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KnowBe4 vs Proofpoint Email Protection vs Proofpoint’s ZenGuide 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 Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
KnowBe416.6%
Riot6.4%
Proofpoint’s ZenGuide6.3%
Other70.7%
Security Awareness Training
Secure Email Gateway (SEG) Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Proofpoint Email Protection20.9%
Microsoft Defender for Office 36521.4%
Mimecast Advanced Email Security16.5%
Other41.2%
Secure Email Gateway (SEG)
Security Awareness Training Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Proofpoint’s ZenGuide6.3%
KnowBe416.6%
Riot6.4%
Other70.69999999999999%
Security Awareness Training
 

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.
IS
Threat Hunter at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees
Email protection has reduced phishing workload and keeps unwanted messages out of inboxes
A few things about how Proofpoint Email Protection can be improved include implementing artificial intelligence within their platform to start really understanding the organization that is using their product, what sort of emails they are expecting and if the emails that are being expected should be let in and if the emails that are not being expected should not be let in. I'll give you a further example for this. If someone just tries to send an email from a Gmail address, which is a free public service email service provider, then because anyone in the world can create a Gmail account, I think it is nice and good for Proofpoint Email Protection to actually first check and do a reality check if we have received an email from this address and look at the intent of the email to really see what the email is trying to do and then classify based on that. I still see there is a lack. Hence why I started this conversation with AI and hoping that Proofpoint Email Protection will bring AI in and to really start analyzing these emails, the intent, and whether they really fit the customer organization. We are a manufacturing company, so whether it really fits that profile. I would say if we can get a better user experience from Proofpoint Email Protection products, that would be good. For example, other service providers that provide secure email gateway have the functionality where you can split promotional and bulk email and have them sent to a separate folder. I think if we can have that sort of feature, that would be great where Proofpoint Email Protection just keeps the important emails in the inbox folder and move everything else that is not really business related into a promotional, spam, bulk folder. This is an improvement that I would really like to see. I give it an eight because I am expecting a lot more from Proofpoint Email Protection, more automations, more understanding of who their customer is, what sort of business they do, and what sort of email they are supposed to be receiving and letting through. I think the day when I really have only 1% of work to do and 99% is automated by whatever automation services Proofpoint Email Protection uses would be ideal. I think I have covered any other improvements needed for Proofpoint Email Protection pretty well right from AI to splitting emails based on priorities. I think I have given some pretty broad and good examples.
EM
Project Manager at Fives Syleps
Has helped run awareness campaigns and phishing simulations but needs better multilingual support and user-level tracking
They have made good improvements, but there are still some limitations. For example, we have many entities and want each entity to have their own statistics. Additionally, in the fake phishing part, there is not one type for one language per campaign, as we have many languages. For running fake phishing campaigns, we are obliged to create specific campaigns for specific languages, and consolidation is not easy. It helps us make awareness activities, but it is not easy to evaluate the cybersecurity score for each user. If I take one user and compare their status six months ago to today, I want to know if their maturity score has increased or not. Proofpoint's ZenGuide has some limitations in that aspect. This function would be very important if implemented. It gives global statistics which is good, but sometimes we want to focus on each user, going through the company and groups. I want to know what a user's level was six months or one year ago compared to today across different cybersecurity activities in Proofpoint's ZenGuide. This includes monthly awareness, cybersecurity training, fake phishing campaigns, communication, and reporting malicious or suspicious emails. I want to have one score combining all these activities for each user to determine their global level. Having multi-language fake phishing campaigns would be beneficial. Currently, it is just one campaign per language, making consolidation difficult. In the future, for one campaign, the template should correctly assign the language type depending on the language used by the user.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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."
"Their support is very quick and informative, deserving a rating of 10."
"The ability to have business leadership be aware of their users' security posture as well as any kind of security awareness training being pushed by cybersecurity insurance and underwriters is valuable."
"Since we did not have any security program initially, this training program was introduced by our CTO as the first training program in our company."
"The training platform of KnowBe4 is engaging and interactive because it is user-friendly and easy to navigate, offering a variety of training formats."
"The impact of KnowBe4's automated training campaigns on the overall cybersecurity posture is quite comprehensive because it covers everything from the very basics of cybersecurity to evolving and emerging threats."
"The impact of KnowBe4's automated training campaigns on the overall cybersecurity posture is quite comprehensive because it covers everything from the very basics of cybersecurity to evolving and emerging threats."
"The main thing is the overall report card. We get to tell the percentages of users who click on links and who don't click on links. We also get an overall score or risk score from them, which also helps us."
"From a business perspective, the solution was very helpful as it speeded our business flow and increased email delivery."
"The solution's technical support is good. I rate the technical support a ten out of ten."
"The most valuable feature of Proofpoint Email Protection is the central location dashboard for viewing all the related information for risk."
"Proofpoint Email Protection's initial installation is straightforward. It took us less than a day to complete the implementation."
"It is a very scalable solution."
"The most valuable features of Proofpoint Email Protection are ease of use, data loss prevention, antivirus, and spam protection."
"I have seen a drop of about 90% in the number of phishing emails, malware, and other threats since using Proofpoint Email Protection."
"The solution scales well."
"I would definitely recommend Proofpoint's ZenGuide to others, as I think the branding and the ability to add your own branding on all different avenues, through the email communications, training, simulations, and everything, is probably the biggest advantage I've seen so far."
"Proofpoint's ZenGuide analytics provides many useful reports that we can access on the dashboard."
"Most valuable is the SSO integration with our AD, so the users can employ our federation service to log in."
 

Cons

"The training program is very interactive, but sometimes it is hard to follow the process, particularly the steps."
"In terms of improvement, we would appreciate having the attachments or more details on the raw messages used in the PhishER site, as sometimes it can be a bit buggy."
"KnowBe4 should focus more on these issues and provide guidance on dealing with links received from individuals who attempt to manipulate our emotions, particularly on social media platforms such as Facebook and LinkedIn."
"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."
"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."
"The training program is very interactive, but sometimes it is hard to follow the process, particularly the steps."
"I don't find KnowBe4's real-time insights and analytics very useful because I found it a bit repetitive."
"During the last downtime, it caused significant disruption as users couldn't access the system."
"Proofpoint should have better integration with complex environments that need more than one instance of Proofpoint, as there are issues with nested instances."
"As a manager with multiple customers using Proofpoint Email Protection, having the ability to manage the admin console more efficiently would be beneficial."
"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."
"Sometimes it detects false positives."
"The false positives are an issue."
"The solution's server console and cluster dashboard have been the same for four years so need to be upgraded."
"We have seen a reduction in phishing incidents with Proofpoint Email Protection, but not fully; it is not 100%, and there are still cracks within the walls of Proofpoint Email Protection that let this type of email in for various reasons."
"The solution could be improved with the addition of PLP and email encryption features."
"We would like to create reports for local IT leaders in a different way, more suitable for upper management."
"For running fake phishing campaigns, we are obliged to create specific campaigns for specific languages, and consolidation is not easy."
 

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."
"It's about five dollars a seat per month."
"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."
"Proofpoint Email Protection has comparable pricing."
"Proofpoint is fairly expensive."
"The licensing cost of Proofpoint Email Protection is a lot higher than other solutions, such as Barracuda."
"Clients pay for an annual subscription of Proofpoint Email Protection. Every client always finds it expensive."
"It is on a yearly basis. Their floor for SMB doesn't matter. The user count is 100 users and below at $2,500 a year. Its cost is higher than other solutions. It is probably about 20% to 30% higher than what you would get with Microsoft. There are no additional costs. All costs are factored in. It can be improved pricing-wise so that it is affordable for the SMB market."
"The price is reasonable."
"Pricing has recently been increased and the cost is a downside"
"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."
"received very good pricing, as we are also working with the Proofpoint spam appliances."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Construction Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
6%
Manufacturing Company
20%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Computer Software Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business5
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise10
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business22
Midsize Enterprise16
Large Enterprise21
No data available
 

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...
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 enh...
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 p...
What needs improvement with Wombat Security Education Platform?
They have made good improvements, but there are still some limitations. For example, we have many entities and want e...
What is your primary use case for Wombat Security Education Platform?
Proofpoint's ZenGuide is a solution that we have been working with for a long time. We use it each month for awarenes...
What advice do you have for others considering Wombat Security Education Platform?
We were trying to make comparisons between solutions to determine which would work better for our group. We have not ...
 

Also Known As

No data available
Proofpoint Enterprise Protection, Proofpoint Digital Protection
Proofpoint Security Awareness Training, Wombat Security Education Platform
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

West Aurora Public School District 129
Blocket, University of Waterloo, Lincoln Memorial University, WellSpan Health, U-Haul, Carestream Health, Westinghouse
Carnegie Mellon University, Royal Bank of Scotland, City of Garland, Texas
Find out what your peers are saying about KnowBe4, Huntress, Proofpoint and others in Security Awareness Training. Updated: January 2026.
881,757 professionals have used our research since 2012.