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KnowBe4 vs OpenText Core Security Awareness Training​ vs Proofpoint Email Protection comparison

 

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:
 

Mindshare comparison

Security Awareness Training Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
KnowBe413.7%
Riot8.0%
Proofpoint’s ZenGuide5.7%
Other72.6%
Security Awareness Training
Security Awareness Training Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
OpenText Core Security Awareness Training​1.9%
KnowBe413.7%
Riot8.0%
Other76.4%
Security Awareness Training
Secure Email Gateway (SEG) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Proofpoint Email Protection19.5%
Microsoft Defender for Office 36517.0%
Mimecast Email and Collaboration Threat Protection15.9%
Other47.6%
Secure Email Gateway (SEG)
 

Featured Reviews

Amran Hossain - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Software Engineering Manager at Field Nation
Training program enables comprehensive security awareness and cautious email practices
One feature that would be highly beneficial in a future release is the ability to automatically send training articles or security tips to users on a regular, scheduled basis—for example, weekly or monthly. While the current training modules and phishing simulations are highly effective, ongoing awareness is equally important to keep security top of mind in day-to-day operations. These short, digestible articles or micro-learning content could cover recent phishing trends, real-world examples of security breaches, or quick tips on secure online behavior. Periodic delivery would serve as a continuous learning touchpoint, reinforcing key concepts from the main training and adapting to evolving threats. Ideally, this feature would also include personalization, allowing content to be tailored based on a user’s role, previous training performance, or common mistakes observed in phishing simulations. This kind of proactive, lightweight training approach could significantly enhance employee engagement with security practices and help maintain a strong security posture over time.
reviewer1584120 - PeerSpot reviewer
Sr. IT Solutions Architect at a computer software company with 11-50 employees
User-friendly, has a good training content library and training videos, but it is not effective and the customization has limitations
We used it with one or two of our clients and were not impressed with it, so we stopped using it. We started using an alternative. We had a client who was looking for Security Awareness Training. We were using Weber but the client was not happy with it. We are using a different solution. The ability for customization has limitations. With the different phishing emails and different templates, you weren't really able to change specific things that we had wanted, or make specific changes that we felt comfortable with. When it came to sending it out to our users, it seemed to make it more confusing than it did to actually solving anything. It wasn't as effective as we had originally hoped just based on the content we were able to send out. They may have made some changes but during the time we used it, it just was not effective, and it didn't work with as many of the users as we would have liked.
Vivek_Jaiswal - PeerSpot reviewer
Cyber Security Senior Specialist at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Advanced email defenses have protected healthcare staff and simplified incident response
There are many things that could be improved, but once you are very well-known about this application, you could perform that improvement plan. There are many scenarios where I have worked with Proofpoint Email Protection where a requirement was not fulfilled due to the limitation of the product. For example, we have Report Phish automation. With Proofpoint Email Protection, we can configure Report Phish and forward the email to any email addresses or shared mailboxes that we provide in the configuration. That email is forwarded as is with whatever the user reports as a phishing email. However, some organizations do not want the reported phishing email to go as is into their ticketing tool because it might contain malicious attachments and malicious links that are not required to go into their internal organization. Proofpoint Email Protection has that limitation. They cannot forward or restrict, but could forward only limited information such as some header information, sender subject details, or only limited information. As it is, the email can be forwarded, not as limited information. Proofpoint TRAP solution also has limitations. It cannot create alert notifications for some specific requirements because Proofpoint works the way it is designed, and if you want it to work based on our requirement, that should not be possible. There is a scope of limitations here. There are many improvements that should be made. First, they should work on their false positive minimization. Proofpoint generally takes all emails, investigates them, and classifies them. There are many situations where legit emails are blocked because that domain is found to be under a malicious category somehow, but actually it is not. False positive minimization could be improved, and they could enhance their other applications or solutions. There are many things that they could improve from each application and each portal.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The main advantages are the user-friendly UI and its overall ease of use."
"KnowBe4 has a lot of high-quality content, and their interface is very user-friendly."
"KnowBe4 has a training program that lasts approximately 15 or 30 minutes, and we provide this security training for our employees so they learn which emails they should open, which links they should click, which links they should not click, and which software they should install."
"We brought our risk score down from about 20 to 15, and now instead of clicking on a link, end users call our IT departments or help desk if they are not sure of a link, which is actually very helpful."
"Most valuable for me are the interactiveness and format of KnowBe4; it has a realistic format—for example, when I'm taking the phishing simulations, the modules give me examples of the real phishing types that might be in my mailbox and how to deal with them."
"It has helped us tremendously in cybersecurity awareness."
"The benefits I have seen from using KnowBe4 include that many people are now cautious."
"KnowBe4's formulas for risk reduction simply work. Being a technical company, our initial phish-prone percentage wasn't super high, but it was still around 18%. Since we have been requiring ongoing training and simulated phish testing, our average phish-prone percentage hovers in the 0 to 3% range now."
"There are several training courses and well-put-together edited videos."
"The GUI works well and it is really well built."
"A one-stop shop for email protection"
"Proofpoint Email Protection has massively improved the attack surface and has limited a lot of user compromise events."
"My advice to others is the solution seems to be good and stable with a very easy-to-use user interface."
"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 flexibility is unbelievable and you could get extremely creative to accommodate real case scenarios."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is that it's a one-stop shop for email protection."
"The Tap and Trap features. They are the best features."
"The anti-spam features are excellent on the email firewalls."
 

Cons

"As an exceptional product, they are relatively expensive, but it is worth it because compared to offline education with hired dedicated people, it would be much more expensive and not obviously more efficient."
"It can be more interactive with users. We want to put the users in different scenarios and let them make decisions. For example, instead of making users go through a video and then asking questions, it can have a video where they click on the scenarios and have to make decisions. It can maybe have something like a live simulation. It would be nice for users."
"The training program is very interactive, but sometimes it is hard to follow the process, particularly the steps."
"Some courses have the same type of content, the same type of page. But not too much, I think some repeated content exists in multiple courses in KnowBe4."
"I feel that the marketing of KnowBe4 needs improvement because many people need to know more about the types of cyber securities that exist."
"Much of the content they have might not be required, and that might cause frustration, especially when you're trying to implement a cybersecurity program where you're training your entire workforce, as it may frustrate someone if they're forced to do training on how to set a password."
"It does not have an easy way to sync your users and pull emails together."
"It could be more localized for Ukrainian users. This platform is international, and it has a lot of material in different languages, but not in Ukrainian and Russian languages. There's plenty of different content updated regularly for English, French, and German users. They have a lot more information, and Ukrainian users also want more."
"We used it with one or two of our clients and were not impressed with it, so we stopped using it."
"The ability for customization has limitations."
"I have not noticed much change in operational efficiency after implementing Proofpoint Email Protection, but the process execution is light."
"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 false positives are an issue. There are many false positives that come in, which you report to Proofpoint."
"I feel there is still room for improvement because many features are in POD and not yet available in the Admin Portal."
"I believe if the GUI were more user-friendly for people using it for the first time, or if there were more training available for end users to share with them, that would be good."
"As an enterprise, we have high demands on the services, and if we have to wait for something like a week or weeks, it is not acceptable; we need solutions in one or two days sometimes because if there is spam going around, you cannot wait weeks."
"Every client always finds it expensive, but I don't know how much they're paying for it."
"I think Proofpoint Email Protection could be improved if the user interface portals could be consolidated into a single portal, as there are currently four, five, or six separate ones."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I don't know the cost, but I believe we are paying yearly. We did like a three-year or five-year contract. I am not aware of any extra costs in addition to a standard licensing fee."
"Licensing is paid on a yearly basis. You can go to the official site to check their approximate pricing. It's based on the number of users or staff. It can vary from country to country, but for Ukraine, it works as it's stated on the site."
"I rate the product pricing as four out of ten."
"It's about five dollars a seat per month."
"We were able to find an alternative that had more open-source and more customization that was at a cheaper price point."
"The solution is expensive."
"Clients pay for an annual subscription of Proofpoint Email Protection. Every client always finds it expensive."
"We sell annual licenses for this solution."
"Annually, it costs us about $92,000. This is pretty much what it costs us. There is no additional cost."
"It is expensive."
"The price is reasonable."
"In general, the pricing is competitive."
"The licensing is basically $8/user."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
10%
Computer Software Company
10%
Construction Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
7%
No data available
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business5
Midsize Enterprise5
Large Enterprise10
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business29
Midsize Enterprise24
Large Enterprise52
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about KnowBe4?
Their customizable nature allows us to create scenarios that closely resemble real-world phishing attempts, making th...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for KnowBe4?
I would not know about the pricing because it has been subsidized for us, so I am not fully aware of the actual cost.
What needs improvement with KnowBe4?
I have a challenge with the stability while using KnowBe4. I have made an observation regarding the login process. Fo...
Ask a question
Earn 20 points
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Proofpoint Email Protection?
This is not something that I deal with regarding pricing, setup cost, and licensing.
What needs improvement with Proofpoint Email Protection?
For a beginner level, someone who is very new to email security might find it difficult to manage as an admin. Naviga...
What is your primary use case for Proofpoint Email Protection?
Proofpoint Email Protection serves as our email security solution. The entire SOC team uses Proofpoint Email Protecti...
 

Also Known As

No data available
No data available
Proofpoint Enterprise Protection, Proofpoint Digital Protection
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

West Aurora Public School District 129
Pink Hat Technology Management
Blocket, University of Waterloo, Lincoln Memorial University, WellSpan Health, U-Haul, Carestream Health, Westinghouse
Find out what your peers are saying about KnowBe4, Huntress, Proofpoint and others in Security Awareness Training. Updated: April 2026.
892,776 professionals have used our research since 2012.