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KnowBe4 vs Proofpoint’s ZenGuide comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 18, 2026

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

KnowBe4
Ranking in Security Awareness Training
1st
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
5.8
Number of Reviews
18
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Proofpoint’s ZenGuide
Ranking in Security Awareness Training
3rd
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
2.7
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2026, in the Security Awareness Training category, the mindshare of KnowBe4 is 13.7%, down from 28.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Proofpoint’s ZenGuide is 5.7%, up from 4.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Security Awareness Training Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
KnowBe413.7%
Proofpoint’s ZenGuide5.7%
Other80.6%
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.
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."
"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."
"I appreciate the training methodology. It is detailed with videos and real examples about handling phishing emails and dealing with social media links received through WhatsApp, email, or other platforms."
"KnowBe4 has a lot of high-quality content, and their interface is very user-friendly."
"There are many valuable features; it's already deployed in the cloud, and you don't have to install anything, you just upload your users to the cloud and tweak something if needed, you can whitelist some servers to work with this properly, and when everything is ready, you can start using the platform and its many automated features."
"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 solution is very well priced and very affordable."
"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."
"Proofpoint's ZenGuide analytics provides many useful reports that we can access on the dashboard."
"Wombat has given our users a heightened sense of security awareness, and as a result, the click rate on phishing emails has dropped significantly."
"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."
"Most valuable is the SSO integration with our AD, so the users can employ our federation service to log in."
 

Cons

"Enhancing the product's emotional intelligence, particularly by providing training content tailored to specific audiences, is an area for improvement."
"It does not have an easy way to sync your users and pull emails together."
"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."
"This product has a questions and answers section which is in text form. It could be updated to include a video game format where an employee uses the game to answer these scenarios."
"I feel that the marketing of KnowBe4 needs improvement because many people need to know more about the types of cyber securities that exist."
"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."
"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."
"I don't find KnowBe4's real-time insights and analytics very useful because I found it a bit repetitive."
"For running fake phishing campaigns, we are obliged to create specific campaigns for specific languages, and consolidation is not easy."
"We would like to create reports for local IT leaders in a different way, more suitable for upper management."
 

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."
"I rate the product pricing as four out of ten."
"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."
"It's about five dollars a seat per month."
"received very good pricing, as we are also working with the Proofpoint spam appliances."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
10%
Computer Software Company
10%
Construction Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Manufacturing Company
20%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Computer Software Company
7%
 

Company Size

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

Questions from the Community

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. For every login attempt, because my organization uses KnowBe4 with a large staff s...
What is your primary use case for KnowBe4?
We use KnowBe4 as a training platform where we have many training videos to watch and complete quizzes for my organization.
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 each entity to have their own statistics. Additionally, in the fake phishing part...
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 awareness, DMARC, and email security. Proofpoint's ZenGuide is used for the awareness co...
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 yet used CyberGuru extensively; it was just for testing purposes. The metrics we...
 

Also Known As

No data available
Proofpoint Security Awareness Training, Wombat Security Education Platform
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

West Aurora Public School District 129
Carnegie Mellon University, Royal Bank of Scotland, City of Garland, Texas
Find out what your peers are saying about KnowBe4 vs. Proofpoint’s ZenGuide and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.
893,221 professionals have used our research since 2012.