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Proofpoint Email Data Loss Prevention (DLP) vs Symantec Data Loss Prevention comparison

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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

Cloudflare
Sponsored
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
75
Ranking in other categories
CDN (1st), Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection (1st), Managed DNS (1st), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (14th)
Proofpoint Email Data Loss ...
Average Rating
7.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
Data Loss Prevention (DLP) (35th)
Symantec Data Loss Prevention
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
59
Ranking in other categories
Data Loss Prevention (DLP) (4th)
 

Featured Reviews

Spencer Malmad - PeerSpot reviewer
It's easy to set up because you point the DNS to it, and it's working in under 15 minutes
Cloudflare is highly scalable. Cloudflare is a system with a web portal that the end users like me see. It's a console where we can adjust the DNS, caching, and security features all in that console. Cloudflare owns thousands of servers across the world that cache the data. It's a powerful solution. When clients sign up for Cloudflare, they're getting this monster content delivery network, security, and a web application firewall in one. It's all rolled into one, and it's massive. Unless you have your website hosted on a massive hosting provider, there's no way that you can deliver the amount of data that Cloudflare can provide to the end users. If you have static content, there's no way that you can ever match what Cloudflare can do. Obviously, there are competitors to Cloudflare that do the same, but I'm saying other types of solutions. Let's say you go with F5. Great, that's on-prem. That's in your colo. You can't deliver as much data to the internet as you can with a CDN. You don't have to spend $20,000 on a net scaler, F5, or whatever Cisco's selling now. You don't have to buy that. You pay them $50 a month or $150 a month. It's totally worth it because even in five years, you'll never get the performance value, not just the actual ROI. You have to consider how much throughput you can get with Cloudflare.
HP
Offers flexible licensing and easy setup, but has challenges with European compliance
It is difficult to meet the European security compliancy regulations using Proofpoint since it is very focused on the American market, differing significantly from European policies. Additionally, there is uncertainty about the future level of license pricing because American organizations sometimes change their product offerings. Barracuda's Active Directory checking feature is one area where Proofpoint could improve.
ARAVINDAN K - PeerSpot reviewer
Strengthened security operations with endpoint-level protection but database flexibility could improve
Symantec Data Loss Prevention has proprietary metadata and is well-suited for endpoint-level security. It stands out for supporting multiple protocols like email and SMTP without needing user profile login for endpoint agents. Once policies are downloaded to the local system, they function independently of a user's login. The solution helps enhance security operations when integrated with ServiceNow and offers robust incident response capabilities.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The most valuable feature of Cloudflare is the GUI. You are able to control the solution very well through the interface. There is a lot of functionality that is embedded in the service."
"Cloudflare consolidates various capabilities into one product, streamlining processes."
"Smaller businesses have seen great ROI due to the low investment and strong performance."
"The attacker won't have details since my public IP is anonymous. It offers us good privacy."
"The most valuable feature is the web application firewall."
"The most valuable feature of Cloudflare is that it has a free version. They give us the free version with the anti-DDoS features and also the load balancing solution."
"Easier http to https redirect using page rules"
"Cloudflare DNS is widely used, and it's good for websites. If we use Cloudflare DNS and update one record, it updates in their office instantly."
"We have too many features included in the solution. These include third-party malware detection as a primary feature and a secondary feature focused on dealing with various security threats."
"Proofpoint offers flexibility in licensing, accommodating various levels from small businesses to governments."
"Proofpoint offers flexibility in licensing, accommodating various levels from small businesses to governments."
"We can integrate with some other tools such as Splunk, which is very useful."
"We find the product is easy to manage and maintain."
"All of the features are really important, including DLP for the OCR and endpoint. It will be all of the combined features that will give you the strength to control the data. Every feature has its own uniqueness, different control and will help you to protect the data."
"The incident response capability has been instrumental in mitigating potential data loss."
"I'm able to track everyone who is trying to send information outside the environment and to know if they are not supposed to be sending it. I'm also able to see the people who are accessing or maybe try to access the information they are not supposed to be accessing based on their level of classification. It gives me overall control of who has got access to what and at what point. And who can do what with specific information."
"We work in the banking field. We deploy data loss prevention. Our branch protects our clients' data, credit card numbers, account numbers, and other confidential and sensitive data."
"The most valuable aspect of Symantec DLP is its powerful policy system."
"One of the most valuable aspects of this solution is its integration capabilities with Office 365."
 

Cons

"In the last two years, there has been a certain amount of downtime when using the VDM."
"For large enterprises, the pricing is okay. However, the enterprise price for small projects is a bit high. A mid-tier pricing option would be beneficial."
"Technical support is not well developed. While there are good engineers, Cloudflare does not offer hands-on technical support to fix customer problems but rather a self-service model."
"I believe they currently have this feature, but there will most likely be integration with APIs so we can control some features through API."
"Cloudflare doesn't have a reverse lookup. We can only do a DNS lookup to get the IP address from the hostname. It doesn't work if you want to look up the hostname from an IPA address."
"It should have easier documentation for the configuration. It's very technical and people who aren't technical should also be able to do the configuration."
"Even if I wanted to, I wouldn't be able to buy Cloudflare in my country."
"We're facing challenges due to an upgrade in the machine learning model. The problem arises from some users abusing the APIs, resulting in an influx of suspicious traffic. Cloudflare's learning model mistakenly identifies this traffic as human. Consequently, it assigns it a higher trust score, akin to legitimate human traffic, causing complications in our architecture. Previously, such traffic would have been categorized as suspicious, enabling us to apply appropriate blocking rules. However, we encounter difficulties distinguishing between genuine and suspicious traffic with the new categorization. Despite these challenges, overall, Cloudflare remains the preferred solution compared to Azure, AWS CloudFront, and Google Cloud Armor."
"The tool is expensive."
"It is difficult to meet the European security compliancy regulations using Proofpoint since it is very focused on the American market, differing significantly from European policies."
"It is difficult to meet the European security compliance regulations using Proofpoint since it is very focused on the American market, differing significantly from European policies."
"Agent configuration should be improved for easier interaction for users, particularly by allowing configuration changes to be done on a grid."
"In my opinion, Symantec DLP could improve by offering a better online service option, making it more competitive compared to Forcepoint. Performance could also be enhanced, especially in terms of prevention capabilities. Additionally, it would be beneficial to add features that allow for better policy integration with GDPR, such as international credit, bank account, or identity management. This would make it more straightforward for IT, especially in regions like Indonesia."
"Technical support is pathetic."
"We're not sure if there was an issue or a bug on the system recently because as of right now if someone sends out a compressed encrypted file, the DLP won't scan it."
"Symantec could improve by being more creative and simplifying the functions. Additionally, the data protection should be bundled with data classification and labeling instead of them being separate."
"There should be more information about the features of the solution and what they do. This way we would be able to use all the features that are available."
"This product is very powerful but it is very complex, so making it simpler to use would be an improvement."
"The product must improve its interface."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"That is one of the great features. I was able to access the majority of the features and services for free."
"For Cloudflare, I recommend it heavily for small businesses with revenue under a couple of million dollars. Onboarding is easy, and they even have a free plan. This makes it simple for businesses in the $100,000-$500,000 range to try it out and see its value, allowing them to scale up their infrastructure as needed."
"The pricing for the service is reasonable, neither excessively cheap nor prohibitively expensive. It aligns well with the value of their solution."
"The tool is a premium product, so it is very expensive."
"A free version of the solution is available."
"I think the pricing is competitive. I think as far as licensing is concerned it's pretty straightforward because it's based on domain. It's just that sometimes domains could be tricky with some customers."
"There are no additional costs beyond the standard licensing fees."
"I believe their performance has improved, but I'd like to refrain from discussing the pricing aspect related to the cloud. The pricing, in my opinion, could be simplified, and I think they should consider reevaluating the pricing for support, as it can be quite high. At times, this cost can make it challenging to choose CARFAGuard or opt for the support."
Information not available
"The price of the solution is expensive."
"The tool's licensing costs are yearly."
"From what I know the pricing is good, it's not too expensive. If you negotiate you can get a good price."
"The price is competitive."
"The product charges a little on the higher side."
"The price of Symantec Data Loss Prevention could be reduced."
"I think it is an expensive tool."
"I think that it's an expensive product, even as an enterprise-suite product."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
18%
Computer Software Company
14%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
No data available
Financial Services Firm
21%
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

Which is the best DDoS protection solution for a big ISP for monitoring and mitigating?
Cloudflare. We are moving from Akamai prolexic to Cloudflare. Cloudflare anycast network outperforms Akamai static GR...
Which would you choose - Cloudflare DNS or Quad9?
Cloudflare DNS is a very fast, very reliable public DNS resolver. It is an enterprise-grade authoritative DNS service...
What do you like most about Cloudflare?
Cloudflare offers CDN and DDoS protection. We have the front end, API, and database in how you structure applications.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Proofpoint Email Data Loss Prevention (DLP)?
The licenses for Proofpoint are effective, however, there is uncertainty about future pricing as American organizatio...
What needs improvement with Proofpoint Email Data Loss Prevention (DLP)?
It is difficult to meet the European security compliancy regulations using Proofpoint since it is very focused on the...
What is your primary use case for Proofpoint Email Data Loss Prevention (DLP)?
I know the portfolio of Proofpoint. I work with email backup and email security. Most of the time, I consult for vari...
What do you like most about Symantec Data Loss Prevention?
It can prevent copying and encoding of HTTP data to various sites like Google, and Webex.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Symantec Data Loss Prevention?
I do not have an idea about pricing, as it is handled by another team responsible for procurements.
What needs improvement with Symantec Data Loss Prevention?
A main disadvantage of Symantec DLP is its reliance on Oracle, especially compared to other products like Forcepoint,...
 

Also Known As

Cloudflare DNS
No data available
Symantec DLP
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Trusted by over 9,000,000 Internet Applications and APIs, including Nasdaq, Zendesk, Crunchbase, Steve Madden, OkCupid, Cisco, Quizlet, Discord and more.
Information Not Available
Hadassah University Hospital, Her Majestys Government (HMG), United Kingdom, Hitachi Consulting Software Services India Pvt Ltd., Hua Nan Bank, Hyundai Department Store Group,JW Marriott Hotel Seoul, Lake Health, McCann Erickson Israel, Molina Healthcare Inc., PGi, Quilvest Switzerland Limited, State of Nevada Public Employees Benefits Program, Symantec Corporation (Enterprise Security), The Royal Liverpool and Broadgreen University Hospitals NHS Trust, The Royal Liverpool and Broadgreen University Hospitals NHS Trust (DLP), The Saudi Industrial Property Authority, TSO cloud, Visa, Yunnan Power Grid Company
Find out what your peers are saying about Proofpoint Email Data Loss Prevention (DLP) vs. Symantec Data Loss Prevention and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
849,190 professionals have used our research since 2012.