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

Kiteworks vs Proofpoint Email Protection comparison

Why PeerSpot?
 

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 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 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."
"As a file-sharing application, it's an absolute 10 out of 10."
"Scalability is impressive."
"We could see whether the customer with whom we shared a file had downloaded it, which was not available with GitHub."
"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 benefits that Kiteworks has provided to its customers in terms of data sovereignty."
"The solution can be used remotely, including from mobiles, and it's easy to upload and share files."
"At this point in time, there's nothing that needs to be changed or improved in the tool."
"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."
"Overall, we've been happy with the product and the results we've gotten."
"Proofpoint Email Protection has positively impacted my organization by definitely reducing the load on administrators for releasing emails and other spam operations that used to be handled by administrators."
"It's the top choice because no company can operate without security. Ensuring email protection is a major priority for any organization when building its infrastructure."
"Proofpoint is much more advanced and capable of safeguarding the infrastructure and protecting the customer landscape, specifically from an email and attachment point of view, in day-to-day operations compared to these solutions."
"The tool has improved our workflow by ensuring people receive only the emails they need for work rather than being inundated with hundreds or thousands of unnecessary emails daily."
"Out of these three, no other email gateway can be compared with Proofpoint Email Protection."
 

Cons

"In my experience, their technical support can be a little slow."
"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."
"The system is extremely stable, but because it is a "COTS" system access is restricted and you must use the solution's support to make even simple changes, which increases the downtime."
"We have experienced some issues with stability due to bugs."
"File location could be improved."
"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."
"It could be more stable. In the next release, it would be better if it was more stable with improved performance."
"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."
"The product's deployment is complex and requires technical knowledge."
"The support team was a bit slow."
"Proofpoint Email Protection's interface is confusing and could be improved."
"As a manager with multiple customers using Proofpoint Email Protection, having the ability to manage the admin console more efficiently would be beneficial."
"The accessibility of Proofpoint Email Protection, particularly access to product trials, could be improved. It's hard to get a trial for Proofpoint Email Protection, and many customers prefer not just to do the POC or demo but try the product out."
"One major threat is QR code phishing, along with TOAD (Telephone-Oriented Attack Delivery). TOAD attacks don't include links, URLs, or attachments in emails. Instead, attackers try to trick you into calling them, often by offering something enticing like a 50% discount on football matches."
"The only downside with Proofpoint Email Protection is the cost."
"There are a couple of pain points regarding uploading false negatives and other related issues."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"It is not really expensive. I mean, to me it's obviously expensive, but it's worth 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."
"The price of Kiteworks is reasonable."
"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."
"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."
"We sell annual licenses for this solution."
"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."
"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."
"Proofpoint is fairly expensive."
"Proofpoint Email Protection has comparable pricing."
"The licensing is basically $8/user."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Secure Email Gateway (SEG) solutions are best for your needs.
920,769 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

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.