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

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

 

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
30th
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) (2nd), Digital Risk Protection (3rd), Office 365 Protection (1st), Secure Email Gateway (SEG) (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the Email Security category, the mindshare of Fortra's Clearswift Secure Email Gateway is 1.2%, up from 0.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Proofpoint Email Protection is 6.3%, down from 7.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Email Security Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Proofpoint Email Protection6.3%
Fortra's Clearswift Secure Email Gateway1.2%
Other92.5%
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
Principal Consultant at Infosys
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."
"A stable solution."
"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."
"Compared to other products, Proofpoint's real-time threat intelligence makes it less noisy; they collect and share threat information effectively, which benefits all customers."
"The solution has very strong detection for most of the phishing and malicious emails received from the outside."
"The initial implementation is pretty easy to handle."
"The most valuable feature of Proofpoint Email Protection is the central location dashboard for viewing all the related information for risk."
"Proofpoint Email Protection has increased the efficiency of the organization, as before a single end user might be receiving fifteen, twenty, or thirty spam emails in a week, but with Proofpoint Email Protection, they have decreased by approximately eighty percent, so users are receiving many fewer spam emails and do not have to go through all the spam emails just to verify if they are legitimate or not."
"Proofpoint Email Protection is quite scalable; I have not experienced any issues with the onboarding and offboarding of users and devices."
"It's easy to use, even for those new to IT."
"The solution's technical support is good. I rate the technical support a ten out of ten."
 

Cons

"I am not satisfied with Clearswift because of the lack of customer support."
"FTP server and TRUST Manager functionality."
"Malware needs improvement."
"Proofpoint Email Protection is an expensive solution."
"I rate the technical support at a 3 out of 10, with 10 being the best."
"The largest complaint that we hear from our customers is that there is no local support."
"In terms of improvement, the price could be better. Additionally, more security could be implemented."
"The initial setup is complex."
"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's interface is confusing and could be improved."
"Proofpoint Email Protection needs to enhance its capabilities for AI-related threats as it is primarily a rule-based solution."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"The licensing cost of Proofpoint Email Protection is a lot higher than other solutions, such as Barracuda."
"The end customer is buying our solution, which can be for monthly or annual usage depending on our payment and business model."
"In general, the pricing is competitive."
"It is expensive."
"Annually, it costs us about $92,000. This is pretty much what it costs us. There is no additional cost."
"The price is reasonable."
"Proofpoint Email Protection has comparable pricing."
"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."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Email Security solutions are best for your needs.
909,725 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Construction Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Retailer
9%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Outsourcing Company
7%
Comms Service Provider
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business29
Midsize Enterprise25
Large Enterprise61
 

Questions from the Community

Ask a question
Earn 20 points
What needs improvement with Proofpoint Email Protection?
The downside is I feel the vendor support is a little lacking and should be more responsive. The technical support is not up to the mark.
What is your primary use case for Proofpoint Email Protection?
I am leading this security domain, and my L1 and L2s have been using Proofpoint Email Protection and other modules of Proofpoint Email Protection for more than three years.We are currently working ...
 

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: August 2026.
909,725 professionals have used our research since 2012.