No more typing reviews! Try our Samantha, our new voice AI agent.
reviewer2809023 - PeerSpot reviewer
Cyber Security Engineer at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
Real User
Top 20
Mar 19, 2026
Email defenses have reduced manual threat analysis and provide fast, centralized response
Pros and Cons
  • "Using Proofpoint Email Protection has successfully reduced the volume of emails that we need to review."
  • "Regarding improvements or enhancements in Proofpoint Email Protection, I find the platform somewhat chaotic. It has too many different sections that perform the same function, which is very confusing."

What is our primary use case?

Proofpoint Email Protection serves multiple purposes for our organization. We use it as an antispam solution, and while I am a user with some insight into the configuration rather than the administrator, my team helps the admins configure it to function as an antispam system. However, we primarily use it for detecting malicious emails that pass through the antispam layer.

The antispam layer is realized through the Email Protection section. We use the TAP dashboard extensively, along with the Threat Response part and the Report Suspicious Email button, which is a complementary product of Proofpoint known as the phishing button. We utilize all of these tools together.

How has it helped my organization?

Using Proofpoint Email Protection has successfully reduced the volume of emails that we need to review. It performs exceptionally well as both an antispam solution and as a layer that functions after the antispam when a user recognizes something suspicious or when it automatically detects something it previously allowed and notifies us on the platform. Everything is centralized, and the reaction time from there is very fast. The time to analyze an event overall is significantly reduced compared to before.

Regarding the time to respond to threats, it has improved with Proofpoint Email Protection's visibility and automation. The platform offers a centralized dashboard that allows us to select filters for all emails according to our constraints in that moment and manage many emails simultaneously. We had this capability before with Cisco, so the reaction time has improved as well.

What is most valuable?

The best features in Proofpoint Email Protection that I appreciate most are the capabilities to manage reports from users very effectively. When a user receives an email they believe is malicious and clicks on Report Suspicious Emails, the platform demonstrates very strong and granular capabilities to manage all these emails automatically, or if desired, we can also conduct further manual review. This is a very powerful tool from this perspective.

Proofpoint Email Protection has influenced the quantity of threats that our organization needs to protect against. We have largely covered this point already because Proofpoint functions as an excellent antispam filter and, combined with the closed-loop email analyzer that integrates the analyzer from the phishing button, the Threat Response, and the auto-pull capability, it automatically manages clusters of emails. The result is obvious.

What needs improvement?

Regarding improvements or enhancements in Proofpoint Email Protection, I find the platform somewhat chaotic. It has too many different sections that perform the same function, which is very confusing. If someone does not use the platform every day, which is normal for a SOC analyst because there may be rotation within the team and analysts do not always perform the same tasks, this is common in a Security Operation Center team. I would prefer the platform to be somewhat more simplified.

If asked about missing features in Proofpoint Email Protection, I believe the platform is generally good overall. Small improvements are always possible. The platform may lack some intuitive elements, which is consistent with the chaotic aspect I mentioned earlier. For instance, when opening an email on the platform that Proofpoint indicates is malicious, the platform states that this is a malicious URL or malware, but the question arises of how one knows this. Security analysts need much more technical details about the actual threat, and the platform does not provide such details. I do not know if this is because our company is very large and has both on-call and on-premise components, which might not work as well in such complex environments.

For instance, we often have difficulties retrieving emails when the platform indicates an email contains malware but we cannot retrieve it automatically with the trap. We must retrieve it manually and analyze it, but the platform often does not allow us to do this. We must proceed in other ways, such as contacting a forensic team and requesting extractions. Small improvements that could ease the analyst's life could be made.

Buyer's Guide
Proofpoint Email Protection
March 2026
Learn what your peers think about Proofpoint Email Protection. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: March 2026.
886,011 professionals have used our research since 2012.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been working with Proofpoint Email Protection since our organization adopted it in the last year. We are relatively new to the platform and have been using it for approximately six to seven months.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Regarding the stability and performance of Proofpoint Email Protection, I have not experienced any crashes, downtimes, or performance issues. When there are temporary problems with the platform, we always receive communication from Proofpoint. I believe they are reliable from this perspective.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Proofpoint Email Protection is truly scalable. As I mentioned, our organization is quite large, actually a group of companies, and we have adopted it for most of the companies. It works really throughout. Scalability is one of the positive points.

How are customer service and support?

I would evaluate the customer service and technical support team of Proofpoint Email Protection as reasonable. I was not directly involved but was involved in some email threats when we contacted support. I did not have much direct interaction with support, though it was more during the setup phase of the product. Since we have been using it for a few months, we found a feature called email deduplication that should work in a certain way but is not working. We asked for information, but the information never arrived to us. I do not know if this was an isolated episode. I have not had many interactions with support. I am familiar with support teams in general from other software companies I use, and often support teams are not particularly brilliant. I see something similar in Proofpoint as well.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

Prior to adopting Proofpoint Email Protection, we used Cisco ESA, which is the antispam solution from Cisco. We had it for approximately four to five years before transitioning to Proofpoint.

How was the initial setup?

The experience with the initial setup process of Proofpoint Email Protection was mainly with the administrator of the platform. We were involved only in certain points where decisions depended on us. I honestly do not know how the setup process went.

What about the implementation team?

I was not involved in the evaluation process for Proofpoint Email Protection because our organization is very structured, and for all these aspects, we have a dedicated team. We have a team for procurement, a team that scouts for solutions, a team that configures the solutions, and then we are often simply users. Regarding whether we had an internal team working or used any integrator, resellers, or consultants for the deployment of Proofpoint Email Protection, I do not have that information.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We decided to switch to Proofpoint Email Protection because we were not satisfied with Cisco. It appeared to be an old platform and somewhat chaotic. Proofpoint is also somewhat chaotic, but Cisco was significantly more chaotic than Proofpoint. Additionally, it did not function as well as an antispam filter.

What other advice do I have?

Proofpoint Email Protection's scope and range of threat protection capabilities address modern security challenges effectively as it performs very well for the email layer. We use it for that purpose. As far as I know, the platform also includes capabilities for phishing website takedowns, though we do not currently use that feature. Proofpoint actually covers the email layer comprehensively for the cybersecurity aspect, from antispam to the takedown of phishing websites to proactive research of internal threats on the email layer. It performs well, but it is limited to the email layer.

Regarding the level of visibility that Proofpoint Email Protection provides into people-based risk within our organization, in the Threat Protection Workbench there is a section for examining risks associated with people. We mostly focus on threats and look at this from that perspective. These are two sides of the same medal. We can look from one perspective or the other and end up with more or less the same finding. We actually use the threats part in the Threat Protection Workbench, which is also found in the TAP dashboard. That part is really effective because it automatically scans emails inside the company to find suspicious things that it did not previously identify.

Regarding messaging security for protection across cloud apps and file sharing services, we do not use that feature.

Based on my experience with Proofpoint Email Protection so far, I would recommend it as a tool because we are satisfied with it.

Disclosure: PeerSpot contacted the reviewer to collect the review and to validate authenticity. The reviewer was referred by the vendor, but the review is not subject to editing or approval by the vendor.
Last updated: Mar 19, 2026
Flag as inappropriate
PeerSpot user
Cyber Security Engineer at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees
Real User
Top 20
Mar 19, 2026
Email security has reduced analyst workload and improves user control over suspicious messages
Pros and Cons
  • "Proofpoint Email Protection is really good at what they do within their email protection niche."
  • "Everything with Proofpoint Email Protection has room for improvement in my opinion."

What is our primary use case?

Proofpoint Email Protection is strictly used for email protection in our organization. Approximately 2,500 users are using Proofpoint Email Protection. The usage varies across our environment since we have users who share computers in our stores as well as corporate users, so Proofpoint Email Protection is deployed across multiple different environments within the company.

What is most valuable?

One of the bigger features I appreciate in Proofpoint Email Protection is the personal digest for end users, which allows them to set up who they want to block, who they do not want to block, and whether they want to allow certain spam emails to come through.

Maintaining Proofpoint Email Protection is fairly straightforward. The primary maintenance task involves ensuring that items caught by Proofpoint are items we actually want to catch. When certain emails that should come through are blocked, we implement exclusions and manage rules at a mass scale, such as when leadership wants the entire environment to receive a specific email that is being blocked. This occurs very rarely, but it does happen occasionally.

Proofpoint Email Protection has minimal impact on our SOC analysts. If anything, it provides them with more time to focus on matters that are actually relevant. Since we still have user-reported emails in our environment, allowing Proofpoint Email Protection to catch the bulk of threats gives our SOC analysts time to focus on emails reported by actual users that may have been missed by Proofpoint. This is a significant benefit in catching potential true positives and helping us educate the environment on what constitutes normal spam versus concerning threats.

The visibility that Proofpoint Email Protection provides regarding people-based risk within the organization is good. The data it provides could be a little bit cleaner. There is simply a lot of data that comes in, so sometimes narrowing down those users who need more assistance with reporting or understanding their email behaviors can be a bit daunting. For the most part, Proofpoint Email Protection is a very straightforward application, and being able to find emails and understand what users are doing with their emails and how they are interacting with them is fairly straightforward and easy.

Having the main console for Proofpoint Email Protection has been beneficial. I have not had much experience with the unified console, so I cannot comment on it directly. From what I understand, if they have moved from multiple consoles to a single console, that would be a huge benefit, as having to go through multiple consoles to get the same data or information was daunting.

What needs improvement?

Everything with Proofpoint Email Protection has room for improvement in my opinion. One of the challenges I have dealt with is that searching for an email can be a little bit difficult. Overall menu navigation in their consoles would be improved if it were more straightforward regarding where to go to search for an email, where to access the containers or buckets, and how to put in new rules. These areas could be more user-friendly and less complicated.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have used Proofpoint Email Protection across multiple companies over a span of at least ten years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Proofpoint Email Protection rates as a nine in terms of stability.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Proofpoint Email Protection rates as a ten for scalability.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

I have used Google before with Proofpoint Email Protection and we have switched from that to Proofpoint. I have used Microsoft to a lesser extent, not as in depth as Proofpoint. I have also used something called FishMe, which is a smaller company, but we have used them before as well.

How was the initial setup?

I cannot speak to how Proofpoint Email Protection was deployed at my current company because I was not present for that deployment, as it was set up right before I came on board. At my last company, the deployment was fairly straightforward with Proofpoint Email Protection and not overly difficult. The hardest part was making the transition from how we had our previous email protection set up and allowing that to work in a similar manner within Proofpoint, but that was the extent of the challenges.

What about the implementation team?

Proofpoint Email Protection was a direct purchase. We worked with Proofpoint to obtain pricing and conduct a proof of concept to ensure it would work and fit in our environment. Fortunately it did, and we decided to stay with it after the proof of concept was completed.

What was our ROI?

A reduction of approximately fifteen percent across the metrics I mentioned is probably a fairly accurate assessment.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

I definitely think a proof of concept is the right approach for implementing Proofpoint Email Protection to ensure that the tool accomplishes the goals you want to achieve within your environment. Every environment is different, and while Proofpoint Email Protection is adaptable, there are sometimes other options available that might be more cost-effective and can accomplish the same level of security without having to adopt something as broad as Proofpoint Email Protection.

What other advice do I have?

Proofpoint Email Protection is good, and the company has a strong understanding of what is needed for email protection and security. They seem to do a good job of providing regular updates, as they use a trained AI model to catch threats and help analyze emails. They provide a good amount of regular updates with definition changes to allow for more accurate capture of malicious and potentially malicious emails coming in.

Proofpoint Email Protection is really good at what they do within their email protection niche. Navigating toward a single solution to handle everything can be seen as a detriment in my opinion. Having Proofpoint Email Protection as a dedicated email protection service is the biggest benefit they offer. My team and I are always looking for ways to consolidate, but it comes down to dollars and cents and what makes sense for the environment.

There have been very little changes that I have noticed in operational efficiency with Proofpoint Email Protection. However, I do not handle Proofpoint Email Protection from the perspective of being the engineer in charge of it; I only provide backup assistance when needed. I have seen a reduction in how much time our SOC analysts spend on false positives and a reduction in how many spam emails are reported by users outside of Proofpoint Email Protection. This definitely helps with time management and resource management internally.

For investigations with Proofpoint Email Protection, I would estimate approximately ten to fifteen percent improvement, as things are much easier to find and the data is much easier to access in Proofpoint Email Protection, especially if we have sender information and other relevant details. This has definitely sped up that process.

Consolidation of tools is always difficult because it is hard to say that one tool can do everything perfectly, especially when working in a large environment.

I would rate this review overall as an eight out of ten.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Public Cloud

If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?

Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
Last updated: Mar 19, 2026
Flag as inappropriate
PeerSpot user
Buyer's Guide
Proofpoint Email Protection
March 2026
Learn what your peers think about Proofpoint Email Protection. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: March 2026.
886,011 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Cyber Security Engineer Sme at Tata Consultancy
Real User
Top 20
Mar 18, 2026
Advanced email protection has reduced false positives and improves threat response automation
Pros and Cons
  • "In terms of detection of spam, malware, and virus, the detection is 99.9% accurate."
  • "I would like to see improvements in the transition from Proofpoint Protection Server to Proofpoint on Demand because Proofpoint Protection Server is not very user-friendly and requires logging into two portals for some features."

What is our primary use case?

In my environment, I am using Proofpoint Email Protection for advanced email threat protection. For malware, spam, and virus protection, we are using their email protection module and security module. I determine all policy routes, and all DKIM, DNS, and DMARC records are being managed by Proofpoint for us at the moment. Proofpoint Email Protection is our primary email server gateway for inbound and outbound communication. The MX is pointing to Proofpoint, and Proofpoint Email Protection is acting as the first point of contact for anything coming from outside to our internal users.

I purchased Proofpoint Email Protection through marketplaces. For a couple of years, I completely relying on Microsoft Exchange before adopting Proofpoint Email Protection. After that, I conducted many POCs with Proofpoint and then we recognized Proofpoint and started with Proofpoint on-premise, then I moved to Proofpoint on Demand, and I secured their TAP module, which is the advanced threat protection module. I then moved on to their threat response auto-pull module, and I also opted for the email fraud defense module. I currently have Proofpoint secure email relay, which we are using, and we gradually purchased their license for approximately 3,000 users for their security education platform, which is the Zen-Guide platform. All their modules are connected to each other and communicate very nicely with each other. If a threat is detected after it is delivered to the user's mailbox, Proofpoint Email Protection will still be able to detect it and the threat response will auto-pull it from the user's mailbox, which is a unique feature that I found absent in Microsoft. I have had a very good relationship with Proofpoint Email Protection over the last four years using almost all their available modules and products, and I am talking about using their adaptive email DLP in the future.

What is most valuable?

I would say the accuracy of Proofpoint Email Protection is valuable. When I compare it particularly with Microsoft, I am very impressed by the accuracy, the machine learning, and the detection algorithm that they have. I find it very accurate, which reduces a lot of manual effort that we used to perform when we were using Microsoft. In terms of detection of spam, malware, and virus, the detection is 99.9% accurate.

Proofpoint Email Protection offers a SaaS-based deployment model, which is Proofpoint on Demand, and it is on the cloud. Earlier, false positive emails getting quarantined and legitimate emails getting trapped used to be a lot of manual effort. My team was manually spending a lot of time analyzing and releasing those emails. Since we have started using Proofpoint Email Protection, we have seen a huge drop in that number. Earlier, my team was spending five to six hours a day going through those quarantine emails, and now that effort has reduced to just one hour. We are not seeing that many false positives. The user reporting feature is also great because it logs an incident and initiates an investigation based on the verdict, which reduces manual overhead. The TAP overview provides all the necessary details needed to decide whether to release or block emails.

When I log into Proofpoint Email Protection admin portal and look into the dashboard, it provides a list of all the VIP users, what sorts of emails they are receiving, and how they are interacting with those threats. We have visibility on the click rate for bad URLs or attachments in emails, how many people have interacted with those emails, and details about attachments sandboxed or not. The dashboard provides a lot of customization, allowing us to analyze how users are interacting with threats, and if there is a real threat, we have the visibility to create phishing simulation campaigns based on those scenarios.

What needs improvement?

I would like to see improvements in the transition from Proofpoint Protection Server to Proofpoint on Demand because Proofpoint Protection Server is not very user-friendly and requires logging into two portals for some features. I also believe customer service can improve, particularly by having immediate follow-ups for higher priority issues.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been working with Proofpoint Email Protection for approximately four years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

I find Proofpoint Email Protection very stable. I have not experienced any downtime or outages in the past couple of years. They communicate scheduled maintenance in advance, which allows us to prepare.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

I find that Proofpoint Email Protection is very scalable, and it is easy to scale it up or out.

How are customer service and support?

I would rate customer service for Proofpoint Email Protection as 6.5 out of 10 because they have many areas to improve on.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Neutral

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

For a couple of years, we were completely relying on Microsoft Exchange before adopting Proofpoint Email Protection. After that, we conducted many POCs with Proofpoint and then we recognized Proofpoint and started with Proofpoint on-premise, then we moved to Proofpoint on Demand, and we secured their TAP module, which is the advanced threat protection module. We then moved on to their threat response auto-pull module, and we also opted for the email fraud defense module.

How was the initial setup?

I have been completely involved in the initial setup process for Proofpoint Email Protection, and I handled everything single-handedly.

What about the implementation team?

We engaged professional services for the deployment of Proofpoint Email Protection, and they guided us well throughout the process, providing clear documentation and support. I did not encounter any issues, and we smoothly transitioned from a lower environment to our production environment. We worked directly with Proofpoint for the deployment. We paid for their professional services, receiving dedicated support throughout the implementation.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

There were a couple of other solutions that we explored but they did not meet our requirements. We actually wanted two layers of security, so the first layer of defense to be Proofpoint Email Protection and then to keep Microsoft as well. The integration and API provided by Proofpoint Email Protection were very smooth, which was not offered by other products we considered.

What other advice do I have?

My recommendation for other organizations considering Proofpoint Email Protection would be to refer to the recent Gartner report indicating that out of 100 Fortune companies, 84 are using Proofpoint Email Protection. It is the best in the market, and I encourage others to adopt it for its reliability. I would rate this review 8 out of 10.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Public Cloud

If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?

Other
Disclosure: PeerSpot contacted the reviewer to collect the review and to validate authenticity. The reviewer was referred by the vendor, but the review is not subject to editing or approval by the vendor.
Last updated: Mar 18, 2026
Flag as inappropriate
PeerSpot user
Securuty solution architect at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Consultant
Top 20
Mar 24, 2026
Email defenses have reduced attacks and now support faster investigations and response
Pros and Cons
  • "Proofpoint Email Protection stands out as the best among all, including EOP."
  • "While it remains a difficult tool for spammers to crack, its limited automation lowers my rating to 7.5 out of 10."

What is our primary use case?

I describe a few use cases for Proofpoint Email Protection by using all the platform capabilities such as Email EFD, Email Fraud Defense, Proofpoint CTR, Cloud Threat Response, Secure Email Relay, and also solutions like TAP, Targeted Attack Protection. I work with all the flavors that Proofpoint Email Protection has.

What is most valuable?

I find the best feature in Proofpoint Email Protection is the inbuilt ML logic and the Proofpoint machine learning algorithm. Additionally, I appreciate the Targeted Attack Protection where the URLs are rewritten, and TRAP. TRAP can pull any malicious email delivered to the user's mailbox that was not malicious earlier, thanks to Proofpoint's larger customer database. It saves our time and maintains a secure environment, as it is not just a data product with rules; it is live and responsive to threats.

Proofpoint Email Protection provides excellent visibility into people-based risk within the organization by offering features such as a sandbox for quarantined emails for our analysis. The support team is good, and it blocks threats at connection and attachment levels while allowing us to recall emails post-delivery.

Using Proofpoint Email Protection impacts my SOC analyst workload positively because it is easily integrated with our SIEM tool. The integration is straightforward, using the API to automate rules effectively without triggering excessive false positive events.

What needs improvement?

I highlight the cons of Proofpoint Email Protection as still lagging in AI capabilities. There are limitations to the product, such as lacking tools for current co-pilot related tasks. Meanwhile, companies such as Microsoft are improving faster by offering more customization and ready-to-go products. Proofpoint Email Protection is good for defense, but it needs to enhance its AI features to remain competitive. Despite these limitations, I appreciate Proofpoint Email Protection's clean UI and its capabilities for rule-based solutions.

I notice changes in operational efficiency after implementing Proofpoint Email Protection since they maintain everything within Proofpoint University, though it should be more publicly accessible. Having unrestricted learning platforms could enhance growth in the email security field.

I describe my experience with the unified admin console in the threat protection workbench as quite good, but it lacks automated options for repetitive tasks. While it performs effectively for day-to-day activities, automation for bulk tasks requires third-party solutions.

I assess Proofpoint Email Protection's threat protection capabilities as strong for email gateways and first-line defenses, but they need improvements in automation and AI capabilities. While it remains a difficult tool for spammers to crack, its limited automation lowers my rating to 7.5 out of 10.

Regarding email investigations, I notice that investigating quarantined emails is still limited; Proofpoint Email Protection needs to provide more detailed reasons for treating emails as malicious beyond simply giving a spam score.

I would appreciate seeing improvements in Proofpoint Email Protection's training programs to be more transparent and widely available, including strong support on platforms such as YouTube so that more people can learn and adopt the product easily.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been working with Proofpoint Email Protection for the last ten years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

I have never experienced downtime or performance issues with Proofpoint Email Protection; it is strong enough to withstand spam and attacks.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

I find Proofpoint Email Protection scalable as they integrate everything into the portal, but adoption rates are low compared to competitors, especially Microsoft, which has an edge in market usage.

How are customer service and support?

I evaluate the customer service and technical support of Proofpoint Email Protection as superb and significantly better than that of Microsoft.

I rate Proofpoint Email Protection's technical support as 9 out of 10.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

I do not use a different solution before Proofpoint Email Protection, as Proofpoint Email Protection is the market leader. I have experience with other products such as Cisco IronPort, IronMail, and Symantec's mail gateway, but Proofpoint Email Protection stands out as the best among all, including EOP.

How was the initial setup?

I find the initial setup process for Proofpoint Email Protection to be challenging due to its Linux base and unclear options, though those with strong technical knowledge can manage it.

What was our ROI?

I have seen ROI with Proofpoint Email Protection as security cannot solely be evaluated based on costs; the value lies in having a robust defense against threats that justify its price.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

I am unsure about the pricing and licensing for Proofpoint Email Protection, except that it is likely costlier than EOP, and pricing remains a concern due to competitive market pricing from other companies.

What other advice do I have?

Proofpoint Email Protection influences the threats I need to protect against by effectively blocking normal spammers and known threats, establishing itself as a strong first line of defense. However, it struggles with certain advanced techniques employed by spammers.

I advise other organizations considering Proofpoint Email Protection to view it as a top-choice product for first-line defense, indicating it can save significantly from various threats due to their strong database management.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Hybrid Cloud
Disclosure: PeerSpot contacted the reviewer to collect the review and to validate authenticity. The reviewer was referred by the vendor, but the review is not subject to editing or approval by the vendor. The reviewer's company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Partner
Last updated: Mar 24, 2026
Flag as inappropriate
PeerSpot user
reviewer2807556 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Security Engineer at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees
Real User
Top 20
Mar 6, 2026
Email security has blocked phishing and fraud and provides clear insight into targeted users
Pros and Cons
  • "Proofpoint Email Protection is very effective because they are very proactive, always ahead of the attackers, and were already detecting new kinds of attacks before customers thought about them."
  • "For Proofpoint Email Protection, when it comes to support, there are times when they do not meet the SLAs for support, mostly on Fridays."

What is our primary use case?

Proofpoint Email Protection is used for email security, threat protection, and email fraud defense, including SPF, DKIM, and DMARC protection.

What is most valuable?

The best features for me in Proofpoint Email Protection are the URL protection and attachment defense, along with phishing protection and spam detection. The solution is very effective in those aspects.

Proofpoint Email Protection provides huge visibility because we can see who are the most attacked people, for example, and we can enforce our security awareness on these individuals. This is the main feature that we use because we do not have other features configured. I know that Proofpoint has other solutions to analyze user risk and so on, but we did not purchase those.

Proofpoint Email Protection helps significantly because we have the product called Proofpoint TAP, which stands for Targeted Attack Protection. In this console, we receive notifications and alerts related to phishing campaigns and malware campaigns. We are able to be quick and fast in detecting and preventing these situations.

Proofpoint Email Protection provides significant value when compared to M365. A huge amount of emails are being rejected before being delivered to the mailboxes. This helps tremendously. The goal is to deliver only legitimate emails to users with a minimum of false positives as possible, and that is the case with Proofpoint Email Protection.

What needs improvement?

For Proofpoint Email Protection, when it comes to support, there are times when they do not meet the SLAs for support, mostly on Fridays. If I open a case on a Friday, they will take more time than the agreed SLA. Another area for improvement is that the solution does not currently support Infrastructure as Code. We use Terraform in other security solutions to automate the configurations and to guarantee that we have a copy in our repository. The retention period for the logs is just 30 days, and it would be beneficial to have 60 days or 90 days to analyze the logs. Additionally, the pricing is expensive. Apart from that, I do not have other cons.

With Proofpoint Email Protection, there are some solutions that I consider expensive. We conducted a proof of concept, and at the end, the SOC team was involved, including our CISO. We decided not to purchase those solutions because they are too expensive. It is not a cheap product overall.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using Proofpoint Email Protection for three and a half years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

I would rate the stability for Proofpoint Email Protection as a ten out of ten.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

For scalability, I would rate Proofpoint Email Protection as a nine out of ten.

How are customer service and support?

I would rate their technical support an eight because of the situations I referred to before regarding SLA performance.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

How was the initial setup?

It is easy to maintain Proofpoint Email Protection. Regarding deployment, I cannot speak to that because I was not involved in the deployment process.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

I can compare Proofpoint Email Protection with Cisco, and there is a huge difference, mainly when it comes to DMARC reporting. Proofpoint's email fraud defense console is very effective. We can analyze the DMARC reporting, identify what is failing, and determine what we can fix in our domain in an easier way because the dashboards are very user-friendly. We are not just analyzing poor reports with text data that are sometimes hard to analyze. This is the main difference when comparing to Cisco and comparing to M365.

We do not use the unified admin console in the Threat Protection Workbench frequently for Proofpoint Email Protection. However, I think this console would be more important for SOC teams to analyze threats because sometimes they need to switch from one console to another, which is not easy when they are analyzing a security incident. I recommended that console to them, but I do not have feedback on whether they are using it.

What other advice do I have?

Proofpoint Email Protection is very effective because they are very proactive. They are always ahead of the attackers. For example, we have the example of QR code attacks. When we started thinking about that in the company and tried to understand if Proofpoint is blocking this kind of attack, they were proactive and were already detecting those kinds of attacks before customers thought about them. This proactive approach means they do not wait until customers ask for protection for a new vector of attack.

The positive impact and benefits my company has seen from using Proofpoint Email Protection is the protection that we have right now. In terms of DMARC, we do not have issues in terms of reputation because we can manage our domains effectively. We can see and control our SPF and DKIM and DMARC records. We have not suffered any important attacks related to email during that period.

We are protecting approximately 26,000 users with Proofpoint Email Protection. We have about 15 administrators because there are several teams using the solution for different purposes. We have the SecOps team, the SOC team, and the security architecture and engineering teams.

Personally, I would rate Proofpoint Email Protection between a seven and an eight.

I would say to others looking to implement Proofpoint Email Protection that they should choose it because it is a great solution, and Proofpoint has an expert for DMARC implementation who is very effective. We have meetings every month for the follow-up with the DMARC implementation. If they want to improve and move to the next level on email security, they should choose Proofpoint Email Protection. My overall rating for this product is an eight.

Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
Last updated: Mar 6, 2026
Flag as inappropriate
PeerSpot user
Gowtham Selvaraj - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Solution Delivery Lead Cybersecurity at International Olympic Committee – IOC
Real User
Top 10
Mar 18, 2026
Email threats have been managed effectively while investigation workflows still need improvement
Pros and Cons
  • "Although it is a bit costly compared to Mimecast, Defender, and Cofense Vision, it is efficient and strong in security, so I do not mind the cost because I will not reduce my security risk."
  • "I have not noticed much change in operational efficiency after implementing Proofpoint Email Protection, but the process execution is light."

What is our primary use case?

I use Proofpoint Email Protection as an email gateway, and we mainly use this for the email gateway only.

What is most valuable?

What I appreciate most about Proofpoint Email Protection is that we rely on it for phishing, malware, and spam email detection, including malicious login pages, email purging, and required actions based on those detections. We check and validate advanced threat protection and monitor a couple of insider threat activities based on email, including confidential and personal data, as well as bulk downloading or sending data. Proofpoint has its own threat intelligence platform for identifying attackers' IP domains, analyzing phishing campaigns targeting companies, and integrating with SIM rules and cloud protections for Google Workspace and Microsoft 365.

Using Proofpoint Email Protection has a major impact on our SOC analyst workloads by managing security alerts. Examples include workflows for malicious emails, checking attachment sandbox reports, and investigating URL detonation results. Typical steps involve reviewing whatever the user has reported as a phishing email, identifying who received it, and searching Proofpoint logs to identify campaign scopes.

What needs improvement?

What I believe could be improved in Proofpoint Email Protection is the SOC investigation workflow by providing single investigation dashboards and dashboards for common threat actors related to spear phishing attacks. The correlation based on AI-based phishing detections should include their own LLMs to read the phishing campaigns and detect urgency patterns. Enhancing attack path visualization would be beneficial; if a person clicks an email, it should show where it is coming from, the attacker domain, whether the phishing email was clicked, account login attempts, and everything, ideally as a graphical representation.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been working with Proofpoint Email Protection for close to six years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

I do not see any crashing or lagging in Proofpoint Email Protection so far. It is a very efficient product with separate consoles for purging, Proofpoint TAP, and email gateway, which is managed across different entities in a good way.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Proofpoint Email Protection is considered to be highly scalable, designed for large enterprises, with a cloud-based architecture that offers an enormous number of options, including multi-organization support and high-volume email handling. It scales using horizontal nodes and applications on the servers effectively.

How are customer service and support?

We have not yet connected with technical support for Proofpoint Email Protection. It offers 24/7 access, but we typically raise support cases through email for installation documentation, troubleshooting guides, or if anything needs fixing, such as false positive phishing detections. For critical issues, we directly raise tickets in the portal, and with our premium subscription, we receive faster responses and proactive assistance.

The speed and quality of Proofpoint Email Protection's answers are much better in all perspectives, especially when compared to Mimecast and Cofense Vision, as we typically get replies within the next 24 hours.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

I have used Mimecast and Cofense Vision as alternatives, but I find Proofpoint Email Protection is much more user-friendly, reliable, and easy to use.

How was the initial setup?

Setting up Proofpoint Email Protection initially is relatively easy, as we just connect with the MX record routed to Proofpoint, configure the inbound and outbound email flow, and perform domain sync-ups and spam and phishing policy setups. However, handling multiple domains, setting up encryption policies, and configuring SPF and DKIM requests can be more complex. Reducing false positives and configuring phishing detection is the hardest part, but the initial setup is quite straightforward.

What about the implementation team?

Proofpoint Email Protection does not require any maintenance on my end. We just check the exchange server list as needed, and it is handled completely by a separate team, so we do not engage in maintenance activities.

What was our ROI?

I have not noticed much change in operational efficiency after implementing Proofpoint Email Protection, but the process execution is light. It depends on the exchange server and the configuration of the agents, which I have not monitored closely so far.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

Regarding pricing, I generally propose Proofpoint Email Protection for most email gateway needs. As the delivery solution lead for my current organization, I am currently working for the Olympic Games for LA 2028 and have pushed for Proofpoint. Although it is a bit costly compared to Mimecast, Defender, and Cofense Vision, it is efficient and strong in security, so I do not mind the cost because I will not reduce my security risk.

Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
Last updated: Mar 18, 2026
Flag as inappropriate
PeerSpot user
reviewer2805150 - PeerSpot reviewer
IT Director at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
Real User
Top 5Leaderboard
Feb 26, 2026
Email protection has transformed daily security work and keeps users safe from targeted attacks
Pros and Cons
  • "We have noticed a huge improvement in productivity of the users by clearing up their inbox of malicious emails and spam, and it has also prevented and secured our environment on a daily basis, making the security team's job much easier."

    What is our primary use case?

    My main use case for Proofpoint Email Protection is for protecting email and email security to prevent business email compromise and malicious email from reaching our users. Proofpoint Email Protection helps in stopping malicious emails from getting to our users, such as phishing emails and emails with malicious attachments. Proofpoint Email Protection does quarantine multiple malicious emails in our environment, and an example would be an email recently with a malicious website asking the user to log in; Proofpoint was able to detect that the URL was malicious and block and discard the email.

    What is most valuable?

    The best features Proofpoint Email Protection offers include an easy-to-use dashboard and administrative tools, an easy-to-use quarantine filter for users, and continuous protection. Proofpoint Email Protection has very good reporting capabilities as well as integration with Microsoft 365 email.

    We have noticed a huge improvement in productivity of the users by clearing up their inbox of malicious emails and spam, and it has also prevented and secured our environment on a daily basis, making the security team's job much easier. Proofpoint Email Protection has changed my security team's day-to-day tasks; instead of reviewing malicious emails or assisting users, Proofpoint blocks those emails automatically and filters them, saving time for my team.

    Using Proofpoint Email Protection has freed up my SOC analysts' time and helps them focus on more important activities. Proofpoint Email Protection provides very deep visibility into insider risk and also has a category called Very Attacked Persons, which highlights which users in the environment are receiving malicious emails and at what level. Proofpoint has helped our environment to be more secure by protecting us from threats, especially over email.

    What needs improvement?

    There is nothing in particular that needs improvement; I am very happy with the solution. There is a bit of a learning curve to get started in the unified admin console in Threat Protection Workbench, but once I am familiar with the settings and the tool itself, the day-to-day experience becomes very easy.

    For how long have I used the solution?

    I have been using Proofpoint Email Protection for five years.

    What do I think about the stability of the solution?

    Proofpoint Email Protection is a very stable product, and we have been using it for five years.

    What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

    The scalability of Proofpoint Email Protection is excellent; the solution is very scalable regardless of the number of users in your environment, and while the licensing costs may change, the product remains very stable.

    How are customer service and support?

    Customer support for Proofpoint Email Protection has been very efficient and effective. I would rate the customer support a ten out of ten.

    How would you rate customer service and support?

    Positive

    Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

    I previously used Office 365 ATP; I felt that solution was not a premium product and many malicious emails got through to user inboxes, but after switching to Proofpoint, the malicious emails were pretty much stopped.

    What was our ROI?

    We have definitely seen a return on investment, particularly in time saved for the security team as well as the users in the organization.

    What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

    Proofpoint Email Protection is not a cheap product; it is priced probably a bit on the higher end compared to other similar solutions, but I feel the pricing is justified by the quality of the product, and the experience with negotiating pricing was good and fair.

    Which other solutions did I evaluate?

    I did not evaluate other options before choosing Proofpoint Email Protection.

    What other advice do I have?

    My advice for others looking into using Proofpoint Email Protection is that it is a very solid product, a very mature solution in the email protection space, especially if you are using Microsoft 365 emails; Proofpoint integrates very well with the solution and makes life easier for users as well as the security team. I would rate this product a ten out of ten overall.

    Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
    Last updated: Feb 26, 2026
    Flag as inappropriate
    PeerSpot user
    reviewer2800347 - PeerSpot reviewer
    Sr Security Engineer at a comms service provider with 201-500 employees
    Real User
    Top 10
    Jan 31, 2026
    Email defenses have become more granular and investigations now consume less analyst time
    Pros and Cons
    • "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."
    • "Given my other experience with other vendors, I think they are a bit on the high end and a bit on the pricey end for the email security functionality that we were using."

    What is our primary use case?

    My use case with Proofpoint Email Protection was primarily as a secure email gateway, and all of those sound like they describe the same thing. I know Proofpoint Email Protection has a big product portfolio, and we had other products that filled some of the other services that they also offered.

    What is most valuable?

    The best features I liked the most about Proofpoint Email Protection are difficult to pinpoint because it changed its user interface. Initially, it was a very old, clunky user interface, and during the time that I used it, they upgraded to a new modernized user interface. 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 solution was very granular and very configurable.

    Using Proofpoint Email Protection has impacted my SOC analyst workloads by lessening it over prior tooling that was in place and making it more focused. The tooling is more mature, more modern, and easier to use.

    Proofpoint Email Protection did influence the quality of threats my organization needed to protect against. The help Proofpoint Email Protection provided with my threat protection and managing security operations comes from being easier to work with overall than the legacy interface. The new unified interface was a more modern, streamlined interface. It was very granular and very configurable, so the old interface exposed all that and you had to know how to navigate it to get to where you needed to do all those little granular tweaks. The unified interface streamlined that and made it much easier.

    What needs improvement?

    There are areas that have room for improvement in Proofpoint Email Protection, particularly regarding the interface, since I used the old legacy interface so much. I think they are making strides in that direction already, so I would say continue there. I am not sure how completed the new unified interface is or if they have actually finished and rolled all of the features up in there or not. That is a good area for continued focus. Proofpoint Email Protection was a very powerful product. The older legacy user interface just took a little to work with, and the new unified interface, as it was able to do more and more of the functionality of the old one, the product just got easier and easier to use.

    For how long have I used the solution?

    My experience with Proofpoint Email Protection ended about six months ago since I changed jobs, but I used it for three or four years.

    What do I think about the stability of the solution?

    I would rate the stability of Proofpoint Email Protection somewhere between a nine and ten. It was very rock solid.

    How would you rate stability?

    Positive

    What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

    The scalability of Proofpoint Email Protection is probably an eight or nine.

    How would you rate scalability?

    Positive

    How are customer service and support?

    I would rate Proofpoint Email Protection's vendor technical support a nine out of ten. The support was very good. It would be tough to get a ten in technical support.

    How would you rate customer service and support?

    Positive

    Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

    I used other products before implementing Proofpoint Email Protection. The other solutions I have tried include Postini before they got purchased, Mimecast, Microsoft's 365 Defender, and on-premises products from decades ago, such as the old Barracuda email firewalls.

    How was the initial setup?

    The deployment of Proofpoint Email Protection was not overly complex. It required their professional services, and they walked us through the deployment. Working with them, I would say it was not difficult.

    What about the implementation team?

    The deployment of Proofpoint Email Protection was not overly complex. It required their professional services, and they walked us through the deployment. Working with them, I would say it was not difficult.

    What was our ROI?

    Proofpoint Email Protection did save me some time or resources. I do not have a hard and fast metric that we calculated for that, but it certainly did.

    The time required for email investigations and responses has changed with Proofpoint Email Protection's visibility and automation. There is certainly less manual time spent on any of those tasks.

    What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

    The purchase of Proofpoint Email Protection was through a partner, although I did not make the purchase directly. I only helped with the decisioning, and I imagine it was with one of the large resellers.

    My thoughts on the pricing of Proofpoint Email Protection are formed by my lack of direct involvement in the purchasing, as I was more engaged in the proof of concept and evaluation. Given my other experience with other vendors, I think they are a bit on the high end and a bit on the pricey end for the email security functionality that we were using. The pricing is not exorbitant or out of line, but on the pricier side than some of the other competitive products.

    Which other solutions did I evaluate?

    The other solutions I have tried include Postini before they got purchased, Mimecast, Microsoft's 365 Defender, and on-premises products from decades ago, such as the old Barracuda email firewalls.

    What other advice do I have?

    Approximately one thousand to two thousand users use Proofpoint Email Protection.

    The usage is global, not limited to the United States.

    Proofpoint Email Protection requires maintenance, and the patching and updating were typically handled by them, and then we just kept it under active maintenance. Since it was a SaaS-delivered solution, they kept it updated.

    Whatever was required on my end for Proofpoint Email Protection was easy.

    I would rate the solution overall as an eight out of ten.

    I would compare Proofpoint Email Protection to other products and vendors on the market as one of the leaders, for sure.

    I would recommend Proofpoint Email Protection to other users, as I did not have any negative experience, and I would definitely recommend a proof of concept just because the landscape is changing so quickly. There are new and emerging technologies that would be worth considering in a bake-off or proof of concept along with any of the core vendors now, but Proofpoint Email Protection would definitely be in the mix.

    Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
    Last updated: Jan 31, 2026
    Flag as inappropriate
    PeerSpot user
    Buyer's Guide
    Download our free Proofpoint Email Protection Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.
    Updated: March 2026
    Buyer's Guide
    Download our free Proofpoint Email Protection Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.