We performed a comparison between Microsoft Defender for Office 365 and Proofpoint Email Protection based on our users’ reviews in four categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Comparison Results: Based on our users’ reviews, Proofpoint Email Protection is a more reliable, effective, and dependable solution. Users cite the Anti-Phishing functionality as second to none. The whitelisting/blacklisting process keeps things very secure. Users are not only satisfied with the outcomes but relate that it has helped reduce analyst overhead, saved time and money, and improved the overall effectiveness of the entire email process.
"Cisco Secure Email Cloud Gateway has allowed our users to be able to concentrate on the emails that they do receive. Previously, our users had to deal with nine million additional emails across the organization, which is nearly 1,000 emails per user to have to deal with a month. That's a massive amount for our staff to deal with and probably several hours of their time. We have a lot of clinical staff, being a hospital. We want to make our staff as productive as possible. By removing a lot of that spam and phishing type emails, this allows them to do their job."
"The malicious URL scanning, as well as the anti-malware features, have been really useful for us in our environment."
"It is doing its work. It is doing what it was actually designed to do. It has ensured we don't have business email compromises, and it has also ensured that our brand Galaxy is unique all year round."
"It's flexible. There are a lot of rules and policies that can be easily applied for certain employees or certain mailboxes."
"It has an intuitive, clear graphical interface where you can deploy your policies and understand the overall flow. There are a lot of things that you cannot handle on the graphic interface, like message filters. For this, you need to go to a lower level where you have more power, like command line interface. So, this solution has the best of both worlds. There are not a lot of bells and whistles. It is more practical with access to most features that you can configure."
"I love the Advanced Malware Protection feature. It works very well... The appliance has more security such as SDF, DKIM, DMARC, and encryption."
"What I find the most valuable about Cisco Secure Email is that the logs are not that difficult to see even if you're not used to them. The logs are reasonably readable and diagnosing the problem is not too hard with them."
"The added value of it is that every migration to a new version is initiated by the Cisco version itself, so that is a bunch of work that you don't have to do on the Cisco ESA system on-premise. As it becomes a safe platform, you don't need to invest anything in your own data center or in your upgrade path."
"Safe attachments, safe links, policies, and the ability to protect from zero-day threats are the most valuable features."
"Microsoft Defender for Office 365 is a stable solution."
"I would say that 90% of the spam and phishing attack emails get blocked right off the bat."
"Threat Explorer is one of the features that I very much like because it is a real-time report that allows you to identify, analyze, and trace security attacks."
"It also gives me good visibility because, with Defender, I'm using a Microsoft product to defend Microsoft products. The integration was really seamless and I have wide visibility because it picks up almost everything. Literally, I can see almost every activity that happens, from the e-mail to the workstation itself."
"The most valuable feature is the integration. It's a single console, so we don't have to switch around between multiple products. Another valuable feature is the ease of operations and maintenance."
"The email protection is excellent, especially in terms of anti-phishing policies."
"The technical support is good and quick to resolve issues."
"The archive feature is valuable."
"The stability is very good."
"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 setup was easy."
"The solution is very user-friendly."
"Provides better control over emails, especially those sent via Office 365 on the cloud."
"The spam filter for email is good."
"The most valuable features of Proofpoint Email Protection are ease of use, data loss prevention, antivirus, and spam protection."
"The Forged Email Detection feature needs improvement, particularly with domain. The sensors are not that good and the rules sets are unclear."
"The area of license renewal should be improved. We normally renew our license every year. There is a feature called smart licensing, and I switched from the legacy mode to the smart licensing mode because of what I thought smart licensing does. I thought it would make licensing renewal seamless and very swift, but ever since I've switched to smart licensing, each time I want to renew my license, it is a whole lot of headache. The process is not smooth, and I had to keep calling Cisco TAC to see how the issue can be resolved. At one point, I wanted to revert back to the legacy mode, but I can't revert. Once you switch from the legacy mode to the smart licensing mode, you can't revert. They should improve on the visibility of the smart licensing mode so that it can indeed be smart and easier to use for the license renewal every year. That is one challenge."
"My opinion on the licensing of this solution is that it is a mess that needs sorting out. I am not particularly bothered by pricing as I administer it and make recommendations for people to buy or not to buy."
"We have Microsoft and we have the E5 licenses, they have more EDR responses on certain emails. That's something that Cisco ESA on the cloud doesn't have. They don't do anything about MITRE attacks. They only detect if there is a malicious email or a threat and they remove it."
"I would like more functionality and how to use it for Level 2 type staff. The biggest issue is it needs to be easier to use and navigate."
"If you are not a technical guy, it is hard to maneuver, but as soon as you work on it, it gets better and better. If there was a better way to know how to do things or how to find things, it would be good."
"We have been struggling in the last month with Cisco encryption and with the S/MIME encryption. I don't know if it is an issue on our side or if these features of the solution are not working very well."
"The UI is definitely one area of improvement because it doesn't match other interfaces and the navigation can be a little clunky."
"The company should focus on adding threats that the solution is currently unable to detect."
"This product's effectiveness could be improved, in terms of detecting unwanted spam or even malware between the emails, compared to other products."
"The custom alerts have to improve a lot."
"The visibility for the weaknesses in the system and unauthorized access can be improved."
"The only thing they should improve is the licensing model. They should stop changing it. A year ago, the five features I mentioned were included in one product. Now, three of them are bundled into one product, and you have to pay extra for the other two. I don't mind paying extra, but I don't want them to change it every year or every six months. I need to know what I'm looking at and not worry about it next year."
"There is room for improvement with the UI."
"Microsoft should provide more documentation for users so they can self-educate. I would like to see more documentation for advanced security features."
"It would be better if it were more scalable. It depends on the architecture, but we would like to make it more scalable for both data centers."
"Proofpoint Email Protection could improve by allowing more customization of the reports, such as exceptions and black-and-white lists."
"You only receive one model in Proofpoint Email Protection and the other ones you have to purchase at a high price. There should be more available with the solution and additional models should be less expensive."
"Proofpoint Email Protection has a new approach to email security with its API feature. Currently, it only works with Office 365. In the future, it would be beneficial if it also works with Gmail, as Check Point is currently the only brand that has API email security for Gmail. It would be beneficial if Proofpoint Email Protection could add this integration, they would be more competitive with other vendors."
"The solution's server console and cluster dashboard have been the same for four years so need to be upgraded."
"Proofpoint Email Protection could improve the Mail Trace feature and make navigation easier."
"The initial setup is complex."
"The accessibility of Proofpoint Email Protection, particularly access to product trials, could be improved. It's hard to get a trial for Proofpoint Email Protection, and many customers prefer not just to do the POC or demo but try the product out."
"Proofpoint has a lot of false alarms."
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Microsoft Defender for Office 365 is ranked 1st in Email Security with 19 reviews while Proofpoint Email Protection is ranked 3rd in Email Security with 25 reviews. Microsoft Defender for Office 365 is rated 8.0, while Proofpoint Email Protection is rated 8.0. The top reviewer of Microsoft Defender for Office 365 writes "Prioritizes threats across our enterprise and safeguards us from any incoming threats or viruses". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Proofpoint Email Protection writes "Powerful data analysis with robust algorithms, machine learning, and strong rules". Microsoft Defender for Office 365 is most compared with Mimecast Email Security with Targeted Threat Protection, Barracuda Email Security Gateway, Microsoft Exchange Online Protection, Fortinet FortiMail and Microsoft Defender for Identity, whereas Proofpoint Email Protection is most compared with Palo Alto Networks WildFire, Microsoft Exchange Online Protection, Fortinet FortiMail, Barracuda Sentinel and Trend Micro Email Security. See our Microsoft Defender for Office 365 vs. Proofpoint Email Protection report.
See our list of best Email Security vendors.
We monitor all Email Security reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.
If you're looking for Managed Email Security, it can be hard to decide between Microsoft Defender for Office 365 and Proofpoint Email Protection. It's like choosing between two delicious flavors of ice cream — both are good, but what flavor do you prefer?
Microsoft Defender for Office 365 is managed by Microsoft’s Security & Compliance Center and provides managed email security for Office 365 customers. It offers comprehensive protection against malicious emails, phishing attacks, and other advanced threats. On the other hand, Proofpoint Email Protection is managed by a third-party provider and provides managed email security for businesses of all sizes. While it doesn't have as many features as Defender, Proofpoint still offers robust protection against malicious emails, phishing attacks, and other advanced threats.
In the end, it comes down to personal preference. Do you prefer managed email security managed by Microsoft or a third party? It all depends on your individual needs. Whichever solution you choose, make sure that managed email security meets all of your requirements!