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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

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
6.7
Number of Reviews
111
Ranking in other categories
Email Security (1st), Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) (2nd), Digital Risk Protection (3rd), Office 365 Protection (1st), Secure Email Gateway (SEG) (1st)
 

Featured Reviews

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…
Siva_Prasad - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Consultant at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Email defenses have reduced phishing incidents and protect sensitive data across our enterprise
As things are evolving and threats develop in unpredictable ways, Proofpoint must adopt AI solutions and agentic solutions more aggressively and provide them to customers as part of service offerings. Inbuilt AI solutions would add more value and make Proofpoint a more premium choice for customers. With the help of AI solutions, agentic AI, and generative AI capabilities, the product would be more efficient than it currently is. Filtering false positives is highly challenging because it is impossible for humans to identify which emails are genuine and which are spam. Proofpoint should focus more on this area with back-end agents or other tools. Proofpoint should decide which emails are genuine and which are spam so it is not a challenge for end users. When receiving an email, end users should not have to determine whether to respond or not. Proofpoint should not release such spam emails and should strictly block such spam and spoof emails based on connection IPs. Currently, false positives occur in the product, and while this occurs in every product, it is an area where Proofpoint can focus on improving and reducing false positives. One email is enough for an end user to be deceived and lose money, so addressing this area is critical.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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."
"It's easier to deploy than other options."
"Technical support is great and are available during the week and on weekends."
"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."
"Using Forcepoint, we have created policies and rules for any suspicious mail. It is blocked and only released by an admin's approval."
"The solution has proven to be quite user-friendly, it's easier to deploy than other options, it's a stable product, the performance has been flawless, we found the solution to be scalable, the dashboards are good, and its price point is fair and reasonable."
"The solution is very easy for administration."
"Proofpoint Email Protection has reduced the analyst overhead in responding to phishing incidents by several orders of magnitude."
"Proofpoint Email Protection ensures users have clean mailboxes and are not bothered by unwanted email."
"They have customized security rules, mature rules, anti-virus protection, as well as email authentication similar to SPF, DKIM, and DMARC."
"Proofpoint Email Protection positively impacts my organization because it is a simpler solution in terms of user interaction compared to my previous email gateway, and its detection capabilities are considerably more advanced."
"The most valuable feature of Proofpoint Email Protection is the TAP Dashboard. It provides more detailed information that can be used for forensic analysis. This is an advantage that other email security providers, such as Cisco, IronPort, or Microsoft do not offer in their dashboards."
"The solution is very user-friendly."
"As a cloud-based product, it can scale well."
"Overall, using Proofpoint Email Protection has positively impacted our security posture, and we are using multiple products in Proofpoint, including DLP and email protection, and the real-time experience has us very satisfied."
 

Cons

"Customer support could be better."
"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."
"The pricing could always be just a little bit better."
"It would be better if it were simpler to deploy on one or two machines instead of three or four machines."
"I would like for deployment to be simplified."
"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."
"The stability and UI are the two areas of the solution with certain shortcomings that need improvement."
"The areas that have room for improvement in Proofpoint Email Protection include their cost of ownership, which is fairly high."
"Proofpoint Email Protection is an expensive solution."
"Proofpoint Email Protection can be improved in that it is quite a large product, so learning how to be fully conversant in it can take some time within the team; this is probably the biggest challenge at the moment for us, getting everyone fully conversant to support the product."
"The scalability can be improved, and the solution can be optimized."
"The Secure Mail aspect should have an Outlook add-in, instead of an external dashboard that outside users have to access."
"Proofpoint Email Protection could improve by allowing more customization of the reports, such as exceptions and black-and-white lists."
"As an enterprise, we have high demands on the services, and if we have to wait for something like a week or weeks, it is not acceptable; we need solutions in one or two days sometimes because if there is spam going around, you cannot wait weeks."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"When compared to other email security solutions, the price is not cheap."
"My company pays for Forcepoint Email Security licensing annually."
"Licensing is a yearly subscription that is based on the number of users."
"There are three types of support licenses."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"It is multiple times more expensive, which made it very much less attractive."
"The licensing is basically $8/user."
"I rate the product price a seven on a scale of one to ten, where one is low price and ten is high price."
"Pricing has recently been increased and the cost is a downside"
"They are competitively priced, but I have been forced to get quotes for other solutions now because they haven't been responding to requests to do the work that we would like them to do."
"Proofpoint is fairly expensive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Outsourcing Company
19%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Healthcare Company
8%
Performing Arts
7%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Outsourcing Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business8
Midsize Enterprise5
Large Enterprise1
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business30
Midsize Enterprise25
Large Enterprise62
 

Questions from the Community

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Earn 20 points
What needs improvement with Proofpoint Email Protection?
To improve Proofpoint Email Protection, I suggest breaking down the URL into one versus three different GUIs. Regarding Proofpoint Email Protection's AI capabilities, I think its governance and sec...
What is your primary use case for Proofpoint Email Protection?
My main use case for Proofpoint Email Protection includes phishing emails, spam, URL isolation, and training. I utilize the email protect portal to ensure that none of our employees in any of the b...
 

Also Known As

Websense Email Security
Proofpoint Enterprise Protection, Proofpoint Digital Protection
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

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: August 2026.
911,994 professionals have used our research since 2012.