No more typing reviews! Try our Samantha, our new voice AI agent.

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

Why PeerSpot?
 

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
110
Ranking in other categories
Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) (5th), Digital Risk Protection (5th), Office 365 Protection (1st), Secure Email Gateway (SEG) (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2026, in the Email Security category, the mindshare of Fortra's Clearswift Secure Email Gateway is 1.4%, up from 1.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Proofpoint Email Protection is 5.9%, down from 7.2% 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 Gateway1.4%
Other92.7%
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

"Ability to create your own content-filtering policies with relative ease."
"Go for it! I think it's an excellent product with great technical support."
"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."
"A stable solution."
"Proofpoint Email Protection has positively impacted my organization because when people know that we are using Proofpoint and they know we have set up a mailbox for protection, they forward issues to that mailbox and we search for them."
"Proofpoint Email Protection has positively impacted my organization by preventing malicious URL and QR code scans from phishing emails."
"I would recommend Proofpoint Email Protection to others because it is useful, simple to use, and provides whatever is required."
"The most valuable feature of Proofpoint Email Protection is the blocking capabilities, it blocks a lot of potential threats."
"The most valuable feature of Proofpoint Email Protection is the central location dashboard for viewing all the related information for risk."
"In the pros, we can see strong protection against phishing, spoofing, and malware threats, and good email filtering accuracy and threat visibility."
"The solution has very strong detection for most of the phishing and malicious emails received from the outside."
"Overall, we've been happy with the product and the results we've gotten."
 

Cons

"Malware needs improvement."
"FTP server and TRUST Manager functionality."
"I am not satisfied with Clearswift because of the lack of customer support."
"We have some use cases that haven't been dealt with yet, so that could be improved."
"Proofpoint Email Protection could improve the Mail Trace feature and make navigation easier."
"You only receive one model in Proofpoint Email Protection and the other ones you have to purchase at a high price. There should be more available with the solution and additional models should be less expensive."
"However, for low-size or mid-level organizations, it can be challenging in terms of cost, management, and resource utilization, which could be a problem for low-level enterprises."
"Proofpoint Email Protection could improve by reducing the price."
"The false positives are an issue. There are many false positives that come in, which you report to Proofpoint."
"We find the cost to be prohibitive."
"To move to a more sophisticated email security solution was cost-prohibitive. When you compare it to others, it was too expensive."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"The solution charges per user per month to use it. There are not any additional fees in addition to the standard living fees."
"I rate the product price a seven on a scale of one to ten, where one is low price and ten is high price."
"I rate the price of Proofpoint Email Protection a four out of five."
"The licensing is basically $8/user."
"It is multiple times more expensive, which made it very much less attractive."
"The solution is expensive."
"It is expensive."
"Pricing has recently been increased and the cost is a downside"
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Email Security solutions are best for your needs.
921,338 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Construction Company
12%
Retailer
11%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Financial Services Firm
12%
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 Business31
Midsize Enterprise23
Large Enterprise62
 

Questions from the Community

Ask a question
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

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: November 2026.
921,338 professionals have used our research since 2012.