No more typing reviews! Try our Samantha, our new voice AI agent.

Fortra's Clearswift Secure Email Gateway vs Proofpoint Email Protection comparison

Why PeerSpot?
 

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
31st
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 September 2026, in the Email Security category, the mindshare of Fortra's Clearswift Secure Email Gateway is 1.2%, up from 0.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Proofpoint Email Protection is 5.9%, down from 7.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Email Security Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Proofpoint Email Protection5.9%
Fortra's Clearswift Secure Email Gateway1.2%
Other92.9%
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.
Siva_Prasad - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Consultant at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
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."
"Go for it! I think it's an excellent product with great technical support."
"Ability to create your own content-filtering policies with relative ease."
"A stable solution."
"The power, flexibility, configurability, and Proofpoint Email Protection's professional services were some of the biggest selling points for me at the time and the things that I benefited from the most."
"The biggest ROI for us was when it stopped a ransomware attack, which could have cost us a ton of money and been detrimental to the company, so it basically paid for itself right there."
"Proofpoint Email Protection has provided top shelf email protection services and has prevented breaches and loss of data."
"Proofpoint Email Protection has reduced the analyst overhead in responding to phishing incidents by several orders of magnitude."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is that it's a one-stop shop for email protection."
"Compared to other products, Proofpoint's real-time threat intelligence makes it less noisy; they collect and share threat information effectively, which benefits all customers."
"That is why I can consider Proofpoint Email Protection as a number one vendor for email security."
"Using Proofpoint Email Protection has successfully reduced the volume of emails that we need to review."
 

Cons

"Malware needs improvement."
"FTP server and TRUST Manager functionality."
"I am not satisfied with Clearswift because of the lack of customer support."
"I chose 9 out of 10 because it is based on the customization of exporting logs, and the user experience of the rule-based alerting and the portal is slightly lacking, which is why I deducted that one point."
"There are a couple of pain points regarding uploading false negatives and other related issues."
"I would want better spear phishing protection in the essentials package."
"Every client always finds it expensive, but I don't know how much they're paying for it."
"The solution could be improved with the addition of PLP and email encryption features."
"It became very expensive due to the nature of local circumstances, and I may advise Proofpoint to adjust marketing solutions based on each country."
"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."
"I have not noticed much change in operational efficiency after implementing Proofpoint Email Protection, but the process execution is light."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"We sell annual licenses for this solution."
"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."
"The price is reasonable."
"Clients pay for an annual subscription of Proofpoint Email Protection. Every client always finds it expensive."
"The solution is expensive."
"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 licensing is basically $8/user."
"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."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Email Security solutions are best for your needs.
912,788 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
12%
Construction Company
12%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Retailer
9%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Outsourcing Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
10%
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

Ask a question
Earn 20 points
What needs improvement with Proofpoint Email Protection?
To improve Proofpoint Email Protection, I suggest breaking down the URL into one versus three different GUIs. Regarding Proofpoint Email Protection's AI capabilities, I think its governance and sec...
What is your primary use case for Proofpoint Email Protection?
My main use case for Proofpoint Email Protection includes phishing emails, spam, URL isolation, and training. I utilize the email protect portal to ensure that none of our employees in any of the b...
 

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: September 2026.
912,788 professionals have used our research since 2012.