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KnowBe4 vs Proofpoint’s ZenGuide comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 12, 2025

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
4th
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 October 2025, in the Security Awareness Training category, the mindshare of KnowBe4 is 25.8%, down from 33.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Proofpoint’s ZenGuide is 7.3%, up from 2.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Security Awareness Training Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
KnowBe425.8%
Proofpoint’s ZenGuide7.3%
Other66.9%
Security Awareness Training
 

Featured Reviews

Amran Hossain - PeerSpot reviewer
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
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

"Their support is very quick and informative, deserving a rating of 10."
"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."
"It has helped us tremendously in cybersecurity awareness."
"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."
"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 benefits I have seen from using KnowBe4 include that many people are now cautious."
"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."
"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."
"Proofpoint's ZenGuide analytics provides many useful reports that we can access on the dashboard."
"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

"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."
"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."
"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."
"Enhancing the product's emotional intelligence, particularly by providing training content tailored to specific audiences, is an area for improvement."
"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."
"I would like to see Novo4 expand to other channels outside of emails to things such as text messages."
"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 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."
"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."
"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
13%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Construction Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Manufacturing Company
20%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Computer Software Company
11%
Performing Arts
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business5
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise9
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 them highly relatable to our end users.
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 needs improvement with Wombat Security Education Platform?
I do not have many recommendations for improvements for Proofpoint's ZenGuide right now. I am still fairly new to it, so I might find some recommendations as I use it more, but at the moment, I don...
What is your primary use case for Wombat Security Education Platform?
Our use cases for Proofpoint's ZenGuide involve training company-wide on security awareness, phishing, and running phishing simulations every quarter or so.
What advice do you have for others considering Wombat Security Education Platform?
I am not actually sure about the compliance enforcement capabilities of Proofpoint's ZenGuide, so I cannot comment on whether that has an impact. Based on my experience, I would rate Proofpoint's Z...
 

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: September 2025.
872,008 professionals have used our research since 2012.