No more typing reviews! Try our Samantha, our new voice AI agent.

Cisco Secure Email vs Proofpoint Email Protection comparison

Sponsored
 

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
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
23
Ranking in other categories
Secure Web Gateways (SWG) (12th), Data Loss Prevention (DLP) (22nd), Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB) (12th), Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection (8th), Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) Solutions (13th), Access Management (12th), Bot Management (3rd), ZTNA as a Service (8th), ZTNA (4th), Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) (9th), Remote Browser Isolation (RBI) (2nd)
Cisco Secure Email
Ranking in Email Security
6th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
63
Ranking in other categories
Cisco Security Portfolio (9th)
Proofpoint Email Protection
Ranking in Email Security
1st
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
109
Ranking in other categories
Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) (2nd), Digital Risk Protection (3rd), Office 365 Protection (1st), Secure Email Gateway (SEG) (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the Email Security category, the mindshare of Cloudflare One is 1.7%, up from 1.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Cisco Secure Email is 4.4%, down from 5.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Proofpoint Email Protection is 6.3%, down from 7.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Email Security Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Proofpoint Email Protection6.3%
Cisco Secure Email4.4%
Cloudflare One1.7%
Other87.6%
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.
KS
Technical Associate Network Security at Valuepoint Systems
Email security has protected financial data and provides clear tracking for every branch message
The areas of Cisco Secure Email that could be improved or enhanced are the slowness in the console. I don't think it was a database error or something, but we feel some slowness in configuring DLP and other content filters compared to other consoles. It may have been due to on-premises, but it was much noisy at some times while configuring DLP. When we tried to configure a DLP policy, the console became much slower. In that case, we cannot see what had happened in the mail which was blocked at that time. It may take nearly an hour to get back to normal while configuring policies. That is the major issue in the product.
Siva_Prasad - PeerSpot reviewer
Principal Consultant at Infosys
Email defenses have reduced phishing incidents and protect sensitive data across our enterprise
As things are evolving and threats develop in unpredictable ways, Proofpoint must adopt AI solutions and agentic solutions more aggressively and provide them to customers as part of service offerings. Inbuilt AI solutions would add more value and make Proofpoint a more premium choice for customers. With the help of AI solutions, agentic AI, and generative AI capabilities, the product would be more efficient than it currently is. Filtering false positives is highly challenging because it is impossible for humans to identify which emails are genuine and which are spam. Proofpoint should focus more on this area with back-end agents or other tools. Proofpoint should decide which emails are genuine and which are spam so it is not a challenge for end users. When receiving an email, end users should not have to determine whether to respond or not. Proofpoint should not release such spam emails and should strictly block such spam and spoof emails based on connection IPs. Currently, false positives occur in the product, and while this occurs in every product, it is an area where Proofpoint can focus on improving and reducing false positives. One email is enough for an end user to be deceived and lose money, so addressing this area is critical.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Cloudflare DDoS mitigates DDoS attacks."
"For Cloudflare Access, I am using the free plan...The most valuable feature is their protection."
"Cloudflare Access is a stable solution."
"It's a perfect solution from my perspective; it's easy to understand and easy to configure."
"Cloudflare Access is part of the Zero Trust philosophy."
"Enables me to work from two locations."
"The solution has different options that can be used to differentiate DDoS attacks."
"Cloudflare DDoS is better than its competitors for its security, deployment, and scalability."
"The most valuable features are protection against ransomware and spam."
"It sends us reports, where we can see if there have been attacks, e.g. DDoS. If so, we can switch to a clean IP."
"The user interface was quite friendly, it was quite easy to use, unlike some other Cisco products. Anybody could use it. You don't have to be familiar with IT to be able to handle navigating it."
"For what you get for the product, the support, and the overall stability, it is definitely a good return on investment."
"The Cisco Secure Email Gateway, in my opinion, is a really good device."
"This solution provides some benefits, like comfortable access to TAC support. You get prompt support when working directly with Cisco."
"The most valuable features of the Cisco ESA have to do with the intelligence they provide us, as they respond quickly to any phishing attacks and threats on the system."
"It's a bit easy to handle Cisco Secure Email; it's not that difficult. For the logs, which are in PDF format, it's not hard to read them. We don't need Wireshark much to analyze the logs."
"The solution scales quite well."
"Proofpoint Email Protection is quite scalable; I have not experienced any issues with the onboarding and offboarding of users and devices."
"Proofpoint Email Protection is a great security tool that is not only proactive but also reactive on a case-to-case basis and provides all the mature tools that can be utilized for the first layer and second layer message defense."
"The flexibility is unbelievable and you could get extremely creative to accommodate real case scenarios."
"We've observed that we have almost 99.9% control over our emails now in an easy to configure and easy to implement solution."
"Proofpoint Email Protection has positively impacted my organization because when people know that we are using Proofpoint and they know we have set up a mailbox for protection, they forward issues to that mailbox and we search for them."
"It was easy to set up."
"The stability is good; there are no bugs or glitches, it doesn't crash or freeze, and it's reliable."
 

Cons

"Automation could be improved where you can easily add a TLS and SSL certificate to an application or web app if the developer did not include it."
"The software has automated alerts, but the automated alerts are not available in the mobile app."
"Operating and tuning the product is difficult."
"The pricing is an area that can be improved. Pricing, as far as I recall, was the source of our problems."
"The onboarding process can be improved a little bit."
"Feedback could be enhanced."
"Cloudflare Zero Trust Platform needs to improve its documentation. It took time to do the implementation."
"The tool should provide on-premise versions. Currently, all versions are cloud-based."
"We have occasionally had hardware problems because we are using an appliance-based solution, but that might change. We may consider going to virtual systems."
"They could improve the filters. In my time at the company, there were several times we had to contact support to update the filters."
"The user interface needs massive improvement. While the device works fine and it's not complicated to write policies, renaming menu items and showing policy flow in conjunction with the application could help."
"The solution does not have a strong outbound service. It should also integrate DLP."
"The hardware is not up to the mark. Two to three times a year we have complete downtime."
"There are some concerns in the way the architecture is set up, making it an area where improvements are required."
"I would like them to add some clustering or high availability features."
"The UI is definitely one area of improvement because it doesn't match other interfaces and the navigation can be a little clunky."
"The email DLP portion could be a bit easier."
"It has too many screens. It is kind of a conglomeration of products. In other words, they built product A, product B, and product C, and they are yet to integrate them into a single administrative console. I would certainly like to see a more seamless administrative interface. I would also like to see them include more bang for the buck, by including features like email fraud protection, rather than making their product so piecemeal, where you are buying little pieces. I agree with the idea of having multiple tiers or layers, but maybe as small, medium, and large, as opposed to an a la carte menu."
"Proofpoint Email Protection has a new approach to email security with its API feature. Currently, it only works with Office 365. In the future, it would be beneficial if it also works with Gmail, as Check Point is currently the only brand that has API email security for Gmail. It would be beneficial if Proofpoint Email Protection could add this integration, they would be more competitive with other vendors."
"I remember having multiple tickets and cases from customers where when a link was broken or incorrect, URL Defense would start to apply and completely block the URL."
"The solution can be expensive."
"Proofpoint Email Protection has a limitation regarding third-party tool integration and SIEM integration."
"The initial setup is complex."
"While Proofpoint is better, I find Abnormal to be much more effective because it uses an advanced AI engine to detect email spams and phishing."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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 solution's pricing lacks transparency."
"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 pricing is somewhere in the middle. I would rate the pricing a seven out of ten."
"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 prices are slightly expensive."
"The license was not per user, the license model was per feature. You could choose anti-virus, anti-spam, etc. It was feature-based and charged yearly."
"It is a reasonably priced solution."
"Cisco Secure Email is more expensive than other products. I rate it a five out of ten. There are no additional costs. You only need to pay the subscription amounts."
"Cisco Secure Email is not expensive, and licensing costs are yearly."
"It is a relatively expensive option compared to other alternatives."
"The pricing is good."
"I don't have the insights into it, but compared to different products, it seems to have a medium level of pricing."
"It is a super big router that costs a few hundred thousand dollars."
"The end customer is buying our solution, which can be for monthly or annual usage depending on our payment and business model."
"We sell annual licenses for this solution."
"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 price is reasonable."
"The licensing model for Proofpoint Email Protection is simple. It's based on the number of users. Price-wise, Proofpoint Email Protection is a five out of ten because it's a pretty expensive solution."
"Proofpoint is fairly expensive."
"Clients pay for an annual subscription of Proofpoint Email Protection. Every client always finds it expensive."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Email Security solutions are best for your needs.
908,834 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Construction Company
19%
Comms Service Provider
11%
Outsourcing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Outsourcing Company
7%
Computer Software Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Outsourcing Company
7%
Comms Service Provider
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business10
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise12
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business22
Midsize Enterprise18
Large Enterprise27
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business28
Midsize Enterprise24
Large Enterprise62
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Cloudflare Zero Trust Platform?
In my opinion, Cloudflare One can be improved mainly through compatibility, as the integration should be much simpler...
What is your primary use case for Cloudflare Zero Trust Platform?
Cloudflare One's primary use case for my organization is to protect servers and to provide remote access with the VPN...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Cisco Secure Email?
The pricing structure is good as it is user-based or email client-based, which is positive for clients.
What needs improvement with Cisco Secure Email?
The areas of Cisco Secure Email that could be improved or enhanced are the slowness in the console. I don't think it ...
What is your primary use case for Cisco Secure Email?
We are using Cisco Secure Email to monitor the outgoing and incoming mail traffic in our financial institute. We have...
What needs improvement with Proofpoint Email Protection?
The downside is I feel the vendor support is a little lacking and should be more responsive. The technical support is...
What is your primary use case for Proofpoint Email Protection?
I am leading this security domain, and my L1 and L2s have been using Proofpoint Email Protection and other modules of...
 

Also Known As

Cloudflare Area 1 Email Security, Cloudflare Bot Management, Cloudflare Gateway, Cloudflare Zero Trust Platform, Cloudflare DDoS, Cloudflare SASE & SSE Platform
Cisco Email Security, IronPort, Cisco Email Security, ESA, Email Security Appliances
Proofpoint Enterprise Protection, Proofpoint Digital Protection
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

23andMe
SUNY Old Westbury, CoxHealth, City of Fullerton, Indra
Blocket, University of Waterloo, Lincoln Memorial University, WellSpan Health, U-Haul, Carestream Health, Westinghouse
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco Secure Email vs. Proofpoint Email Protection and other solutions. Updated: August 2026.
908,834 professionals have used our research since 2012.