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Palo Alto Networks WildFire vs Proofpoint Email Protection comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Apr 20, 2025

Review summaries and opinions

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

ROI

Sentiment score
7.5
Palo Alto Networks WildFire efficiently prevents threats, reduces costs significantly, and integrates seamlessly for comprehensive real-time security.
Sentiment score
7.0
Proofpoint Email Protection effectively reduced threats and costs, excelling in phishing defense, leading to significant efficiency improvements.
The service generates a low rate of false positives, reducing the overhead of managing false positive events.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
7.3
Palo Alto Networks WildFire support excels for large companies, with varied quality and responsiveness for others, depending on region.
Sentiment score
7.3
Proofpoint Email Protection's customer service is praised for responsiveness and expertise, though some report slow responses or portal issues.
There is a lack of SLA adherence, and third-party partners do not provide prompt responses.
The support is quite difficult to access promptly.
The service response times are aligned with standards, responding within a few hours based on the problem's criticality.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
8.2
Palo Alto Networks WildFire excels in adaptability, scalability, and seamless integration, meeting diverse organizational demands and high-performance standards.
Sentiment score
7.6
Proofpoint Email Protection excels in adaptability and scalability, serving both small and large enterprises with ease and flexibility.
Wildfire is highly scalable.
Palo Alto Networks WildFire is scalable, and I give it a nine for scalability.
Proofpoint is scalable for multi-site organizations with thousands of users.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
8.4
Palo Alto Networks WildFire is highly reliable, stable, and efficient, excelling in large-scale deployments and seamless cloud integration.
Sentiment score
8.2
Users rate Proofpoint Email Protection highly for reliability and performance, with minor UI challenges and rare stability issues.
 

Room For Improvement

Palo Alto Networks WildFire needs improvements in cost, user interface, ease of deployment, integration, detection capabilities, and support efficiency.
Proofpoint Email Protection struggles with setup complexity, feature enhancements, pricing issues, and requires improved support and interface design.
The dashboard should provide better visibility, especially in showing how many files are sent to Wildfire and their findings.
The support could be improved, as it takes a while to get assistance from the vendors.
Proofpoint could expand its phishing detection capabilities to improve its efficiency.
More security could be implemented.
I may advise Proofpoint to adjust marketing solutions based on each country.
 

Setup Cost

Palo Alto Networks WildFire is valued for advanced security despite high costs, preferred by enterprises but challenging for smaller firms.
Proofpoint Email Protection is considered costly, with pricing starting at $8 per user and varying by features.
I would rate it an eight out of ten in terms of affordability.
Customers pay around $90,000 yearly for a 1,000-user organization, with the subscription license being the main expense, apart from implementation fees.
Additional costs do come in, but it enhances security.
 

Valuable Features

WildFire offers sandboxing, App-ID, and automation, excelling in threat detection with real-time updates and seamless integration.
Proofpoint Email Protection offers advanced threat defense, user-friendly interface, and seamless Office 365 integration for comprehensive email security.
Integrating Palo Alto Networks WildFire with various security protocols similar to a firewall has significantly improved the overall threat detection capabilities in our organization.
The most valuable feature of Wildfire is its sandboxing capability for examining suspicious files or locations.
The main feature I find most effective is that Proofpoint Email Protection scans emails and quarantines the doubtful ones.
The most beneficial feature of Proofpoint Email Protection is mostly spam filtering; it was very efficient, and we were very happy with the functionality as only relevant emails were allowed for mailboxes.
 

Categories and Ranking

Palo Alto Networks WildFire
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
69
Ranking in other categories
Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) (1st)
Proofpoint Email Protection
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
52
Ranking in other categories
Email Security (2nd), Security Awareness Training (2nd), Digital Risk Protection (3rd), Office 365 Protection (2nd), Secure Email Gateway (SEG) (3rd)
 

Mindshare comparison

Palo Alto Networks WildFire and Proofpoint Email Protection aren’t in the same category and serve different purposes. Palo Alto Networks WildFire is designed for Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) and holds a mindshare of 12.0%, down 12.4% compared to last year.
Proofpoint Email Protection, on the other hand, focuses on Secure Email Gateway (SEG), holds 21.9% mindshare, up 19.1% since last year.
Advanced Threat Protection (ATP)
Secure Email Gateway (SEG)
 

Featured Reviews

AjayKumar17 - PeerSpot reviewer
Enhanced cybersecurity with advanced sandboxing and effective in controlling DNS issues
Improvements are needed in the UI part. The dashboard should provide better visibility, especially in showing how many files are sent to Wildfire and their findings. This information should be integrated with the Dashboard so that system admins can see what is happening. Furthermore, technical support needs a lot of improvement, particularly in terms of responsiveness and adhering to service level agreements.
AhmedRamadan - PeerSpot reviewer
Optimize email security with effective sandboxing and auto Pull for quarantine
Proofpoint is used as an email security gateway for big enterprises, primarily for their on-premises servers. Many customers also use it alongside Office 365 Proofpoint offers a complete solution for email security with features like DLP, email archiving, and encryption. The most valuable…
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) solutions are best for your needs.
856,873 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Comparison Review

it_user206346 - PeerSpot reviewer
Mar 11, 2015
Cisco ASA vs. Palo Alto Networks
Cisco ASA vs. Palo Alto: Management Goodies You often have comparisons of both firewalls concerning security components. Of course, a firewall must block attacks, scan for viruses, build VPNs, etc. However, in this post I am discussing the advantages and disadvantages from both vendors concerning…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
8%
Educational Organization
18%
Computer Software Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

How does Cisco Firepower NGFW Firewall compare with Palo Alto Networks Wildfire?
The Cisco Firepower NGFW Firewall is a very powerful and very complex piece of anti-viral software. When one considers that fact, it is all the more impressive that the setup is a fairly straightf...
Which is better - Wildfire or FortiGate?
FortiGate has a lot going for it and I consider it to be the best, most user-friendly firewall out there. What I like the most about it is that it has an attractive web dashboard with very easy nav...
How does Cisco ASA Firewall compare with Palo Alto's WildFire?
When looking to change our ASA Firewall, we looked into Palo Alto’s WildFire. It works especially in preventing advanced malware and zero-day exploits with real-time intelligence. The sandbox featu...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Proofpoint Email Protection?
In terms of pricing, it is okay compared to others. I would say it is normal. Additional costs do come in, but it enhances security.
What needs improvement with Proofpoint Email Protection?
In terms of improvement, the price could be better. Additionally, more security could be implemented.
 

Also Known As

No data available
Proofpoint Enterprise Protection, Cofense PhishMe, Proofpoint Digital Protection
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Novamedia, Nexon Asia Pacific, Lenovo, Samsonite, IOOF, Sinogrid, SanDisk Corporation
Blocket, University of Waterloo, Lincoln Memorial University, WellSpan Health, U-Haul, Carestream Health, Westinghouse
Find out what your peers are saying about Palo Alto Networks, Microsoft, Fortinet and others in Advanced Threat Protection (ATP). Updated: June 2025.
856,873 professionals have used our research since 2012.