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Proofpoint Email Protection vs VMRay 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

Proofpoint Email Protection
Ranking in Advanced Threat Protection (ATP)
3rd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
83
Ranking in other categories
Email Security (1st), Digital Risk Protection (3rd), Office 365 Protection (1st), Secure Email Gateway (SEG) (2nd)
VMRay
Ranking in Advanced Threat Protection (ATP)
29th
Average Rating
5.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
Anti-Malware Tools (24th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2026, in the Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) category, the mindshare of Proofpoint Email Protection is 5.3%, down from 12.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of VMRay is 1.1%, up from 0.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Proofpoint Email Protection5.3%
VMRay1.1%
Other93.6%
Advanced Threat Protection (ATP)
 

Featured Reviews

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.
GC
Pre-Sales at Frux
Has a valuable IP tracing feature, but is an expensive solution
We use this solution for authorization and more on the false positive verification IP tracing is the most valuable feature. The technical support needs improvement.  I have been using VMRay for two and a half years. The technical support team is not good.  Negative The initial setup is…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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 superior to other third-party applications such as Cisco IronPort or FireEye, as it is really very comfortable to use, easy to operate, easy to manage, easy to take actions, easy to deploy, and easy to migrate."
"Proofpoint provides an expandable project model, including DLP, email archiving, and encryption, which makes it a complete email security solution."
"Proofpoint Email Protection is stable enough and does its job of virus, malware, and email scam detection. Setting it up is not too complicated."
"When those bad emails are kept out of the gate, and the user can just focus on the email that matters most to them, I think that is how much Proofpoint Email Protection is impacting the entire organization."
"Proofpoint Email Protection offers an additional layer of protection compared to other brands like Microsoft, Mimecast, and Barracuda. While these major companies excel at detecting malicious attachments, the solution goes further by analyzing the context of emails, allowing for more nuanced decision-making."
"The most valuable feature is the ability to remove bad messages that were delivered, prior to being classified as unwanted."
"IP tracing is the most valuable feature."
 

Cons

"As an enterprise, we have high demands on the services, and if we have to wait for something like a week or weeks, it is not acceptable; we need solutions in one or two days sometimes because if there is spam going around, you cannot wait weeks."
"Some use cases haven't been dealt with yet."
"My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing for Proofpoint Email Protection is that it is somewhat on the higher end and more premium, but it is a good product."
"The high cost of the product is an area of concern where improvements are required."
"The management portal of Proofpoint Email Protection has an outdated UI that requires an update for better usability."
"There have been a few cases where an obvious phishing email has not been blocked, but perhaps Proofpoint Email Protection was still learning and needed some extra time to figure out that the email was malicious."
"The false positives are an issue."
"I would want better spear phishing protection in the essentials package."
"The technical support needs improvement."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I rate the price of Proofpoint Email Protection a four out of five."
"The licensing cost of Proofpoint Email Protection is a lot higher than other solutions, such as Barracuda."
"It is expensive."
"The price is reasonable."
"In general, the pricing is competitive."
"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."
"Proofpoint Email Protection is a reasonably priced product, which means that it is neither too low nor too high in terms of price."
"The licensing is basically $8/user."
"The solution is overly priced."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
11%
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
6%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Computer Software Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business28
Midsize Enterprise23
Large Enterprise38
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

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 compared to other solutions, even though we found no competitor with comparable...
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 could be modernized. The TRAP mail gateway product of Proofpoint Email Protecti...
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, phishing emails, and unwanted bulk email, Proofpoint Email Protection stops unwant...
What needs improvement with VMRay?
The technical support needs improvement.
What is your primary use case for VMRay?
We use this solution for authorization and more on the false positive verification.
 

Also Known As

Proofpoint Enterprise Protection, Proofpoint Digital Protection
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Blocket, University of Waterloo, Lincoln Memorial University, WellSpan Health, U-Haul, Carestream Health, Westinghouse
National Bank of Canada, Carbon Black, Cloudmark, Cyberint, Expel, G Data Advanced Analytics, Jisc
Find out what your peers are saying about Palo Alto Networks, Microsoft, Proofpoint and others in Advanced Threat Protection (ATP). Updated: February 2026.
884,266 professionals have used our research since 2012.