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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
36th
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
2nd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
57
Ranking in other categories
Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) (4th), Digital Risk Protection (3rd), Office 365 Protection (1st), Secure Email Gateway (SEG) (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2026, in the Email Security category, the mindshare of Fortra's Clearswift Secure Email Gateway is 1.0%, up from 0.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Proofpoint Email Protection is 8.1%, down from 8.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Email Security Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Proofpoint Email Protection8.1%
Fortra's Clearswift Secure Email Gateway1.0%
Other90.9%
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.
Steve Bradbury - PeerSpot reviewer
Consultant at Exelixis Inc
Email defenses have blocked advanced threats and provide deep visibility into risky users
The areas that have room for improvement in Proofpoint Email Protection include their cost of ownership, which is fairly high. To manage and run all their products, I have to list and manage administrators in seven or eight different places. That is too many places to keep track of since for this tool I have to go to one location, and for another tool I have to go to a different location. They need to simplify the administration management of administrators and consolidate that into one place for all their products. Access to all the different products is very scattered. For some products I go to one URL, and for different products I go to a different URL. They have a threat URL that has most of their products in it, but not all. They need to simplify the interface to show all the products I have access to in one location.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"A stable solution."
"Ability to create your own content-filtering policies with relative ease."
"They have customized security rules, mature rules, anti-virus protection, as well as email authentication similar to SPF, DKIM, and DMARC."
"The most valuable feature of Proofpoint Email Protection is the TAP Dashboard. It provides more detailed information that can be used for forensic analysis. This is an advantage that other email security providers, such as Cisco, IronPort, or Microsoft do not offer in their dashboards."
"I would recommend Proofpoint Email Protection to others because it is useful, simple to use, and provides whatever is required."
"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 solution offers very good flexibility. You can blacklist or whitelist with ease."
"The Tap and Trap features. They are the best features."
"The Phish Alarm button allows users to submit questionable emails for review and complete analysis."
"I like all the features with Proofpoint, such as how it filters the spam and marketing mail, lost reality mail, blocks phishing attacks, blocks malicious attachments, and stops phishing links. Also it can defend against the business email compromise impersonation technique. It is a complete solution for all email attacks. It filters for the bad, malicious attachments. If there is any executable file, it can be deleted. It is a good, complete solution."
 

Cons

"Malware needs improvement."
"FTP server and TRUST Manager functionality."
"Sometimes it detects false positives."
"There is room for improvement in detecting and preventing phishing attacks. While the solution performs well in some aspects, it struggles with phishing threats."
"The flexibility of the solution can 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."
"The high cost of the product is an area of concern where improvements are required."
"We find the cost to be prohibitive."
"It's scalable, but the devil's in the details — you have to know your email volumes."
"The solution's server console and cluster dashboard have been the same for four years so need to be upgraded."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"We sell annual licenses for this solution."
"The end customer is buying our solution, which can be for monthly or annual usage depending on our payment and business model."
"The price is reasonable."
"It is expensive."
"I rate the price of Proofpoint Email Protection a four out of five."
"The solution charges per user per month to use it. There are not any additional fees in addition to the standard living fees."
"I rate the product price a seven on a scale of one to ten, where one is low price and ten is high price."
"The solution uses a licensing model that is reasonable compared to other products."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
12%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Educational Organization
8%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business22
Midsize Enterprise15
Large Enterprise19
 

Questions from the Community

Ask a question
Earn 20 points
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Proofpoint Email Protection?
In terms of pricing, it is okay compared to others. I would say it is normal. Additional costs do come in, but it enhances security.
What needs improvement with Proofpoint Email Protection?
I have not seen specific outcomes or metrics since implementing Proofpoint Email Protection, such as a reduction in phishing incidents or improved response time. Proofpoint Email Protection can imp...
 

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: February 2026.
881,455 professionals have used our research since 2012.