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Microsoft Defender vs Proofpoint Email Protection comparison

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Feb 8, 2026

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

Cloudflare One
Sponsored
Ranking in Email Security
20th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
23
Ranking in other categories
Secure Web Gateways (SWG) (13th), Data Loss Prevention (DLP) (20th), Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB) (12th), Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection (7th), Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) Solutions (12th), Access Management (11th), Bot Management (3rd), ZTNA as a Service (9th), ZTNA (4th), Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) (10th), Remote Browser Isolation (RBI) (3rd)
Microsoft Defender for Offi...
Ranking in Email Security
2nd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
62
Ranking in other categories
Email Archiving (1st), Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) (2nd), Microsoft Security Suite (8th), Secure Email Gateway (SEG) (1st)
Proofpoint Email Protection
Ranking in Email Security
1st
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
97
Ranking in other categories
Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) (3rd), Digital Risk Protection (3rd), Office 365 Protection (1st), Secure Email Gateway (SEG) (2nd)
 

Q&A Highlights

Aishwarya Rm - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Software Engineer at Capgemini
Dec 30, 2024
 

Featured Reviews

CV
Network Architect at IP Dimension
Cloud security has improved remote access and has reduced costs for smaller client sites
I have used Cloudflare One's Identity-Aware Proxy, and it is quite straightforward from what I have seen so far. The app registration on the Azure side integrates fully into Cloudflare, and I am very satisfied with that part because it is easy to set up. The integration of Cloudflare One's Secure Web Gateway and Zero Trust Network Access works without any issues. That part is pretty automatic, and if you complete the rest of the setup, it comes together by itself with no issues from my side. What makes it nice is that we can actually start replacing on-site firewalls at this stage for the smaller clients because it does not matter if they go to a coffee shop or work from home; they are still secured by the same connection. The hops get shorter and you get better latency. We have done testing to see if it is better. One thing that we did notice with our proof of concept with our current client is that they have people connecting from the UK. When they used their previous VPN solution, uploading CAD drawings and other files to the server took a long time. They mentioned that it is much quicker on Cloudflare One's solution. I definitely believe that is part of the improved performance, and I am satisfied with that as well. What is nice about Cloudflare One is that it makes the setup easier and also easier to train technicians to maintain it. Compared to legacy systems, we do not need to get fancy firewalls in place that are costly. That is definitely also a cost-saver with Cloudflare One.
Emeka Ndulu - PeerSpot reviewer
Cloud Solutions Architect at a tech services company with 201-500 employees
Improves threat visibility and response while reducing manual tasks and training users against phishing
I appreciate the attack simulation feature whereby I get to train users and educate them on how to identify phishing emails and spam emails, as well as the anti-spam protection. It gives me visibility into my threat environment and threat landscape to ensure that I am one step ahead of any likelihood of threats within my environment. I get to detect it and respond, so the threat intelligence is very effective. Microsoft security solutions save my time. It saves money because once I protect my environment, I don't lose money. It has decreased my detection time and my time to respond.
Vivek_Jaiswal - PeerSpot reviewer
Cyber Security Senior Specialist at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Advanced email defenses have protected healthcare staff and simplified incident response
There are many things that could be improved, but once you are very well-known about this application, you could perform that improvement plan. There are many scenarios where I have worked with Proofpoint Email Protection where a requirement was not fulfilled due to the limitation of the product. For example, we have Report Phish automation. With Proofpoint Email Protection, we can configure Report Phish and forward the email to any email addresses or shared mailboxes that we provide in the configuration. That email is forwarded as is with whatever the user reports as a phishing email. However, some organizations do not want the reported phishing email to go as is into their ticketing tool because it might contain malicious attachments and malicious links that are not required to go into their internal organization. Proofpoint Email Protection has that limitation. They cannot forward or restrict, but could forward only limited information such as some header information, sender subject details, or only limited information. As it is, the email can be forwarded, not as limited information. Proofpoint TRAP solution also has limitations. It cannot create alert notifications for some specific requirements because Proofpoint works the way it is designed, and if you want it to work based on our requirement, that should not be possible. There is a scope of limitations here. There are many improvements that should be made. First, they should work on their false positive minimization. Proofpoint generally takes all emails, investigates them, and classifies them. There are many situations where legit emails are blocked because that domain is found to be under a malicious category somehow, but actually it is not. False positive minimization could be improved, and they could enhance their other applications or solutions. There are many things that they could improve from each application and each portal.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The blocking feature is very good."
"It's the endpoint exposition. We don't need to expose our VPN server to the internet and need a zero-test solution. I can apply some conditional access to the endpoint that's connecting to our network to check their security policies or the security condition of their workstation. Once the workstation is trying to connect to my internal network, then I would like to check the discrete condition of these endpoints that are trying to access my internal network. We created some conditional access. We have CrowdStrike, to check if the CrowdStrike is installed, to check if it's updated, and to check for Windows updates. We created some conditional policies to check it."
"Cloudflare Access is part of the Zero Trust philosophy."
"It is a stable solution."
"Cloudflare is by far the most effective solution that I have come across."
"Clover is the best product globally."
"It's a perfect solution from my perspective; it's easy to understand and easy to configure."
"Cloudflare One has assisted in securing my remote workforce through a SASE solution with Cloudflare One and the Workers part, although I am not currently using the Workers component."
"It also gives the vulnerability status according to the versions you have selected. Let's say you have Google Chrome. It mentions the versions it has, and it updates. Within two hours of an update, it is reflected in the dashboard. That's really nice to have."
"Scalability-wise, I do not think there are any issues so far."
"It gives me visibility into my threat environment and threat landscape to ensure that I am one step ahead of any likelihood of threats within my environment."
"The product's scalability is good."
"The email protection is excellent, especially in terms of anti-phishing policies."
"Microsoft Defender for Office 365 has decreased my time to detection and time to respond by one hundred percent."
"It has significantly decreased my time to detection and response."
"The features I appreciate most about Microsoft Defender for Office 365 are admin notifications for potential threats along with protecting our Microsoft apps such as Outlook from potential phishing attacks."
"We've observed that we have almost 99.9% control over our emails now in an easy to configure and easy to implement solution."
"The anti-spam features are excellent on the email firewalls."
"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 dashboards and their visibility, easy configuration, and artificial intelligence. Additionally, the reports are very important and helpful."
"The most valuable feature of Proofpoint Email Protection is the central location dashboard for viewing all the related information for risk."
"Proofpoint Email Protection is stable enough and does its job of virus, malware, and email scam detection. Setting it up is not too complicated."
"Proofpoint Email Protection ensures users have clean mailboxes and are not bothered by unwanted email."
"Proofpoint Email Protection is the best solution from the perspective of email security."
 

Cons

"Our customers no longer use Cloudflare because its service is subpar."
"The software has automated alerts, but the automated alerts are not available in the mobile app."
"Cloudflare DDoS has poor technical support."
"The tool should provide on-premise versions. Currently, all versions are cloud-based."
"Our subscription plan for the solution has a limitation of bot signatures."
"Cloudflare Zero Trust Platform needs to improve its documentation. It took time to do the implementation."
"The pricing is an area that can be improved. Pricing, as far as I recall, was the source of our problems."
"The initial onboarding was causing us some confusion."
"About eight months ago, we started to measure the quantity of phishing and spam that we have been receiving, and it has been increasing a lot. That means that protection for our email is not as good as we were expecting."
"We need to be able to whitelist data at the backend."
"The cost of Security Copilot is up there right now, and I think it needs to come down for more people to adopt."
"Microsoft needs to broaden its global support presence by establishing teams of subject-matter experts in all regions."
"Microsoft Defender for Office 365 should be more proactive."
"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."
"There is a different console for different things; I just want one consolidated console."
"Microsoft sometimes has downtime, and we'll get several incidents coming in back to back. We have a huge backlog of notifications, many of which may be false positives. However, there might be serious alerts, so we can't risk dismissing all of them at once."
"The licensing cost of Proofpoint Email Protection is a lot higher than other solutions, such as Barracuda."
"Proofpoint Email Protection does miss a lot of phishing attacks, and threat actors are using AI to create these phishing attacks."
"Proofpoint Email Protection is an expensive solution."
"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."
"Regarding improvements or enhancements in Proofpoint Email Protection, I find the platform somewhat chaotic. It has too many different sections that perform the same function, which is very confusing."
"I have not noticed much change in operational efficiency after implementing Proofpoint Email Protection, but the process execution is light."
"There are user interface complexities that require integration with a SOC team, which needs time and training."
"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."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"My company has to make yearly payments towards the licensing costs attached to the solution. There are no hidden charges apart from the licensing costs of the solution."
"Cloudflare Zero Trust Platform's pricing is good."
"The price tag is no longer $200,000, but rather $300,000 to $400,000. It's twice."
"The pricing of the solution is cheap. The licensing cost is also very low. I rate the cost and pricing a three out of ten."
"The solution is not that expensive."
"The pricing is somewhere in the middle. I would rate the pricing a seven out of ten."
"The prices are slightly expensive."
"The solution's pricing lacks transparency."
"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."
"The pricing has become expensive."
"Microsoft Defender for Office 365 comes with Microsoft Windows. It is free with the operating system."
"The product is expensive."
"The product is very expensive."
"I was working in the government and it was too expensive for us to use our Microsoft products."
"Microsoft Defender is expensive. I typically recommend it only if clients have the budget. Otherwise, I would suggest an alternative."
"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."
"The solution uses a licensing model that is reasonable compared to other products."
"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."
"Proofpoint Email Protection is a reasonably priced product, which means that it is neither too low nor too high in terms of price."
"Proofpoint is fairly expensive."
"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."
"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."
"It is on a yearly basis. Their floor for SMB doesn't matter. The user count is 100 users and below at $2,500 a year. Its cost is higher than other solutions. It is probably about 20% to 30% higher than what you would get with Microsoft. There are no additional costs. All costs are factored in. It can be improved pricing-wise so that it is affordable for the SMB market."
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Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Secure Email Gateway (SEG) solutions are best for your needs.
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Answers from the Community

Aishwarya Rm - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Software Engineer at Capgemini
Mar 3, 2023
Mar 3, 2023
In my opinion, there is little comparison. Proofpoint is an industry leader in email protection and has a very tightly integrated ecosystem for email defense, incident response, and awareness training. They have dedicated teams monitoring the threat landscape and continually tweak their algorithms to match current threats. Proofpoint goes far beyond email protection with tools to help your t...
See 2 answers
JB
Security Engineer at Kforce
Mar 2, 2023
In my opinion, there is little comparison. Proofpoint is an industry leader in email protection and has a very tightly integrated ecosystem for email defense, incident response, and awareness training. They have dedicated teams monitoring the threat landscape and continually tweak their algorithms to match current threats. Proofpoint goes far beyond email protection with tools to help your team investigate email-related threats, monitor user interactions and risks, act on users who continually handle email improperly with training, simulated phishes for user awareness, and even tools to reach full DMARC and DKIM protection (which can be extremely time and labor intensive). Defender has very little footprint, but also offers far less features. Proofpoint can be a more costly solution, but when compared feature for feature it far outweighs Defender. We do use both at my organization and I rarely interact with Defender as part of email investigations. Both will offer great protection, but beyond that Proofpoint is very feature rich and gives my team more tools to combat email threats when something is not caught by the gateway rules. Quite often emails do not contain threats prior to delivery and are weaponized afterward to get past the email defenses. Proofpoint has TAP and TRAP to isolate and remove those threats once they do become weaponized; along with the intelligence to know it has occurred. Proofpoint also has stellar reporting features so you have a very good understanding of your email environment at a glance.
Remy Ma - PeerSpot reviewer
Network Security Services at ACE Managed Securty Services
Mar 3, 2023
If you're looking for Managed Email Security, it can be hard to decide between Microsoft Defender for Office 365 and Proofpoint Email Protection. It's like choosing between two delicious flavors of ice cream — both are good, but what flavor do you prefer? Microsoft Defender for Office 365 is managed by Microsoft’s Security & Compliance Center and provides managed email security for Office 365 customers. It offers comprehensive protection against malicious emails, phishing attacks, and other advanced threats. On the other hand, Proofpoint Email Protection is managed by a third-party provider and provides managed email security for businesses of all sizes. While it doesn't have as many features as Defender, Proofpoint still offers robust protection against malicious emails, phishing attacks, and other advanced threats. In the end, it comes down to personal preference. Do you prefer managed email security managed by Microsoft or a third party? It all depends on your individual needs. Whichever solution you choose, make sure that managed email security meets all of your requirements!
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Construction Company
21%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Computer Software Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business10
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise11
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business25
Midsize Enterprise11
Large Enterprise31
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business29
Midsize Enterprise24
Large Enterprise50
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Cloudflare Access?
Cloudflare Access has strong integration with Microsoft, among other platforms. However, when it comes to Kaspersky, ...
What is your primary use case for Cloudflare Access?
Cloudflare Access provides secure access to internal applications for employees, external members of the organization...
What advice do you have for others considering Cloudflare Access?
Cloudflare Access is one of the best integrations available. While about two hundred vendors offer similar services, ...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Microsoft Defender for Office 365?
My experience with pricing, setup, and licensing is that it's actually quite reasonable even on the licensing side as...
What needs improvement with Microsoft Defender for Office 365?
I think Microsoft Defender for Office 365 can be improved by creating more educational pieces about not just looking ...
What is your primary use case for Microsoft Defender for Office 365?
My main use cases for Microsoft Defender for Office 365 include email hygiene.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Proofpoint Email Protection?
This is not something that I deal with regarding pricing, setup cost, and licensing.
What needs improvement with Proofpoint Email Protection?
For a beginner level, someone who is very new to email security might find it difficult to manage as an admin. Naviga...
What is your primary use case for Proofpoint Email Protection?
Proofpoint Email Protection serves as our email security solution. The entire SOC team uses Proofpoint Email Protecti...
 

Also Known As

Cloudflare Area 1 Email Security, Cloudflare Bot Management, Cloudflare Gateway, Cloudflare Zero Trust Platform, Cloudflare DDoS, Cloudflare SASE & SSE Platform
MS Defender for Office 365
Proofpoint Enterprise Protection, Proofpoint Digital Protection
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

23andMe
Microsoft Defender for Office 365 is trusted by companies such as Ithaca College.
Blocket, University of Waterloo, Lincoln Memorial University, WellSpan Health, U-Haul, Carestream Health, Westinghouse
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft Defender for Office 365 vs. Proofpoint Email Protection and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.
892,646 professionals have used our research since 2012.