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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
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
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 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

"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."
"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."
"I would recommend Proofpoint Email Protection to others because it is useful, simple to use, and provides whatever is required."
"Proofpoint provides an expandable project model, including DLP, email archiving, and encryption, which makes it a complete email security solution."
"In terms of detection of spam, malware, and virus, the detection is 99.9% accurate."
"From the reports that we hear back from clients regarding Proofpoint Email Protection, they are noticing less spam and fewer phishing attempts in their email."
"Proofpoint Email Protection is an overall better product with superior AI, and we have seen a reduction of fifty percent in phishing tickets and investigations, and it has stopped phishing attempts where other previous solutions were struggling."
"When I manage a SOC and Proofpoint Email Protection is integrated with it, it gives me a consolidated alert, so when phishing alerts come in it is slightly easier to manage, even my L1 incident response team from the SOC can easily understand the alerts, perform basic checks on VirusTotal, and create complete SOAR automation from that information."
"Out of these three, no other email gateway can be compared with Proofpoint Email Protection."
"I recommend all of my customers to migrate and start using Proofpoint as it is secure, minimizes risk, and eliminates phishing attacks."
 

Cons

"I am not satisfied with Clearswift because of the lack of customer support."
"Malware needs improvement."
"FTP server and TRUST Manager functionality."
"I feel Proofpoint Email Protection is overpriced. I cannot say that the security level being provided does not justify the cost, but when comparing the similar level of security with other applications or security systems, it is overpriced."
"Phishing detection could improve further to match some of the capabilities offered by competitors."
"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 false positives are an issue. There are many false positives that come in, which you report to Proofpoint."
"Filtering false positives is highly challenging because it is impossible for humans to identify which emails are genuine and which are spam."
"Proofpoint Email Protection's interface is confusing and could be improved."
"Every client always finds it expensive, but I don't know how much they're paying for it."
"One major threat is QR code phishing, along with TOAD (Telephone-Oriented Attack Delivery). TOAD attacks don't include links, URLs, or attachments in emails. Instead, attackers try to trick you into calling them, often by offering something enticing like a 50% discount on football matches."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"The licensing cost of Proofpoint Email Protection is a lot higher than other solutions, such as Barracuda."
"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 solution charges per user per month to use it. There are not any additional fees in addition to the standard living fees."
"It is expensive."
"Clients pay for an annual subscription of Proofpoint Email Protection. Every client always finds it 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."
"Annually, it costs us about $92,000. This is pretty much what it costs us. There is no additional cost."
"It is multiple times more expensive, which made it very much less attractive."
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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
8%
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?
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.
911,493 professionals have used our research since 2012.