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Microsoft Exchange Online Protection (EOP) vs Proofpoint Email Protection comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Feb 8, 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

Cloudflare One
Sponsored
Ranking in Email Security
20th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
22
Ranking in other categories
Secure Web Gateways (SWG) (15th), Data Loss Prevention (DLP) (21st), Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB) (11th), Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection (7th), Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) Solutions (13th), Access Management (12th), Bot Management (3rd), ZTNA as a Service (8th), ZTNA (3rd), Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) (10th), Remote Browser Isolation (RBI) (3rd)
Microsoft Exchange Online P...
Ranking in Email Security
7th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
42
Ranking in other categories
Anti-Malware Tools (11th)
Proofpoint Email Protection
Ranking in Email Security
1st
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
83
Ranking in other categories
Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) (3rd), Digital Risk Protection (3rd), Office 365 Protection (1st), Secure Email Gateway (SEG) (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2026, in the Email Security category, the mindshare of Cloudflare One is 1.5%, down from 1.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Exchange Online Protection (EOP) is 4.1%, down from 7.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Proofpoint Email Protection is 8.1%, up from 8.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Email Security Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Proofpoint Email Protection8.1%
Microsoft Exchange Online Protection (EOP)4.1%
Cloudflare One1.5%
Other86.3%
Email Security
 

Featured Reviews

CV
Network Architect at IP Dimension
Cloud security has improved remote access and has reduced costs for smaller client sites
I have used Cloudflare One's Identity-Aware Proxy, and it is quite straightforward from what I have seen so far. The app registration on the Azure side integrates fully into Cloudflare, and I am very satisfied with that part because it is easy to set up. The integration of Cloudflare One's Secure Web Gateway and Zero Trust Network Access works without any issues. That part is pretty automatic, and if you complete the rest of the setup, it comes together by itself with no issues from my side. What makes it nice is that we can actually start replacing on-site firewalls at this stage for the smaller clients because it does not matter if they go to a coffee shop or work from home; they are still secured by the same connection. The hops get shorter and you get better latency. We have done testing to see if it is better. One thing that we did notice with our proof of concept with our current client is that they have people connecting from the UK. When they used their previous VPN solution, uploading CAD drawings and other files to the server took a long time. They mentioned that it is much quicker on Cloudflare One's solution. I definitely believe that is part of the improved performance, and I am satisfied with that as well. What is nice about Cloudflare One is that it makes the setup easier and also easier to train technicians to maintain it. Compared to legacy systems, we do not need to get fancy firewalls in place that are costly. That is definitely also a cost-saver with Cloudflare One.
NancyHartman - PeerSpot reviewer
Business Process Manager/ Educational Technologist at a educational organization with 1,001-5,000 employees
Layered email security has protected sensitive research and still flags phishing in real time
The valuable features of Microsoft Exchange Online Protection (EOP) include providing an additional layer of protection, as it builds on the basic Exchange level of security that allows us to get our work done. Another feature I appreciate is the ability to question things, as our Exchange server allows us to identify in real-time if an email is a phishing email or spam email. It really helps us identify risks, especially through our external exchanges via email or through our cloud-based platforms. Our Exchange system blocks any embedded AI from all our applications and products, so we cannot use embedded AI in our daily work from our official laptops because we have secure information. The system is quite locked down.
AshishKochhar - PeerSpot reviewer
Information Technology Team Lead at a manufacturing company with 201-500 employees
Advanced email protection has blocked targeted attacks and reduces manual threat handling
I feel Proofpoint Email Protection is overpriced. I cannot say that the security level being provided does not justify the cost, but when comparing the similar level of security with other applications or security systems, it is overpriced. If Proofpoint could provide offers or discounts for customers who are already using the product or for new customers implementing it, along with some free services or add-ons, that would be helpful in terms of financial expense. Proofpoint Email Protection has recently introduced AI functionality in terms of data security capabilities and protecting AI assistance from targeted attacks. This is important since everything is now related to AI. The solution is doing threat detection and real-time threat detection and response pretty well. There are a few things I would like to see improved. Sometimes Proofpoint Email Protection takes time to analyze the workflow and the nature of the email. In this age of AI, the solution should analyze an email on the first receipt and determine whether it should pass or be marked as spam without checking previous data. Another improvement would be to have a more user-friendly dashboard. Additionally, if Proofpoint could add the same features in BCP as part of email protection in BCP, it would be helpful since I currently have to take a different add-on for BCP, and integrating it would save costs. I cannot say that threats have increased or decreased with Proofpoint Email Protection because it depends on the mail flow. The solution captures and filters out all threats, and the email threats vary every day depending on how many users are receiving how many emails per day. Today there might be 1,000 emails, tomorrow 5,000, and the day after 500. Proofpoint Email Protection does its job by scanning all emails and threats are reduced to some extent. Since I am aware that virus definitions are updated every day, I cannot blame Proofpoint Email Protection if they take time to determine the nature of an email being received. There are sometimes emails that are false positives, and Proofpoint Email Protection is a bit strict in analyzing false positives, sometimes stopping emails that are actually required. It analyzes the previous nature of an email and if a template looks like an informational template or related to spam, it blocks it because it looks similar to one blocked earlier. However, the template might actually be required. If I receive the same template today that is also blocked by Proofpoint Email Protection, that particular template might be useful and should not be blocked. In such cases, I have to raise it as a false positive stating that this is something in use or my users use and should be released. When AI starts doing its work, it analyzes the email from a sender with a particular template and releases it, but if the same email and template come from another sender, it blocks it according to the policies.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"I'm very satisfied with the environment and the dashboard."
"The capabilities of the software are strong enough for me to do what it's supposed to do. For me, we don't need to do a lot of configuration on our site. We just enable it and monitor it."
"The tool also offers good scalability, and the dashboard, along with real-time analytics, is very good."
"This solution is easy to understand and easy to configure."
"It is a stable solution."
"Clover is the best product globally."
"Cloudflare DDoS is better than its competitors for its security, deployment, and scalability."
"Cloudflare Access is part of the Zero Trust philosophy."
"Microsoft Exchange Online Protection (EOP) is used essentially for email filtering, acting as an anti-spam and security product for email."
"I like the product's ZAP feature."
"It's all running in the backend, so it doesn't affect the app functionality."
"It provides security to both on-premises and Azure infrastructures."
"It offers great security against malware and other threats."
"I rate Microsoft Exchange Online Protection (EOP) nine out of ten."
"The scalability is pretty good; it does what it is supposed to do."
"The initial setup of Microsoft Exchange Online Protection was easy."
"Proofpoint Email Protection has positively impacted my organization by significantly reducing the risk of employees clicking a malicious link or the company getting compromised."
"The most valuable feature of Proofpoint Email Protection is the blocking capabilities, it blocks a lot of potential threats."
"Proofpoint Email Protection has massively improved the attack surface and has limited a lot of user compromise events."
"That is why I can consider Proofpoint Email Protection as a number one vendor for email security."
"When I manage a SOC and Proofpoint Email Protection is integrated with it, it gives me a consolidated alert, so when phishing alerts come in it is slightly easier to manage, even my L1 incident response team from the SOC can easily understand the alerts, perform basic checks on VirusTotal, and create complete SOAR automation from that information."
"Proofpoint Email Protection is a good product, and its most beneficial feature is the Threat Response Auto-Pull. I also like that it's an integrated email security solution."
"The power, flexibility, configurability, and Proofpoint Email Protection's professional services were some of the biggest selling points for me at the time and the things that I benefited from the most."
"The most valuable feature is the option to edit the inbound security."
 

Cons

"Lacks a VPN feature to provide a secure connection to the data center."
"Cloudflare DDoS has poor technical support."
"From a logging perspective, it is still a bit difficult to see exactly what users are being blocked with the current views."
"The free plan has limitations. For example, I can only set up three rules, and the application firewall is unavailable."
"For the topic of improvement, providing some training material is one of my suggestions."
"The pricing is an area that can be improved. Pricing, as far as I recall, was the source of our problems."
"Our customers no longer use Cloudflare because its service is subpar."
"The initial onboarding was causing us some confusion."
"They should specify the difference between Defender for Office 365 and Exchange Online Protection."
"The product could be more stable. Microsoft products could be more stable because sometimes, even though they are updating some things, we cannot find those updates."
"I think the implementation could be more streamlined."
"Our company faces difficulty with Microsoft Exchange Online Protection (EOP) because it's too big, clunky, and difficult for a small client to implement quickly and easily."
"The tool is not 100% stable."
"Some features, like encryption, are not available."
"Microsoft has some training portals, but more could be developed."
"The solution must improve the user experience."
"Proofpoint Email Protection could improve the Mail Trace feature and make navigation easier."
"We have seen a reduction in phishing incidents with Proofpoint Email Protection, but not fully; it is not 100%, and there are still cracks within the walls of Proofpoint Email Protection that let this type of email in for various reasons."
"I want Security Awareness Training in there as a package deal. A lot of companies are starting to value email security a little bit more and take it a little bit more seriously, and the great product that we link together with a lot of these sales is a training product called Security Awareness Training. It is an upsell that we do with Proofpoint, and it is definitely something that I recommend everybody with email security to look into. It would be great if Security Awareness Training is included with the email security."
"The support team was a bit slow."
"The solution could be improved with the addition of PLP and email encryption features."
"The reporting section could be enhanced. I like some reports but if they could allow us to create custom reports with more flexibility it would enhance the reports more."
"Sometimes it doesn't detect actual spam emails, and sometimes it catches normal emails."
"We'd like to have the ability to create more customized reports."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing is somewhere in the middle. I would rate the pricing a seven out of ten."
"The prices are slightly expensive."
"My company has to make yearly payments towards the licensing costs attached to the solution. There are no hidden charges apart from the licensing costs of the solution."
"The solution is not that expensive."
"The price tag is no longer $200,000, but rather $300,000 to $400,000. It's twice."
"Cloudflare Zero Trust Platform's pricing is good."
"The pricing of the solution is cheap. The licensing cost is also very low. I rate the cost and pricing a three out of ten."
"The solution's pricing lacks transparency."
"Online Protection is fairly expensive."
"It is a low-price solution."
"The pricing of the solution is reasonable."
"The solution is priced high and could be less expensive compared to other solutions."
"It's a high price."
"The product's pricing is competitive for the US market."
"On a scale of one to ten, where one is cheap, and ten is very expensive, I rate the pricing a six. For licensing, we can make monthly or yearly payments. Right now, we pay 5 USD per month to secure a person's license."
"The product is bundled with Microsoft 365."
"Customers pay around $90,000 yearly for a 1,000-user organization, with the subscription license being the main expense, apart from implementation fees."
"They are competitively priced, but I have been forced to get quotes for other solutions now because they haven't been responding to requests to do the work that we would like them to do."
"We sell annual licenses for this solution."
"The solution is expensive."
"Proofpoint Email Protection is a reasonably priced product, which means that it is neither too low nor too high in terms of price."
"It is on a yearly basis. Their floor for SMB doesn't matter. The user count is 100 users and below at $2,500 a year. Its cost is higher than other solutions. It is probably about 20% to 30% higher than what you would get with Microsoft. There are no additional costs. All costs are factored in. It can be improved pricing-wise so that it is affordable for the SMB market."
"The tool's pricing depends on the customer's preference, offering options for an annual license or a monthly subscription. The cost varies based on factors such as the number of users and specific requirements. Overall, the pricing is competitive."
"I rate the price of Proofpoint Email Protection a four out of five."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Comms Service Provider
10%
Computer Software Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Computer Software Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
7%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business10
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise10
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business24
Midsize Enterprise7
Large Enterprise11
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business27
Midsize Enterprise23
Large Enterprise38
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Cloudflare Access?
Cloudflare Access has strong integration with Microsoft, among other platforms. However, when it comes to Kaspersky, ...
What is your primary use case for Cloudflare Access?
Cloudflare Access provides secure access to internal applications for employees, external members of the organization...
What advice do you have for others considering Cloudflare Access?
Cloudflare Access is one of the best integrations available. While about two hundred vendors offer similar services, ...
What do you like most about Microsoft Exchange Online Protection?
The initial setup was easy. The configuration process is very straightforward.
What needs improvement with Microsoft Exchange Online Protection?
From an end-user point of view, I am quite happy with Microsoft Exchange Online Protection (EOP) because my favorite ...
What is your primary use case for Microsoft Exchange Online Protection?
Microsoft Exchange Online Protection (EOP) serves as the main use case for my company because, as a research company,...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Proofpoint Email Protection?
I do not handle the pricing, setup cost, and licensing for Proofpoint Email Protection, but I think it's a bit pricey...
What needs improvement with Proofpoint Email Protection?
Some of the old portal features of Proofpoint Email Protection are missing in the new portal, so some of the settings...
What is your primary use case for Proofpoint Email Protection?
Proofpoint Email Protection is primarily used for anti-spam purposes. As other companies receive a lot of malware, ph...
 

Also Known As

Cloudflare Area 1 Email Security, Cloudflare Bot Management, Cloudflare Gateway, Cloudflare Zero Trust Platform, Cloudflare DDoS, Cloudflare SASE & SSE Platform
Microsoft EOP, MS Exchange Online Protection
Proofpoint Enterprise Protection, Proofpoint Digital Protection
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

23andMe
Information Not Available
Blocket, University of Waterloo, Lincoln Memorial University, WellSpan Health, U-Haul, Carestream Health, Westinghouse
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft Exchange Online Protection (EOP) vs. Proofpoint Email Protection and other solutions. Updated: March 2026.
884,192 professionals have used our research since 2012.