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Fortra's Clearswift Secure Email Gateway vs Proofpoint Email Protection comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 3, 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

Fortra's Clearswift Secure ...
Ranking in Email Security
31st
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
0
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Proofpoint Email Protection
Ranking in Email Security
1st
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
111
Ranking in other categories
Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) (2nd), Digital Risk Protection (3rd), Office 365 Protection (1st), Secure Email Gateway (SEG) (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2026, in the Email Security category, the mindshare of Fortra's Clearswift Secure Email Gateway is 1.2%, up from 0.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Proofpoint Email Protection is 5.9%, down from 7.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Email Security Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Proofpoint Email Protection5.9%
Fortra's Clearswift Secure Email Gateway1.2%
Other92.9%
Email Security
 

Featured Reviews

PC
Systems Administrator at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees
Stable, but malware needs improvement and customer support is poor
They need to improve the malware in the product. I am not satisfied with Clearswift because of the lack of customer support. The support is poor, the supplier takes a lot of time and it's expensive. We have some issues here when I contact the supplier, it takes a lot of time for them to get back to us but there's no solution. I am now looking at Symantec as a possible alternative.
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

"We use a few features for web proxy, and another feature is the email content filter and malware for our internal policy in the email content."
"Ability to create your own content-filtering policies with relative ease."
"A stable solution."
"Go for it! I think it's an excellent product with great technical support."
"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."
"Overall, it is a good product, providing everything in a single dashboard where we can find all the information related to the risks involved within a suspicious email."
"Proofpoint Email Protection has provided top shelf email protection services and has prevented breaches and loss of data."
"It has been comprehensive and easy to use for both users and administrators."
"Using Proofpoint Email Protection has improved my SOC analyst workloads significantly by reducing false positives and the number of incidents in the queue."
"The solution blocks malicious emails containing viruses and malware and reduces them out of spam."
"Proofpoint Email Protection helped create a safe environment by blocking and preventing Active Directory harvesting attacks, imposter attacks, backscattering, spam, and malicious attacks."
"URL scanning and online relay service are the most valuable features of Proofpoint Email Protection."
 

Cons

"FTP server and TRUST Manager functionality."
"I am not satisfied with Clearswift because of the lack of customer support."
"Malware needs improvement."
"The false positives are an issue. There are many false positives that come in, which you report to Proofpoint."
"Proofpoint should have better integration with complex environments that need more than one instance of Proofpoint, as there are issues with nested instances."
"It's scalable, but the devil's in the details — you have to know your email volumes."
"Sometimes it doesn't detect actual spam emails, and sometimes it catches normal emails."
"I would want better spear phishing protection in the essentials package."
"The solution can be expensive."
"Filtering false positives is highly challenging because it is impossible for humans to identify which emails are genuine and which are spam."
"I have noticed some lagging and issues with the Proofpoint Protection Server, which is not the cloud solution or the Admin Portal solution. It seems to lag quite a lot when we try to work with folders, quarantine folders, or configure anything in there."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"Pricing has recently been increased and the cost is a downside"
"Clients pay for an annual subscription of Proofpoint Email Protection. Every client always finds it expensive."
"The solution uses a licensing model that is reasonable compared to other products."
"The licensing is basically $8/user."
"Proofpoint Email Protection is a reasonably priced product, which means that it is neither too low nor too high in terms of price."
"In general, the pricing is competitive."
"The end customer is buying our solution, which can be for monthly or annual usage depending on our payment and business model."
"I rate the price of Proofpoint Email Protection a four out of five."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
11%
Construction Company
11%
Retailer
9%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Outsourcing Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Comms Service Provider
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business30
Midsize Enterprise25
Large Enterprise62
 

Questions from the Community

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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

No data available
Proofpoint Enterprise Protection, Proofpoint Digital Protection
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Blocket, University of Waterloo, Lincoln Memorial University, WellSpan Health, U-Haul, Carestream Health, Westinghouse
Find out what your peers are saying about Fortra's Clearswift Secure Email Gateway vs. Proofpoint Email Protection and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
914,394 professionals have used our research since 2012.