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Microsoft Purview Communication Compliance vs Proofpoint Email Protection comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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

Microsoft Purview Communica...
Ranking in Digital Risk Protection
7th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
4
Ranking in other categories
GRC (12th), Microsoft Security Suite (32nd)
Proofpoint Email Protection
Ranking in Digital Risk Protection
3rd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
109
Ranking in other categories
Email Security (1st), Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) (2nd), Office 365 Protection (1st), Secure Email Gateway (SEG) (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2026, in the Digital Risk Protection category, the mindshare of Microsoft Purview Communication Compliance is 4.5%, up from 0.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Proofpoint Email Protection is 2.8%, up from 1.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Digital Risk Protection Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Proofpoint Email Protection2.8%
Microsoft Purview Communication Compliance4.5%
Other92.7%
Digital Risk Protection
 

Featured Reviews

reviewer2840445 - PeerSpot reviewer
Data Engineering Senior Specialist at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Data lineage and quality checks have streamlined team-wide collaboration and business context
The biggest friction point or frustration I have encountered with Microsoft Purview Communication Compliance is cost-wise it is acceptable, but sometimes unexpected errors will occur, though this happens very rarely. There are features I wish Microsoft Purview Communication Compliance had that it does not provide today. Enterprise-level lineage is one such feature. As of now, if Microsoft were to provide this tool for free when you buy Microsoft Fabric, I feel that would be better. This would also result in lower license costs. I do not have any changes I would make to Microsoft Purview Communication Compliance at this time.
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

"Microsoft Purview Communication Compliance helps with extra collaboration and ensures communication is within the framework."
"Microsoft Purview Communication Compliance has impacted my organization positively; it is a good tool that provides an end-to-end business view for a particular organization."
"The time it saves is very useful."
"Customer support is excellent."
"The features I appreciate the most in Microsoft Purview Communication Compliance include the ability to build cases, give them dates, and find them based on the notes that I left behind."
"Proofpoint Email Protection has reduced the analyst overhead in responding to phishing incidents by several orders of magnitude."
"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 provides visibility into people-based risk within my organization, and I am able to see which users have a higher risk rate."
"Proofpoint Email Protection's initial installation is straightforward. It took us less than a day to complete the implementation."
"The setup was easy."
"We have noticed a huge improvement in productivity of the users by clearing up their inbox of malicious emails and spam, and it has also prevented and secured our environment on a daily basis, making the security team's job much easier."
"It is a very scalable solution."
"Proofpoint Email Protection has improved operational efficiency, simplifying our internal processes and consolidating what used to be four or five different portals into a single, seamless login experience."
 

Cons

"The product should incorporate more automation with the help of AI."
"The biggest friction point or frustration I have encountered with Microsoft Purview Communication Compliance is cost-wise it is acceptable, but sometimes unexpected errors will occur, though this happens very rarely."
"Microsoft Purview Communication Compliance can be improved by having more tutorials available for those who aren't used to using this platform."
"Monitoring and compliance for web applications could be improved."
"The reporting section could be enhanced. I like some reports but if they could allow us to create custom reports with more flexibility it would enhance the reports more."
"They do not have an on-demand scan for the internal viruses and internal users, and they don't have a scan for the exchange server against viruses and spam as Symantec does."
"Proofpoint Email Protection can be improved in that it is quite a large product, so learning how to be fully conversant in it can take some time within the team; this is probably the biggest challenge at the moment for us, getting everyone fully conversant to support the product."
"The licensing cost of Proofpoint Email Protection is a lot higher than other solutions, such as Barracuda."
"To improve Proofpoint Email Protection, I suggest improving the UI from the pod to align with the new admin.proofpoint.com interface, as the pod is still existing for a reason, but the interface is definitely outdated."
"There have been a few cases where an obvious phishing email has not been blocked, but perhaps Proofpoint Email Protection was still learning and needed some extra time to figure out that the email was malicious."
"I feel Proofpoint Email Protection can be improved by providing a better user experience."
"The Secure Mail aspect should have an Outlook add-in, instead of an external dashboard that outside users have to access."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"Annually, it costs us about $92,000. This is pretty much what it costs us. There is no additional cost."
"It is expensive."
"The licensing is basically $8/user."
"The price is reasonable."
"The solution is expensive."
"Pricing has recently been increased and the cost is a downside"
"We sell annual licenses for this solution."
"Customers pay around $90,000 yearly for a 1,000-user organization, with the subscription license being the main expense, apart from implementation fees."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
14%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Outsourcing Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Outsourcing Company
7%
Computer Software Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business28
Midsize Enterprise24
Large Enterprise62
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Microsoft Purview Communication Compliance?
The biggest friction point or frustration I have encountered with Microsoft Purview Communication Compliance is cost-wise it is acceptable, but sometimes unexpected errors will occur, though this h...
What advice do you have for others considering Microsoft Purview Communication Compliance?
The scope of Microsoft Purview Communication Compliance is a team-wide workflow. The first thing I do when I open Microsoft Purview Communication Compliance is check how many workspaces are availab...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Microsoft Purview Communication Compliance?
Microsoft Purview Communication Compliance is a bit expensive, $500 per license, but it is cheaper compared to products like ComplyAd, GeoComply, and ComplyAdvantage.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Proofpoint Email Protection?
Proofpoint Email Protection is not the cheapest option, but the pricing is reasonable for large enterprises where email security is a major concern. The cost mainly depends on the number of users, ...
What needs improvement with Proofpoint Email Protection?
There are some shortcomings on the Proofpoint end. The email protection tool works before the delivery of the email to the client, and there is another console called threat response in Proofpoint ...
What is your primary use case for Proofpoint Email Protection?
I work for a company that provides email services to our client, so we act as a mediator. We mostly deal with threat emails that are flagged up. The architecture is layered, so we also use Microsof...
 

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 Microsoft Purview Communication Compliance vs. Proofpoint Email Protection and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
907,372 professionals have used our research since 2012.