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Kiteworks vs Proofpoint Email Protection comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 5, 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

Kiteworks
Ranking in Email Security
27th
Ranking in Secure Email Gateway (SEG)
9th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
13
Ranking in other categories
Enterprise Content Management (15th), Managed File Transfer (MFT) (7th), Content Collaboration Platforms (14th)
Proofpoint Email Protection
Ranking in Email Security
1st
Ranking in Secure Email Gateway (SEG)
1st
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
110
Ranking in other categories
Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) (5th), Digital Risk Protection (5th), Office 365 Protection (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2026, in the Secure Email Gateway (SEG) category, the mindshare of Kiteworks is 2.4%, up from 0.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Proofpoint Email Protection is 16.7%, down from 20.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Secure Email Gateway (SEG) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Proofpoint Email Protection16.7%
Kiteworks2.4%
Other80.9%
Secure Email Gateway (SEG)
 

Featured Reviews

KT
Associate Consultant at a tech consulting company with 10,001+ employees
Streamlined global file sharing with user-friendly interface and self-service capabilities
I'm not a network expert, however, there must be some room for improvement. Perhaps there could be a notification to users about their bandwidth or network packet loss. If users receive such notifications, they can understand any disruptions are due to issues with their network or bandwidth rather than the site or Kiteworks. Additionally, I work from offshore India, and I told my client manager to communicate with the Kiteworks forum salesman regarding one feature. I noticed the Kiteworks login UI is very basic, lacking customization. Allowing more HTML tags to add hyperlinks or user-friendly information on the home page would be very useful.
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

"The solution removes the limitations with file attachment size that is found with regular email."
"I can identify from which region our users are uploading or downloading files."
"We can see when people are sending things. We can definitely see who is sending to whom. From the administrative logs, we can see who is sending to an outside entity, and those logs are retained for quite a while."
"The top two features are the two-factor authentication, which is pretty good. It's easily understood by the users. And their API is rather robust. We have numerous integrations that work off the API."
"The most valuable aspect of Kiteworks is undoubtedly the private content network. This feature is particularly beneficial for us. Furthermore, it serves as a centralized platform that enables us to track and manage our information exchange."
"Kiteworks is easy to manage and maintain with a user-friendly interface and I recommend it to anyone that requires a file-sharing system that supports SFTP."
"The most useful feature of this solution is to share files with external parties and we can use this functionality to share files internally too."
"The best part of this solution is that we can generate multiple reports about how the data is transferred and about user information or IP."
"A lot of automation is present, and the quarantining of malicious emails and these processes are good and really help us in the investigation as well as the remediation part."
"The archive feature is valuable."
"Proofpoint Email Protection is stable enough and does its job of virus, malware, and email scam detection. Setting it up is not too complicated."
"The solution offers very good flexibility. You can blacklist or whitelist with ease."
"Proofpoint Email Protection has positively impacted my organization by significantly reducing the risk of employees clicking a malicious link or the company getting compromised."
"Proofpoint Email Protection has positively impacted my organization because it has done its job; the company we support does not have any sort of vulnerability attacks by having it in place."
"URL scanning and online relay service are the most valuable features of Proofpoint Email Protection."
"I recommend all of my customers to migrate and start using Proofpoint as it is secure, minimizes risk, and eliminates phishing attacks."
 

Cons

"Kiteworks could benefit from enhancing the proposal knowledge base section, specifically regarding the type of work involved. Currently, the knowledge base seems insufficiently dedicated to this topic, making it challenging for new users to access the relevant administrative law. Improving the visual aids and providing clearer explanations could alleviate this issue."
"Perhaps there could be a notification to users about their bandwidth or network packet loss."
"There is no offboarding process for end-users in Kiteworks. It's a manual process. There is no automated syncing with LDAP and checking to see if the account is still active. It's a manual process to get people out of here, which isn't the best way."
"The one feature, which I have also requested directly to Kiteworks, is to have a scheduled upgrade function. Currently, one of my engineers logs in after hours for the upgrade. We're a hospital, and we're 24/7, but the primary users are seven to five. So, we log in the early evening just to push a button to tell it to do the update. It would be nice if that could be very easily scheduled."
"I noticed the Kiteworks login UI is very basic, lacking customization. Allowing more HTML tags to add hyperlinks or user-friendly information on the home page would be very useful."
"I would like to see immediate releases of fixes because now it takes at least a week. If that time span can be reduced to one day or two days, that would be very helpful for users so that things are sorted and transactions work smoothly."
"It would be nice if Kiteworks could provide a free version of the platform so that it could be used for a certain number of file transfers. We could be charged a fee if we exceeded the number of allotted file transfers."
"We mainly had stability issues with kiteworks, where we were pushing the limits of its capability."
"The stability and UI are the two areas of the solution with certain shortcomings that need improvement."
"I think Proofpoint Email Protection could be slightly more intuitive."
"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."
"As far as visibility goes, it is definitely attainable, but additional appliances must be purchased for Proofpoint. I would rate visibility at approximately 50 to 60 percent."
"I feel Proofpoint Email Protection can be improved by providing a better user experience."
"Everything with Proofpoint Email Protection has room for improvement in my opinion."
"For Proofpoint Email Protection, when it comes to support, there are times when they do not meet the SLAs for support, mostly on Fridays."
"Filtering false positives is highly challenging because it is impossible for humans to identify which emails are genuine and which are spam."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution is very expensive because we are buying with Malaysian Ringgit and it's sold in US dollars."
"The license management is changing and confusing. If I could make one change to it, it would be better license management through the API."
"They changed it midstream. We were being charged a certain flat rate for SFTP traffic. For whatever reason, at the beginning of the year, our pricing changed, and we are now being charged more for using a feature of the product than we were when we first bought it. That has been our experience with billing. It turned out to be more expensive than when we started with it."
"I believe it's a little costly, but given the faith that we put into it from a security perspective to maintain the integrity of our patient information that is being transferred through this system, that's a small price to pay. So, on the surface, it might look like a lot of money, but depending on the need for security, which is where we feel it shines, it's okay price-wise."
"It is not really expensive. I mean, to me it's obviously expensive, but it's worth it."
"The price of Kiteworks is reasonable."
"The price is reasonable."
"The licensing is basically $8/user."
"The solution charges per user per month to use it. There are not any additional fees in addition to the standard living fees."
"The solution uses a licensing model that is reasonable compared to other products."
"The licensing model for Proofpoint Email Protection is simple. It's based on the number of users. Price-wise, Proofpoint Email Protection is a five out of ten because it's a pretty expensive 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."
"Proofpoint is fairly expensive."
"Proofpoint Email Protection has comparable pricing."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
12%
Comms Service Provider
11%
Government
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Outsourcing Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Comms Service Provider
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business3
Large Enterprise11
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business31
Midsize Enterprise23
Large Enterprise62
 

Questions from the Community

What is Kiteworks?
Kiteworks is a secured file sharing platform that enables users to collaborate with different parties across a robust offering of secured protected channels. Users have the option of virtual privat...
What needs improvement with Kiteworks?
I'm not a network expert, however, there must be some room for improvement. Perhaps there could be a notification to users about their bandwidth or network packet loss. If users receive such notifi...
What advice do you have for others considering Kiteworks?
Scalability is impressive. It can be highly available, resilient, and scalable infrastructure. I can confidently give it a nine. It suits any level of organization, whether a small setup with two a...
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

Accellion
Proofpoint Enterprise Protection, Proofpoint Digital Protection
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

United States Securities and Exchange Commission, National Health Service, Husch Blackwell LLP, NYC Health + Hospitals, Viatris, MITRE Corporation, Chubb, Kraft Heinz, KPMG, Kohler, National Institute of Standards and Technology, Purdue Pharma, AVL
Blocket, University of Waterloo, Lincoln Memorial University, WellSpan Health, U-Haul, Carestream Health, Westinghouse
Find out what your peers are saying about Kiteworks vs. Proofpoint Email Protection and other solutions. Updated: October 2026.
920,769 professionals have used our research since 2012.