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Microsoft Defender for Office 365 vs Proofpoint Intelligent Compliance Platform 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:
 

Categories and Ranking

Microsoft Defender for Offi...
Ranking in Email Archiving
1st
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
62
Ranking in other categories
Email Security (2nd), Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) (2nd), Microsoft Security Suite (8th), Secure Email Gateway (SEG) (1st)
Proofpoint Intelligent Com...
Ranking in Email Archiving
6th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
5.5
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
eDiscovery (15th), Compliance Management (14th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2026, in the Email Archiving category, the mindshare of Microsoft Defender for Office 365 is 15.1%, down from 36.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Proofpoint Intelligent Compliance Platform is 4.9%, up from 1.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Email Archiving Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Microsoft Defender for Office 36515.1%
Proofpoint Intelligent Compliance Platform4.9%
Other80.0%
Email Archiving
 

Featured Reviews

Emeka Ndulu - PeerSpot reviewer
Cloud Solutions Architect at a tech services company with 201-500 employees
Improves threat visibility and response while reducing manual tasks and training users against phishing
I appreciate the attack simulation feature whereby I get to train users and educate them on how to identify phishing emails and spam emails, as well as the anti-spam protection. It gives me visibility into my threat environment and threat landscape to ensure that I am one step ahead of any likelihood of threats within my environment. I get to detect it and respond, so the threat intelligence is very effective. Microsoft security solutions save my time. It saves money because once I protect my environment, I don't lose money. It has decreased my detection time and my time to respond.
Anita Brüggemann - PeerSpot reviewer
System Administrator at emco Bautechnik GmbH
Effectively reduces spam and malicious emails with reliable detection capabilities
It would be helpful to make it easier for end users to filter and see items in the quarantine within the Proofpoint Intelligent Compliance Platform. As an admin, I believe it would be sensible if end users could also see the quarantine folder in the Proofpoint Intelligent Compliance Platform so they can create their own rules. The reports are all predefined, and I cannot create custom reports, so I am not fully satisfied with their visibility. I would appreciate the ability to generate my own reports.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The insights provided with Microsoft Defender for Office 365 are helpful because it comes with the E5 license, and by default, we can use a lot of capabilities."
"Microsoft Defender for Office 365 helps people to work remotely. It is a secure solution. We don't need to use our company's computers or get VPN connections to the networks. I can control how they share screens and what they send to the devices. It keeps our organizations confidential and sensitive information safe."
"The two main features that prove most beneficial for us are URL scanning and attachment scanning."
"Microsoft Defender for Office 365 has improved my organization's security. It makes it easier to manage the infrastructure without the help of third-party applications."
"It has helped us in improving our security posture; it detects any kind of attack or abnormal behavior in accessing the system and sends an alert to the administrator who can check, understand, and review on time to ensure that all activities are legit."
"Microsoft Defender for Office 365 is a stable solution."
"Microsoft Defender for Office 365's most valuable feature is its performance."
"At the moment we are satisfied with this product. It's a stable, scalable, and resilient solution for us."
"Our experience with the platform has been positive as it has maintained consistent control over spam and malware threats."
 

Cons

"If you look at other products, such as Wiz or Palo Alto's cloud, because they also have similar components in terms of how they protect cloud infrastructure or enable cloud security, Microsoft Defender for Office 365 is not up to that extent."
"I'd like some additional features any product can give me to protect our environment in a better way."
"In some situations, it has not been able to pick impersonated emails having no attachments. Technical support definitely has a scope for improvement."
"Microsoft sometimes has downtime, and we'll get several incidents coming in back to back. We have a huge backlog of notifications, many of which may be false positives. However, there might be serious alerts, so we can't risk dismissing all of them at once."
"Specifically, within Microsoft Defender for Office 365, I want it to improve the DLP capabilities."
"There needs to be an improvement in having the product work across multiple operating systems and have better support for non-Microsoft file types."
"We need a separate license and we don't know how to get the license that is required."
"Microsoft could improve by offering recommendations for domain spoofing attacks, especially scenarios where DNS records like SPF, DKIM, and DMARC are not properly published."
"The Proofpoint Intelligent Compliance Platform does not provide features that help reduce manual efforts, so additional human resources are still required to manage security."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"From the pricing point of view, like any other product in the market, there is scope for negotiation."
"The product is very expensive."
"The solution could be better by simplifying the business model of their licensing. It was hard to figure out how to get the licensing done for the environment, initially."
"The pricing is normal. Considering its popularity, it's not overpriced."
"The license is expensive because the cost is based on the number of users."
"Compared to other brands, Microsoft Defender for Office 365's pricing is competitive."
"It is much more expensive than using another solution because we have had to include some options and upgrade our license."
"Microsoft Defender for Office 365 comes with Microsoft Windows. It is free with the operating system."
Information not available
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Construction Company
17%
Manufacturing Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Comms Service Provider
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business24
Midsize Enterprise12
Large Enterprise32
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Microsoft Defender for Office 365?
My experience with pricing, setup, and licensing is that it's actually quite reasonable even on the licensing side as a standalone product. It's very competitive compared to what competitors are ch...
What needs improvement with Microsoft Defender for Office 365?
I think Microsoft Defender for Office 365 can be improved by creating more educational pieces about not just looking for malware. We are seeing a lot more malware-less emails that Defender for Offi...
What is your primary use case for Microsoft Defender for Office 365?
My main use cases for Microsoft Defender for Office 365 include email hygiene.
What needs improvement with Proofpoint Intelligent Compliance Platform?
It would be helpful to make it easier for end users to filter and see items in the quarantine within the Proofpoint Intelligent Compliance Platform. As an admin, I believe it would be sensible if e...
What is your primary use case for Proofpoint Intelligent Compliance Platform?
We use the Proofpoint Intelligent Compliance Platform because it has a good ability to detect viruses and malicious emails, and it collects a lot of spam emails. Since we use this platform, the spa...
What advice do you have for others considering Proofpoint Intelligent Compliance Platform?
It is a cloud-based deployment of the Proofpoint Intelligent Compliance Platform. We worked with an internet provider, who is also a security provider, and it took one day to deploy it on the cloud...
 

Also Known As

MS Defender for Office 365
Proofpoint e-discovery and Analytics, Proofpoint Enterprise Archive
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Microsoft Defender for Office 365 is trusted by companies such as Ithaca College.
The Guardian Life Insurance Company of America
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft, Mimecast, Barracuda Networks and others in Email Archiving. Updated: May 2026.
893,915 professionals have used our research since 2012.