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Fortinet FortiMail vs Proofpoint Email Protection comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 8, 2024
 

Categories and Ranking

Microsoft Defender for Offi...
Sponsored
Ranking in Email Security
1st
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
47
Ranking in other categories
Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) (1st), Microsoft Security Suite (10th)
Fortinet FortiMail
Ranking in Email Security
5th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
61
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Proofpoint Email Protection
Ranking in Email Security
2nd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
50
Ranking in other categories
Security Awareness Training (2nd), Digital Risk Protection (3rd), Office 365 Protection (2nd), Secure Email Gateway (SEG) (1st)
 

Featured Reviews

Jamie LeClair - PeerSpot reviewer
File-sharing options and ease of collaboration or meetings allow for quick collaborations and chats
I work in my company's IT department, so I use all of the products under Office 365 daily, including Microsoft Word, Microsoft PowerPoint, Microsoft Teams, and all the other components in the product. My company can't make it through a day or go by without using the products offered under Office 365. Some of our manufacturing workers may use Office 365 a lot less, but it is still necessary for things like Microsoft Outlook and Exchange. I found Microsoft Teams to be the most valuable feature of the solution, along with all of the products and features offered under Office 365. My organization has remote workers, and we can't run the company without meetings organized with the help of Microsoft Teams.
Andras Solt - PeerSpot reviewer
Reasonable pricing and good spam filtering but does not offer robust gatekeeping
It's mainly suited for mid-size companies, not for bigger companies like us. We are more than 1,000 people. In fact, we're over 2000 users, so that's why we investigated some other products, and Clearswift, for example. We likely won't increase usage. We're looking at GFI in a year or so.
Pranay Gurrapu - PeerSpot reviewer
Beginner -friendly tool and simplifies the process of adding new domains
I didn't work on the installation and deployment, but I know the procedure. It's easy, not complicated. We just need to have servers and storage capacity. In our organization, it was an on-premises Proofpoint Protection, so we had a server, capacity storage, and all. We also need to connect that server with our internal environment and Active Directory. It's all easy. There's documentation from Proofpoint on how to do it. And we also have support from their team to guide us.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The email protection is excellent, especially in terms of anti-phishing policies."
"It gives us visibility into threats and, for endpoints, it helps us to prioritize threats. We used to have a lack of visibility, but now our time to detect and respond has decreased."
"Defender helps us prioritize threats across our organization."
"The two main features that prove most beneficial for us are URL scanning and attachment scanning."
"Some of the valuable features on the email side are anti-phishing, anti-malware, and Safe Links."
"The most valuable feature is the integration. It's a single console, so we don't have to switch around between multiple products. Another valuable feature is the ease of operations and maintenance."
"It’s easy to handle integrations, and we don't need a lot of people in our IT team."
"The most valuable aspect of Microsoft Defender for Office 365 is its ability to protect us from malware."
"I like the anti-spam and security features of Fortinet FortiMail, and that its features complement each other."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is the spam filter."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is its interface, allowing users to get around the solution easily. The integration capabilities in the solution are also very easy."
"The antiphishing capabilities are very good."
"I love the integration between Fortinet products."
"Fortinet FortiMail has a lot of valuable features. It works great. It also has an antivirus feature. Support for Fortinet FortiMail was also great when my team wanted to block some geographic IPs, but couldn't figure out how to do it. The support team provided clear communication on how to resolve that issue. Another valuable feature of Fortinet FortiMail is SPAM filtering which tells you how many spammy emails you've received. Based on my current use cases, I'm happy with Fortinet FortiMail."
"It can block a lot of fake emails."
"After implementing FortiMail, the spam, and malicious emails we receive have significantly reduced, making it much simpler to manage."
"The solution is very user-friendly."
"Its main defense is to stop malicious emails from coming through. There is a sandbox environment where you can open malicious or suspicious emails to make sure that they're not malicious, instead of taking the risk of having your employees do it. This is definitely something that everybody needs nowadays, especially with the rise in cyber attacks."
"The most valuable feature of Proofpoint Email Protection is the dashboards and their visibility, easy configuration, and artificial intelligence. Additionally, the reports are very important and helpful."
"Proofpoint is the main tool for blocking spam because it denies the connection altogether."
"It's a mature product. It does a good job in detection."
"Proofpoint Email Protection's advantage is that, when it's working properly, it tends to catch more threats as compared to other products."
"Proofpoint provides an expandable project model, including DLP, email archiving, and encryption, which makes it a complete email security solution."
"They have customized security rules, mature rules, anti-virus protection, as well as email authentication similar to SPF, DKIM, and DMARC."
 

Cons

"We need to be able to whitelist data at the backend."
"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."
"Sometimes, phishing emails manage to pass through the filter, so the system needs to enhance its phishing email detection capabilities."
"Microsoft Defender for Office 365's Mac functionality requires improvement to deliver the same level of protection found on Windows devices."
"This product's effectiveness could be improved, in terms of detecting unwanted spam or even malware between the emails, compared to other products."
"They have moved features from one console to another. Things have been moved around in the interface and it takes me time to find where certain features are."
"I am generally satisfied with how it currently is. If I could improve anything, I would reduce the cost."
"Microsoft should provide more documentation for users so they can self-educate. I would like to see more documentation for advanced security features."
"Maybe FortiMail's integration could be better."
"Sometimes, authentic emails get blocked by the solution's firewall."
"It's difficult for me to talk about areas for improvement in Fortinet FortiMail because I'm the general manager of the company and I'm an engineer with knowledge about the solution, but I'm not deeply involved in its implementation. As I mentioned previously, Fortinet FortiMail is also being used within the company, and I'm happy with its functionality, but sometimes, attacks pass and avoid the Fortinet FortiMail filters, but those could be very sophisticated attacks. There could still be an improvement in the filtering feature of the solution, though the security of Fortinet FortiMail is okay for me because I believe you can't implement one hundred percent security in any solution. The initial setup for the solution also needs improvement. The setup is supposed to be simple, but then the customer starts to complain that some of the false positive emails are reaching quarantine, so my team has to configure it again. There have been instances when Fortinet FortiMail rejects valid emails because some of the service partners of the customer have not been configured accurately, so the system considered valid mails as attacks to be quarantined, so aside from improving the filters, there should also be an improvement in the categorization of emails in the server. My team has to modify the configuration so that valid emails could pass and for Fortinet FortiMail to correctly filter the SPAM traffic. A feature that could be added to Fortinet FortiMail in its next release is advanced AI, so it can analyze and decide accurately on which mail is valid and which mail is SPAM."
"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 tool needs to improve its pricing policy. Also, it needs to be more user-friendly. I would want it to improve email security as well."
"ortiMail has some latency issues and sometimes takes time to receive emails."
"The solution's pricing could be improved."
"Sometimes it takes a little bit too long to determine if an email is good or not. If they could shorten that time span, it'd be so much better. It does delay our email, which does not make users happy. That said, I would have to say we have not been blacklisted for quite a while now."
"The email DLP portion could be a bit easier."
"We find the cost to be prohibitive."
"The flexibility of the solution can be improved."
"Sometimes it doesn't detect actual spam emails, and sometimes it catches normal emails."
"The incident reporting on offer needs to be improved. It's lacking right now. It should be on the platform somewhere."
"The largest complaint that we hear from our customers is that there is no local support."
"Proofpoint Email Protection could improve by reducing the price."
"The solution's server console and cluster dashboard have been the same for four years so need to be upgraded."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The product is expensive."
"Microsoft Defender is expensive. I typically recommend it only if clients have the budget. Otherwise, I would suggest an alternative."
"For large enterprise organizations, they can definitely afford it, but for small and medium organizations, they might struggle to cover the expenses."
"The solution could be better by simplifying the business model of their licensing. It was hard to figure out how to get the licensing done for the environment, initially."
"For licensing, it's usually a yearly package for customers who are subscribed to Office 365, but they can also pay on a monthly basis."
"Compared to other brands, Microsoft Defender for Office 365's pricing is competitive."
"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."
"Defender for 365 comes in various plans and licenses, along with other Microsoft security solutions. Purchasing this kind of package or security bundle gives good value for money, and that's what I recommend."
"This is a good solution and value for the money."
"There is a license required for this solution."
"You need to pay additional fees for premium support."
"Price-wise, you get what you pay for in Fortinet FortiMail. Apart from the licensing costs, no additional expenses are attached to the solution's pricing."
"It is an expensive product."
"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."
"My company has a three-year license for Fortinet FortiMail, including the support, but I'm not so sure of how much the solution costs because I'm not part of the procurement team. What's more important to me is the functionality and stability of Fortinet FortiMail. In terms of Fortinet FortiMail licensing, the cost is calculated based on company requirements. For example, it's based on the features you need for your environment, on capacity, how many CPUs you have, etc."
"If you don't need the full bundle that includes everything, you have options for the small or medium enterprise environments."
"The solution is expensive."
"Customers pay around $90,000 yearly for a 1,000-user organization, with the subscription license being the main expense, apart from implementation fees."
"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."
"Clients pay for an annual subscription of Proofpoint Email Protection. Every client always finds it expensive."
"Annually, it costs us about $92,000. This is pretty much what it costs us. There is no additional cost."
"The licensing is basically $8/user."
"The solution uses a licensing model that is reasonable compared to other products."
"Proofpoint Email Protection has comparable pricing."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
17%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
6%
Educational Organization
50%
Computer Software Company
8%
Government
5%
Financial Services Firm
4%
Educational Organization
30%
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 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?
Microsoft needs to broaden its global support presence by establishing teams of subject-matter experts in all regions.
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 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...
What needs improvement with Proofpoint Email Protection?
Phishing detection & Response capabilities could improve further to match some of the capabilities offered by com...
 

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: December 2024.
823,795 professionals have used our research since 2012.