling points for me at the time and the things that I benefited from the most."
"Provides better control over emails, especially those sent via Office 365 on the cloud."
"Proofpoint Email Protection has positively impacted my organization by advancing our email security posture."
"It's detection of true positives are great, as it's cloud based it's very scalable and stable."
"The solution has very strong detection for most of the phishing and malicious emails received from the outside."
"The solution's technical support is good. I rate the technical support a ten out of ten."
"It's the top choice because no company can operate without security. Ensuring email protection is a major priority for any organization when building its infrastructure."
"I would recommend Proofpoint Email Protection to others because it is useful, simple to use, and provides whatever is required."
 

Cons

"Our customers no longer use Cloudflare because its service is subpar."
"The onboarding process can be improved a little bit."
"The software has automated alerts, but the automated alerts are not available in the mobile app."
"The initial onboarding was causing us some confusion."
"Feedback could be enhanced."
"They don't have a person to provide support for customers using the solution under their free plan."
"When there are any dynamic changes in complex applications, the tool takes a lot of time, making its analytics-related area a major matter of concern where improvements are needed."
"Operating and tuning the product is difficult."
"An area for improvement in Forcepoint Email Security is technical support. The agents need to be more knowledgeable. The support also needs to be faster."
"It would be better if it were simpler to deploy on one or two machines instead of three or four machines."
"This solution could be improved by providing further functionality to reduce or to block ransom attacks, cross-site scripting and man-in-the-middle attacks."
"The pricing could always be just a little bit better."
"I would like for deployment to be simplified."
"Customer support could be better."
"The solution could use better integration capabilities."
"We've fixed a couple of issues on the solution so far. It doesn't work perfectly all the time."
"The setup requires expertise. It needs someone with experience on managing it, and I would rate the implementation as needing someone experienced."
"I believe they still need to improve by consolidating some portals, as currently, you have to log in separately to a few of them."
"Proofpoint Email Protection does miss a lot of phishing attacks, and threat actors are using AI to create these phishing attacks."
"The email DLP portion could be a bit easier."
"The solution should add post-sales training."
"I would want better spear phishing protection in the essentials package."
"You only receive one model in Proofpoint Email Protection and the other ones you have to purchase at a high price. There should be more available with the solution and additional models should be less expensive."
"We'd like to have the ability to create more customized reports."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing is somewhere in the middle. I would rate the pricing a seven out of ten."
"The prices are slightly expensive."
"My company has to make yearly payments towards the licensing costs attached to the solution. There are no hidden charges apart from the licensing costs of the solution."
"The pricing of the solution is cheap. The licensing cost is also very low. I rate the cost and pricing a three out of ten."
"The price tag is no longer $200,000, but rather $300,000 to $400,000. It's twice."
"The solution is not that expensive."
"Cloudflare Zero Trust Platform's pricing is good."
"The solution's pricing lacks transparency."
"When compared to other email security solutions, the price is not cheap."
"The licensing is user base (per user). The product is purchased mostly by medium to large companies. For smaller companies, we have other solutions because the pricing is not cheap."
"There are three types of support licenses."
"My company pays for Forcepoint Email Security licensing annually."
"Licensing is a yearly subscription that is based on the number of users."
"Its licensing is quite easy and straightforward. They have two or three suites, and the price is negotiable. It depends upon the size of the deal. They have multiple licenses. The standard is one, and then there are additional licenses that you can go for. There are three or four licensing models. You have the network suite, endpoint suite, email security, and the standard one."
"It is on a yearly basis. Their floor for SMB doesn't matter. The user count is 100 users and below at $2,500 a year. Its cost is higher than other solutions. It is probably about 20% to 30% higher than what you would get with Microsoft. There are no additional costs. All costs are factored in. It can be improved pricing-wise so that it is affordable for the SMB market."
"The licensing model for Proofpoint Email Protection is simple. It's based on the number of users. Price-wise, Proofpoint Email Protection is a five out of ten because it's a pretty expensive solution."
"The solution is expensive."
"Pricing has recently been increased and the cost is a downside"
"We sell annual licenses for this solution."
"It is multiple times more expensive, which made it very much less attractive."
"Proofpoint Email Protection is a reasonably priced product, which means that it is neither too low nor too high in terms of price."
"The end customer is buying our solution, which can be for monthly or annual usage depending on our payment and business model."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
12%
Comms Service Provider
11%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Computer Software Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Performing Arts
11%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business10
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise10
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business8
Midsize Enterprise5
Large Enterprise1
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business22
Midsize Enterprise16
Large Enterprise22
 

Questions from the Community

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What is your primary use case for Cloudflare Access?
Cloudflare Access provides secure access to internal applications for employees, external members of the organization...
What advice do you have for others considering Cloudflare Access?
Cloudflare Access is one of the best integrations available. While about two hundred vendors offer similar services, ...
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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Proofpoint Email Protection?
In terms of pricing, it is okay compared to others. I would say it is normal. Additional costs do come in, but it enh...
What needs improvement with Proofpoint Email Protection?
I have not seen specific outcomes or metrics since implementing Proofpoint Email Protection, such as a reduction in p...
 

Also Known As

Cloudflare Area 1 Email Security, Cloudflare Bot Management, Cloudflare Gateway, Cloudflare Zero Trust Platform, Cloudflare DDoS, Cloudflare SASE & SSE Platform
Websense Email Security
Proofpoint Enterprise Protection, Proofpoint Digital Protection
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

23andMe
Alphawest, Amadori, AudioNova, Betsson, Confartigianato Vicenza, Davies Turner, iGATE, Lake Michigan Credit Union, Landa Digital Printing, Northern California Bank, Scavolini, Toyota
Blocket, University of Waterloo, Lincoln Memorial University, WellSpan Health, U-Haul, Carestream Health, Westinghouse
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft, Proofpoint, Check Point Software Technologies and others in Email Security. Updated: January 2026.
882,207 professionals have used our research since 2012.