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Fortinet FortiMail Cloud vs Proofpoint Email Protection comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 5, 2024

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

Fortinet FortiMail Cloud
Ranking in Secure Email Gateway (SEG)
6th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
21
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Email (7th)
Proofpoint Email Protection
Ranking in Secure Email Gateway (SEG)
1st
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
50
Ranking in other categories
Email Security (2nd), Security Awareness Training (2nd), Digital Risk Protection (3rd), Office 365 Protection (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2025, in the Secure Email Gateway (SEG) category, the mindshare of Fortinet FortiMail Cloud is 5.8%, up from 2.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Proofpoint Email Protection is 19.8%, down from 23.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Secure Email Gateway (SEG)
 

Featured Reviews

Pravin Mandlik - PeerSpot reviewer
Provides enhanced email security with potential agent compatibility issues
There are definitely features that Fortinet should work on. I'm not the right person to implement those features. For a portable cloud solution, a customer has more affinity towards a solution where endpoint security is already in place. In endpoint security, they are not at the latest quadrant. That is why a customer with existing endpoint security solutions like Trend Micro might prefer a main security solution from that vendor. If we go for FortiMail Cloud and have a separate endpoint security solution, there are two agents that have to sit on a customer endpoint. From that perspective, Fortinet policies add an extra load to the endpoint. Maybe other solutions have an advantage when it comes to Fortinet.
AhmedRamadan - PeerSpot reviewer
Optimize email security with effective sandboxing and auto Pull for quarantine
Proofpoint is used as an email security gateway for big enterprises, primarily for their on-premises servers. Many customers also use it alongside Office 365 Proofpoint offers a complete solution for email security with features like DLP, email archiving, and encryption. The most valuable…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The implementation was very professional. There are a lot of features I can get through Fortinet and FortiMail, such as security. FortiGuard is the most reliable and professional mitigation center to handle incidents and risk that I have to face."
"Fortinet is good at providing security beyond our email solution assets."
"One of the most beautiful benefits is its integration, as it can seamlessly integrate with any third-party email servers."
"FortiMail Cloud is very fast."
"The return on investment for us was achieved since we did not have similar incidents again in our environment."
"It has the best feature for processed mail analysis."
"The most valuable features are email ATB and Malware Analysis."
"The scanners with FortiMail are valuable."
"Proofpoint Email Protection's advantage is that, when it's working properly, it tends to catch more threats as compared to other products."
"There is no downtime."
"The Tap and Trap features. They are the best features."
"They have customized security rules, mature rules, anti-virus protection, as well as email authentication similar to SPF, DKIM, and DMARC."
"Proofpoint Email Protection's initial installation is straightforward. It took us less than a day to complete the implementation."
"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."
"The spam filter for email is good."
"The most valuable features are the business email compromise protection and targeted attack prevention."
 

Cons

"Fortinet policies add an extra load to the endpoint."
"The URL filtering and handling should be enhanced because it doesn't support all languages. I believe that this would be easy to enhance in the future."
"The dashboard could use improvement."
"Its GUI needs improvement."
"It is slightly difficult to configure FortiMail in the cloud with Exchange on-premise, especially the quarantine mailbox access for end-users."
"Networking should be simplified."
"The tool's UI can be simple since it's cluttered now and you can't understand where you are going. It's not obvious to find out the menus or things that you are looking to find."
"Fortinet FortiMail Cloud doesn't have AI features, making it an outdated tool for me."
"The reporting section could be enhanced. I like some reports but if they could allow us to create custom reports with more flexibility it would enhance the reports more."
"The solution should add post-sales training."
"Integration for reporting needs to be improved, it's too complex."
"The flexibility of the solution can be improved."
"The accessibility of Proofpoint Email Protection, particularly access to product trials, could be improved. It's hard to get a trial for Proofpoint Email Protection, and many customers prefer not just to do the POC or demo but try the product out."
"The high cost of the product is an area of concern where improvements are required."
"Unfortunately, the whole product is going downhill right now, ever since they were sold to Thoma Bravo. We're constantly having problems with stability and the product in general."
"I want Security Awareness Training in there as a package deal. A lot of companies are starting to value email security a little bit more and take it a little bit more seriously, and the great product that we link together with a lot of these sales is a training product called Security Awareness Training. It is an upsell that we do with Proofpoint, and it is definitely something that I recommend everybody with email security to look into. It would be great if Security Awareness Training is included with the email security."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The licensing is for three years. In the beginning, we did not pay monthly, it was paid once for three years."
"I see how manageable and flexible the licenses are."
"The pricing depends on various factors, including the type of licenses and subscriptions you have procured"
"The price of this solution could be more competitive."
"You only have to purchase one license for multiple participants."
"It should cost around $60,000. We bought it as a bundle, so everything comes together in the license. That is standard."
"A license for our company using FortiMail and FortiCare (filtering and support) was $4000."
"The product's price is reasonable."
"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."
"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."
"Annually, it costs us about $92,000. This is pretty much what it costs us. There is no additional cost."
"The solution uses a licensing model that is reasonable compared to other products."
"Proofpoint is fairly expensive."
"It is multiple times more expensive, which made it very much less attractive."
"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."
"Clients pay for an annual subscription of Proofpoint Email Protection. Every client always finds it expensive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
15%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Hospitality Company
6%
Financial Services Firm
6%
Educational Organization
32%
Computer Software Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Manufacturing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Fortinet FortiMail Cloud?
Content disarming and analysis are essential features in our email security setup
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Fortinet FortiMail Cloud?
The pricing is optimum. Basically, Fortinet is known to be a good vendor in terms of price performance. From that perspective, they are decent in pricing. They are not cheap, however, they are not ...
What needs improvement with Fortinet FortiMail Cloud?
There are definitely features that Fortinet should work on. I'm not the right person to implement those features. For a portable cloud solution, a customer has more affinity towards a solution wher...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Proofpoint Email Protection?
Proofpoint is considered a very expensive solution compared to others like FortiMail, being double in cost. Customers pay around $90,000 yearly for a 1,000-user organization, with the subscription ...
What needs improvement with Proofpoint Email Protection?
Phishing detection & Response capabilities could improve further to match some of the capabilities offered by competitors. Proofpoint could expand its PDR capabilities to improve its efficiency...
 

Also Known As

No data available
Proofpoint Enterprise Protection, Cofense PhishMe, Proofpoint Digital Protection
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Black Gold Regional Schools, Amadeus Hospitality, Jefferson County, Chunghwa Telecom, City of Boroondara, Dimension Data
Blocket, University of Waterloo, Lincoln Memorial University, WellSpan Health, U-Haul, Carestream Health, Westinghouse
Find out what your peers are saying about Fortinet FortiMail Cloud vs. Proofpoint Email Protection and other solutions. Updated: January 2025.
838,640 professionals have used our research since 2012.