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Cloudflare One vs Proofpoint Email Protection comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Apr 5, 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
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)
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 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%
Cloudflare One1.7%
Other92.0%
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.
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

"Enables me to work from two locations."
"Cloudflare is simple to use."
"For Cloudflare Access, I am using the free plan...The most valuable feature is their protection."
"The tool also offers good scalability, and the dashboard, along with real-time analytics, is very good."
"Clover is the best product globally."
"Cloudflare DDoS mitigates DDoS attacks."
"Cloudflare Zero Trust Platform removes the risk of exposing the applications to the public."
"Cloudflare Access is part of the Zero Trust philosophy."
"Proofpoint Email Protection has positively impacted my organization by definitely lowering the amount of phishing or scam-type emails that our users were receiving, helping them focus more on their work rather than dealing with these types of fraudulent emails."
"The archive feature is valuable."
"Using Proofpoint Email Protection significantly reduces the number of threats I need to guard against; within a month, my organization sends and receives over 1 million emails, achieving 99.99% protection against phishing and spam, and handling around 5 to 10 million emails monthly while assigning a project manager for ongoing review."
"The stability is very good."
"At this point in time, there's nothing that needs to be changed or improved in the tool."
"Proofpoint Email Protection has provided top shelf email protection services and has prevented breaches and loss of data."
"Proofpoint is number one in terms of market share worldwide, and we recommend it to clients because of its rich features in email protection, cloud protection, and backup targeted attack protection."
"Proofpoint Email Protection has positively impacted my organization by simplifying the analysis of emails since it provides segregated statements that highlight the important parameters we need to check, allowing us to efficiently conclude if the alerts are false positives or true positives."
 

Cons

"Operating and tuning the product is difficult."
"From a logging perspective, it is still a bit difficult to see exactly what users are being blocked with the current views."
"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."
"They don't have a person to provide support for customers using the solution under their free plan."
"The software has automated alerts, but the automated alerts are not available in the mobile app."
"The free plan has limitations. For example, I can only set up three rules, and the application firewall is unavailable."
"Our customers no longer use Cloudflare because its service is subpar."
"I would like them to include a VPN feature to provide a secure connection to the data center."
"While ingesting the logs into our SIEM tool, most organizations don't have the capability to buy the email gateway as it is quite an expensive one."
"They do not have an on-demand scan for the internal viruses and internal users, and they don't have a scan for the exchange server against viruses and spam as Symantec does."
"Proofpoint Email Protection has a lot of false positives, and the infrastructure is a bit complex."
"I feel there is still room for improvement because many features are in POD and not yet available in the Admin Portal."
"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."
"Proofpoint Email Protection needs to enhance its capabilities for AI-related threats as it is primarily a rule-based solution."
"Phishing detection could improve further to match some of the capabilities offered by competitors."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing of the solution is cheap. The licensing cost is also very low. I rate the cost and pricing a three out of ten."
"The solution's pricing lacks transparency."
"Cloudflare Zero Trust Platform's pricing is good."
"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 prices are slightly expensive."
"The price tag is no longer $200,000, but rather $300,000 to $400,000. It's twice."
"The solution is not that expensive."
"The pricing is somewhere in the middle. I would rate the pricing a seven out of ten."
"The price is reasonable."
"The licensing cost of Proofpoint Email Protection is a lot higher than other solutions, such as Barracuda."
"Pricing has recently been increased and the cost is a downside"
"The solution uses a licensing model that is reasonable compared to other products."
"The end customer is buying our solution, which can be for monthly or annual usage depending on our payment and business model."
"It is on a yearly basis. Their floor for SMB doesn't matter. The user count is 100 users and below at $2,500 a year. Its cost is higher than other solutions. It is probably about 20% to 30% higher than what you would get with Microsoft. There are no additional costs. All costs are factored in. It can be improved pricing-wise so that it is affordable for the SMB market."
"The solution charges per user per month to use it. There are not any additional fees in addition to the standard living fees."
"It is expensive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Construction Company
19%
Comms Service Provider
11%
Outsourcing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
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 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 because it is currently too closed and too proprietary. Regarding additional fe...
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, strong authentication, and DDoS protection. The integration of Secure Web Gate...
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 not up to the mark.
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 Proofpoint Email Protection for more than three years.We are currently working ...
 

Also Known As

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

Overview

 

Sample Customers

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