Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

Fortinet FortiMail vs Proofpoint Email Protection comparison

Sponsored
 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 8, 2024
 

Categories and Ranking

Microsoft Defender for Offi...
Sponsored
Average Rating
8.2
Number of Reviews
45
Ranking in other categories
Email Security (1st), Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) (1st), Microsoft Security Suite (10th)
Fortinet FortiMail
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
60
Ranking in other categories
Email Security (4th)
Proofpoint Email Protection
Average Rating
8.4
Number of Reviews
49
Ranking in other categories
Security Awareness Training (2nd), Digital Risk Protection (3rd), Office 365 Protection (2nd), Secure Email Gateway (SEG) (1st)
 

Featured Reviews

Luis-Brown - PeerSpot reviewer
Aug 8, 2023
Allows for easy reporting of problems, valuable anti-phishing, and anti-malware support
Microsoft Defender for Office 365 lacks proactivity in assisting us with preparing for potential threats before they occur. While they employ a substantial amount of threat intelligence to preemptively prevent incidents, their effectiveness diminishes when it comes to delivering proactive threat intelligence alerts from Microsoft. Their focus primarily revolves around managing the internal environment. On the other hand, my other vendor, Check Point, along with my membership in MS-ISAC, supplements me with this type of information. The phishing and spam filters could use some improvement. It is adequate, but it doesn't match the quality of Proofpoint or Mimecast. However, it comes close in effectiveness. Plus, if we're obtaining it for free, investing in the other products seems impractical.
Andras Solt - PeerSpot reviewer
Dec 12, 2022
Reasonable pricing and good spam filtering but does not offer robust gatekeeping
The solution is primarily for mail security. We use it primarily for incoming and outgoing emails. We also use other products which are quite new for us. We just invested in GFI, and we use it also for the incoming email traffic to check with more antivirus monitoring The spam filtering is great.…
Pranay Gurrapu - PeerSpot reviewer
Aug 16, 2024
Beginner -friendly tool and simplifies the process of adding new domains
We use it for user queries. For example, if a user flags that they're not receiving emails from a particular sender, we investigate where it got blocked in Proofpoint, if it was delivered successfully, or if it was quarantined.  We also onboard new domains, adding SPF and DKIM records to the DNS…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It’s easy to handle integrations, and we don't need a lot of people in our IT team."
"There are several features that I consider valuable."
"Defender helps us prioritize threats across our organization."
"The initial setup is straightforward. You just add the license, click it, and then you can set up the rules. It is quite simple."
"Does a thorough job of examining email and URLs for malicious content."
"The two main features that prove most beneficial for us are URL scanning and attachment scanning."
"It also gives me good visibility because, with Defender, I'm using a Microsoft product to defend Microsoft products. The integration was really seamless and I have wide visibility because it picks up almost everything. Literally, I can see almost every activity that happens, from the e-mail to the workstation itself."
"The good part is that you don't have to configure it, which is very convenient."
"The solution can scale."
"The anti-spam feature is very valuable."
"This excellent email gateway minimizes spam, inspects suspicious emails and isolates infected attachments with little administrative effort."
"They have a feature called CDR, Content Disarm, Reconstruction, click protection, and DLP for encryption purposes."
"Fortinet’s support services are good."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is the spam filter."
"It is a scalable solution."
"Technical support is great. They're available 24/7 and their response time is typically within the hour."
"Its anti-phishing functionality is the most valuable. Certainly, the biggest problem I have is phishing."
"As a cloud-based product, it can scale well."
"It's very good at identifying threats."
"The tool has improved our workflow by ensuring people receive only the emails they need for work rather than being inundated with hundreds or thousands of unnecessary emails daily."
"The spam filter for email is good."
"The solution scales quite well."
"Proofpoint Email Protection is stable enough and does its job of virus, malware, and email scam detection. Setting it up is not too complicated."
"The most valuable feature is the ability to remove bad messages that were delivered, prior to being classified as unwanted."
 

Cons

"The pre-sales cost calculations could be more transparent."
"The UI needs to be more user-friendly."
"You should be able to deploy Defender for every subscription without the need to add servers."
"Configuration at the mid-level could be improved for the support team."
"In one of the reports I can get the exact place where a vulnerable file resides. But for that, I need to explicitly go into the device and check. If they could include that file part in the report, without my having to go to the device itself, that would help."
"About eight months ago, we started to measure the quantity of phishing and spam that we have been receiving, and it has been increasing a lot. That means that protection for our email is not as good as we were expecting."
"We noticed that from time to time, Microsoft's stability does have problems. Sometimes the service goes up and down. Sometimes they change without prior notice."
"Microsoft Defender for Office 365 should be more proactive."
"The solution's pricing is flexible and can be adjusted for African utility companies. Microsoft often offers special pricing formulas for African governments and organizations and it is similar to Fortinet FortiMail. In my country, government institutions receive discounted pricing from Fortinet FortiMail."
"The solution is user-friendly to a degree but the dashboard needs improvement."
"In the Latin America market, some spam messages use Portuguese language. Some clearly spam messages would be better identified by the anti-spam if not for the language."
"Limited ability to upgrade hardware may lead to some performance issues that might otherwise be improved."
"The solution lacks to provide more visibility when there is a problem, and it needs to be tracked."
"The product could incorporate even more artificial intelligence to enhance the functionality, but it is a competetive and intelligent product as it."
"The solution could be improved by providing a virtual machine facility with a complete set of options in the VM setup."
"An additional feature that could be added is a pop-up screen notifying you that an email has been blocked, without having to double click on it to take you there it could provide you with a summary explaining why it was on hold or why was it spam when you hover over it with your cursor."
"Sometimes it detects false positives."
"Proofpoint Email Protection could improve on the training. Every organization is different and to fine-tune it to block everything properly there needs to be better training. Sometimes it can block some of the information it shouldn't."
"Proofpoint Email Protection has a new approach to email security with its API feature. Currently, it only works with Office 365. In the future, it would be beneficial if it also works with Gmail, as Check Point is currently the only brand that has API email security for Gmail. It would be beneficial if Proofpoint Email Protection could add this integration, they would be more competitive with other vendors."
"It has too many screens. It is kind of a conglomeration of products. In other words, they built product A, product B, and product C, and they are yet to integrate them into a single administrative console. I would certainly like to see a more seamless administrative interface. I would also like to see them include more bang for the buck, by including features like email fraud protection, rather than making their product so piecemeal, where you are buying little pieces. I agree with the idea of having multiple tiers or layers, but maybe as small, medium, and large, as opposed to an a la carte menu."
"The high cost of the product is an area of concern where improvements are required."
"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 email DLP portion could be a bit easier."
"Proofpoint Email Protection is an expensive solution."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"From the pricing point of view, like any other product in the market, there is scope for negotiation."
"The solution saves money so we have seen a return on investment."
"The product is very expensive."
"While Microsoft Defender for Office 365 necessitates pricier E3 or E5 subscriptions, the extensive functionality offered by these licenses across various Microsoft products justifies the investment."
"Defender is a little bit more expensive as compared to others. We are in the manufacturing environment. So, we don't have a high budget for all of our endpoint devices. Its cost is a major concern for us."
"For large enterprise organizations, they can definitely afford it, but for small and medium organizations, they might struggle to cover the expenses."
"Microsoft Defender is expensive. I typically recommend it only if clients have the budget. Otherwise, I would suggest an alternative."
"Microsoft Defender for Office 365 is an add-on to the Office license. Many customers are purchasing this solution."
"The fees for Fortinet FortiMail can be complicated. However, overall the pricing is fair."
"The product's licensing part depends on the number of mailboxes and the hard disk needed by customers. The cost of the license depends on the number of mailboxes and the number of emails."
"The price is acceptable for the support license it includes."
"The solution is reasonably priced compared to one of its competitors."
"FortiMail is not cheap."
"We paid approximately $30,000 for the solution. It is less expensive than some other solutions. We have one license that carries all the features that we wanted."
"It is reasonable."
"The annual cost is $55,000."
"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."
"The end customer is buying our solution, which can be for monthly or annual usage depending on our payment and business model."
"Pricing has recently been increased and the cost is a downside"
"The licensing cost of Proofpoint Email Protection is a lot higher than other solutions, such as Barracuda."
"The price is reasonable."
"The licensing is basically $8/user."
"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 tool's pricing depends on the customer's preference, offering options for an annual license or a monthly subscription. The cost varies based on factors such as the number of users and specific requirements. Overall, the pricing is competitive."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Email Security solutions are best for your needs.
815,854 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
17%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
6%
Educational Organization
49%
Computer Software Company
9%
Government
5%
Financial Services Firm
4%
Educational Organization
29%
Computer Software Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Manufacturing Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Microsoft Defender for Office 365?
Threat Explorer is an invaluable tool for me, and it plays a crucial role in helping me discern the origins of variou...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Microsoft Defender for Office 365?
The pricing is reasonable since it comes integrated with our Office 365 license.
What needs improvement with Microsoft Defender for Office 365?
Sometimes, phishing emails manage to pass through the filter, so the system needs to enhance its phishing email detec...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Fortinet FortiMail?
Barracuda is less expensive compared to FortiMail. FortiMail is mid-range, and Cisco is priced higher.
What needs improvement with Fortinet FortiMail?
There are multiple areas for improvement, such as user visibility, which is less compared to Cisco's secure appliance...
What needs improvement with Proofpoint Email Protection?
The support team was a bit slow. It takes months to implement the next feature. So I'd like to see faster support.
 

Also Known As

MS Defender for Office 365
FortiMail
Proofpoint Enterprise Protection, Cofense PhishMe, Proofpoint Digital Protection
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Microsoft Defender for Office 365 is trusted by companies such as Ithaca College.
Magromer Cueros y Pieles S.A.
Blocket, University of Waterloo, Lincoln Memorial University, WellSpan Health, U-Haul, Carestream Health, Westinghouse
Find out what your peers are saying about Fortinet FortiMail vs. Proofpoint Email Protection and other solutions. Updated: January 2024.
815,854 professionals have used our research since 2012.