Forcepoint Email Security [EOL] vs Proofpoint Email Protection comparison

Forcepoint and Proofpoint are both solutions in the Email Security category. Additionally, 76% of Forcepoint users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 96% of Proofpoint users who would recommend it.

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Forcepoint Email Security [EOL] and Proofpoint Email Protection based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out what your peers are saying about Proofpoint, Microsoft, Check Point Software Technologies and others in Email Security.

To learn more, read our detailed Email Security Report (Updated: February 2026).

Buyer's Guide

Email Security

February 2026

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Helped 884,706 peers since 2012

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

Featured Reviews

Cobe Van Coller

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.

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Muhammad Bahgat

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…

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AshishKochhar

Information Technology Team Lead at a manufacturing company with 201-500 employees

Advanced email protection has blocked targeted attacks and reduces manual threat handling

I feel Proofpoint Email Protection is overpriced. I cannot say that the security level being provided does not justify the cost, but when comparing the similar level of security with other applications or security systems, it is overpriced. If Proofpoint could provide offers or discounts for customers who are already using the product or for new customers implementing it, along with some free services or add-ons, that would be helpful in terms of financial expense. Proofpoint Email Protection has recently introduced AI functionality in terms of data security capabilities and protecting AI assistance from targeted attacks. This is important since everything is now related to AI. The solution is doing threat detection and real-time threat detection and response pretty well. There are a few things I would like to see improved. Sometimes Proofpoint Email Protection takes time to analyze the workflow and the nature of the email. In this age of AI, the solution should analyze an email on the first receipt and determine whether it should pass or be marked as spam without checking previous data. Another improvement would be to have a more user-friendly dashboard. Additionally, if Proofpoint could add the same features in BCP as part of email protection in BCP, it would be helpful since I currently have to take a different add-on for BCP, and integrating it would save costs. I cannot say that threats have increased or decreased with Proofpoint Email Protection because it depends on the mail flow. The solution captures and filters out all threats, and the email threats vary every day depending on how many users are receiving how many emails per day. Today there might be 1,000 emails, tomorrow 5,000, and the day after 500. Proofpoint Email Protection does its job by scanning all emails and threats are reduced to some extent. Since I am aware that virus definitions are updated every day, I cannot blame Proofpoint Email Protection if they take time to determine the nature of an email being received. There are sometimes emails that are false positives, and Proofpoint Email Protection is a bit strict in analyzing false positives, sometimes stopping emails that are actually required. It analyzes the previous nature of an email and if a template looks like an informational template or related to spam, it blocks it because it looks similar to one blocked earlier. However, the template might actually be required. If I receive the same template today that is also blocked by Proofpoint Email Protection, that particular template might be useful and should not be blocked. In such cases, I have to raise it as a false positive stating that this is something in use or my users use and should be released. When AI starts doing its work, it analyzes the email from a sender with a particular template and releases it, but if the same email and template come from another sender, it blocks it according to the policies.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"I'm very satisfied with the environment and the dashboard."

"Cloudflare is simple to use."

"Cloudflare Access is part of the Zero Trust philosophy."

"Cloudflare DDoS mitigates DDoS attacks."

"The capabilities of the software are strong enough for me to do what it's supposed to do. For me, we don't need to do a lot of configuration on our site. We just enable it and monitor it."

"Cloudflare is by far the most effective solution that I have come across."

"It will take the blow rather than our applications should an attack occur."

"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."

More Cloudflare One pros

"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."

"Using Forcepoint, we have created policies and rules for any suspicious mail. It is blocked and only released by an admin's approval."

"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."

"The feature I find most valuable is the web, email and DLP integration."

"Unlike other competitors, it doesn't cause any performance issues."

"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."

"We have found the product to be stable."

"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."

More Forcepoint Email Security [EOL] pros

"I recommend all of my customers to migrate and start using Proofpoint as it is secure, minimizes risk, and eliminates phishing attacks."

"We have noticed a huge improvement in productivity of the users by clearing up their inbox of malicious emails and spam, and it has also prevented and secured our environment on a daily basis, making the security team's job much easier."

"Proofpoint Email Protection has positively impacted my organization because when people know that we are using Proofpoint and they know we have set up a mailbox for protection, they forward issues to that mailbox and we search for them."

"The best features of Proofpoint Email Protection are the advanced level of anti-spam and antivirus technology, the TAP feature that helps me scan URLs and provides URL defense, outbound filtering and prevention capabilities, and particularly the TRAP feature where I can pull out all phishing emails from all users' mailboxes in a single click."

"Proofpoint Email Protection has massively improved the attack surface and has limited a lot of user compromise events."

"It's a mature product. It does a good job in detection."

"Compared to other products, Proofpoint's real-time threat intelligence makes it less noisy; they collect and share threat information effectively, which benefits all customers."

"The most valuable features are the business email compromise protection and targeted attack prevention."

More Proofpoint Email Protection pros

Cons

"The free plan has limitations. For example, I can only set up three rules, and the application firewall is unavailable."

"From a logging perspective, it is still a bit difficult to see exactly what users are being blocked with the current views."

"Feedback could be enhanced."

"The software has automated alerts, but the automated alerts are not available in the mobile app."

"The initial onboarding was causing us some confusion."

"There are premium tier live service and lower tier live service, so we opted for the lower tier. But there is no medium tier where we pay a little extra and get a bit more service. So if that can be improved."

"The onboarding process can be improved a little bit."

"Our subscription plan for the solution has a limitation of bot signatures."

More Cloudflare One cons

"The reporting functionality needs to be improved, as it is not customizable."

"I would like to see some improvement like cloud application and integration capabilities and the classification part is missing from the DLP."

"Forcepoint Email Security is stable, but it could be improved."

"Customer support could be better."

"The solution could use better integration capabilities."

"It would be better if it were simpler to deploy on one or two machines instead of three or four machines."

"Forcepoint is the best for DLP, but it is not better than other solutions in terms of phishing emails or threat protections on the email. It has less visibility over there. They might need to enhance these components because other solutions, such as Cisco Email Security and IronPort, have more advanced features. Forcepoint should focus more on threats and spam. They have a small database for spam. They must increase their solution's capability from this perspective."

"I would like for deployment to be simplified."

More Forcepoint Email Security [EOL] cons

"It became very expensive due to the nature of local circumstances, and I may advise Proofpoint to adjust marketing solutions based on each country."

"There have been a few cases where an obvious phishing email has not been blocked, but perhaps Proofpoint Email Protection was still learning and needed some extra time to figure out that the email was malicious."

"The areas that have room for improvement in Proofpoint Email Protection include their cost of ownership, which is fairly high."

"It's scalable, but the devil's in the details — you have to know your email volumes."

"There are user interface complexities that require integration with a SOC team, which needs time and training."

"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."

"I remember having multiple tickets and cases from customers where when a link was broken or incorrect, URL Defense would start to apply and completely block the URL."

"I think Proofpoint Email Protection could be slightly more intuitive."

More Proofpoint Email Protection cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing is somewhere in the middle. I would rate the pricing a seven out of ten."

"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."

"Cloudflare Zero Trust Platform's pricing is good."

"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 prices are slightly expensive."

"The solution is not that expensive."

"The price tag is no longer $200,000, but rather $300,000 to $400,000. It's twice."

"The solution's pricing lacks transparency."

"When compared to other email security solutions, the price is not cheap."

"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."

"My company pays for Forcepoint Email Security licensing annually."

"There are three types of support licenses."

"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."

"I rate the price of Proofpoint Email Protection a four out of five."

"We sell annual licenses for this solution."

"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."

"The solution charges per user per month to use it. There are not any additional fees in addition to the standard living fees."

"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."

"In general, the pricing is competitive."

"Pricing has recently been increased and the cost is a downside"

More Proofpoint Email Protection pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Comms Service Provider

10%

Computer Software Company

10%

Financial Services Firm

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

10%

Computer Software Company

Performing Arts

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

11%

Computer Software Company

Manufacturing Company

Comms Service Provider

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	10
Midsize Enterprise	2
Large Enterprise	10

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	8
Midsize Enterprise	5
Large Enterprise	1

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	28
Midsize Enterprise	24
Large Enterprise	42

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...

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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?

I do not handle the pricing, setup cost, and licensing for Proofpoint Email Protection, but I think it's a bit pricey...

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What needs improvement with Proofpoint Email Protection?

Some of the old portal features of Proofpoint Email Protection are missing in the new portal, so some of the settings...

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What is your primary use case for Proofpoint Email Protection?

Proofpoint Email Protection is primarily used for anti-spam purposes. As other companies receive a lot of malware, ph...

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Cloudflare One

March 2026

Download Cloudflare One product report

Buyer's Guide

Forcepoint Email Security [EOL]

March 2026

Download Forcepoint Email Security [EOL] product report

Buyer's Guide

Proofpoint Email Protection

March 2026

Download Proofpoint Email Protection product report

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

Cloudflare One is a comprehensive platform for security, performance, and connectivity. It provides features like rate limiting, DDoS protection, and application access, tailored to enhance user experience while securing internet access and accelerating communications.

Designed to integrate security measures with ease of use and scalability, Cloudflare One offers a secure web gateway and zero trust network access. These features ensure seamless setup and operation, making connectivity reliable and protected. Users appreciate its integrated console, intuitive interface, and the ability to manage risk effectively. It offers straightforward deployment, improves latency, and boasts cost-effectiveness. While its onboarding process and documentation need enhancement, its value in content delivery and application shielding is notable. Despite challenges in integrating Cloudflare Access with existing VPNs and the need for better automation and support, it remains vital for DNS and infrastructure protection.

What features make Cloudflare One stand out?

Rate Limiting: Controls the traffic rate to prevent abuse.
DDoS Protection: Shields applications from distributed denial-of-service attacks.
Secure Web Gateway: Provides secure internet access with seamless operation.
Zero Trust Network Access: Ensures secure, application-based connectivity without relying on traditional VPNs.
Access for Connectivity: Facilitates access to internal applications securely.

What benefits should users look for in reviews?

Security: Robust measures for DNS and browsing protection.
Performance: Enhanced site accessibility and communication speed.
Cost-Effectiveness: Offers competitive pricing for its features.
Ease of Deployment: Straightforward and efficient setup process.

In industries like finance, retail, and technology, Cloudflare One is crucial for enabling secure remote access and protecting web applications against dynamic threats. It supports compliance access policies and enhances content delivery, playing a key role in safeguarding digital infrastructure.

Cloudflare

Forcepoint Email Security gives you the security you need by protecting you against multi-stage advanced threats that often exploit email to penetrate your IT environment. It applies real-time behavioral sandboxing, enterprise-grade DLP and other advanced defense technologies to identify targeted attacks, high-risk users and insider threats. Forcepoint Email Security monitors outbound email to prevent leaks of sensitive information, and it empowers your workers — in the office or on the road — to safely adopt technologies like Microsoft Office 365.

Forcepoint

Proofpoint Email Protection provides powerful filtering against spam, phishing, and malware, leveraging effective threat detection and blocking capabilities. This solution integrates smoothly with platforms like Office 365, offering a user-friendly dashboard for seamless operations.

Proofpoint Email Protection focuses on email security, ensuring protection against phishing, malware, and spam. It includes features like URL scanning, anti-phishing, anti-virus protection, and sandboxing for comprehensive threat analysis. Its advanced analytics through TAP and TRAP, along with strong integration abilities, make it appealing for handling email threats. While scalability and ease of deployment are advantages, challenges such as integration in complex environments, the cost, and limited local support require attention. Enhancements in search functionality, email encryption, and improved phishing detection are also needed.

What are the key features of Proofpoint Email Protection?

Effective Filtering: Blocks spam, phishing, and malware with high accuracy.
URL Scanning: Protects against malicious links.
Advanced Analytics: Provides insights through TAP and TRAP.
Seamless Integration: Compatible with platforms like Office 365.
User-friendly Dashboard: Simplifies email management and monitoring.

What benefits and ROI should users look for in reviews?

Scalability: Adaptable to organizational growth without losing performance.
Strong Threat Protection: Comprehensive defense against email threats.
Easy Deployment: Streamlined setup process for smooth integration.
Advanced Threat Analysis: Identifies and neutralizes threats efficiently.

Industries adopting Proofpoint Email Protection include finance, healthcare, and education sectors, which benefit from its robust email security measures. Educational institutions prioritize safe communication for staff and students, while healthcare organizations focus on protecting sensitive patient data. Financial services benefit from preventing data breaches and fraud through advanced threats management.

Proofpoint

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 Proofpoint, Microsoft, Check Point Software Technologies and others in Email Security. Updated: February 2026.

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