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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 November 2025, in the Security Awareness Training category, the mindshare of KnowBe4 is 23.2%, down from 31.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Proofpoint’s ZenGuide is 7.4%, up from 2.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Security Awareness Training Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
KnowBe423.2%
Proofpoint’s ZenGuide7.4%
Other69.4%
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

"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."
"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."
"Their customizable nature allows us to create scenarios that closely resemble real-world phishing attempts, making them highly relatable to our end users."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"Proofpoint's ZenGuide analytics provides many useful reports that we can access on the dashboard."
 

Cons

"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."
"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."
"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."
"The training program is very interactive, but sometimes it is hard to follow the process, particularly the steps."
"I would like to see Novo4 expand to other channels outside of emails to things such as text messages."
"I feel that the marketing of KnowBe4 needs improvement because many people need to know more about the types of cyber securities that exist."
"I don't find KnowBe4's real-time insights and analytics very useful because I found it a bit repetitive."
"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

"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."
"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."
"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%
Healthcare Company
6%
Manufacturing Company
20%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Computer Software Company
10%
Comms Service Provider
7%
 

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?
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: September 2025.
872,869 professionals have used our research since 2012.