Forcepoint Data Loss Prevention vs McAfee Total Protection for Data Loss Prevention comparison

Forcepoint and McAfee are both solutions in the Data Loss Prevention (DLP) category. Forcepoint is ranked #4 with an average rating of 7.1, while McAfee is ranked #24 with an average rating of 8.0. Additionally, 90% of Forcepoint users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 76% of McAfee users who would recommend it.

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 3, 2024

McAfee Total Protection for Data Loss Prevention and Forcepoint Data Loss Prevention are competitive in the data loss prevention market. Forcepoint holds a slight advantage with a reputation for strong endpoint security and innovative features.

Features: McAfee Total Protection is known for its user-friendly administration and seamless integration with other McAfee solutions, supporting desktop virtualization and providing customizable DLP features. Forcepoint distinguishes itself with easy setup, advanced optical character recognition, and unique fingerprinting technology that facilitates effortless policy implementation.

Room for Improvement: McAfee is criticized for high resource usage, expensive licenses, and average customer support, with needed improvements in GUI and memory-based threat detection. Forcepoint, despite being more cost-effective, struggles with complex deployment and support responsiveness, with users seeking enhanced integration capabilities and better AI automation.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: McAfee favors on-premises deployment, while Forcepoint provides flexible cloud options including hybrid solutions. McAfee's support is average, often requiring partner assistance, whereas Forcepoint has geographic support limitations, with both vendors facing deployment complexity.

Pricing and ROI: McAfee is perceived as expensive with complex licensing, although it offers a decent ROI. Forcepoint, while also costly, is praised for its transparency and competitive pricing, particularly with OEM integrations, offering a strong feature set for the price.

To learn more, read our detailed Forcepoint Data Loss Prevention vs. McAfee Total Protection for Data Loss Prevention Report (Updated: April 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Forcepoint Data Loss Prevention vs. McAfee Total Protection for Data Loss Prevention

April 2025

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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

Featured Reviews

Spencer Malmad

Owner at Tech Exchange

It's easy to set up because you point the DNS to it, and it's working in under 15 minutes

Cloudflare is highly scalable. Cloudflare is a system with a web portal that the end users like me see. It's a console where we can adjust the DNS, caching, and security features all in that console. Cloudflare owns thousands of servers across the world that cache the data. It's a powerful solution. When clients sign up for Cloudflare, they're getting this monster content delivery network, security, and a web application firewall in one. It's all rolled into one, and it's massive. Unless you have your website hosted on a massive hosting provider, there's no way that you can deliver the amount of data that Cloudflare can provide to the end users. If you have static content, there's no way that you can ever match what Cloudflare can do. Obviously, there are competitors to Cloudflare that do the same, but I'm saying other types of solutions. Let's say you go with F5. Great, that's on-prem. That's in your colo. You can't deliver as much data to the internet as you can with a CDN. You don't have to spend $20,000 on a net scaler, F5, or whatever Cisco's selling now. You don't have to buy that. You pay them $50 a month or $150 a month. It's totally worth it because even in five years, you'll never get the performance value, not just the actual ROI. You have to consider how much throughput you can get with Cloudflare.

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Atul-Vats

Consultant at Tata Consultancy

Provides excellent endpoint security in a feature-rich, lightweight, handy, and easy-to-deploy tool

The deployment is straightforward once you understand the solution's architecture. A proper understanding of the different components of Forcepoint DLP is essential, as deploying an enterprise-level DLP could be confusing because the policy server is separate from the main engine sitting on the Triton server. Understanding the components of the enterprise DLP suite is the most critical element for a successful deployment. Still, I rate the solution seven out of ten in terms of ease of setup. The scale of the particular DLP deployment is also a factor; we had cases where the customer only required endpoint or network DLP, a relatively quick job that two staff can complete. A complete DLP suite, including email, web, and network DLP, plus data classification and labelling, would require four associates. Our most recent deployment was a complete enterprise DLP, which required four staff. The entire deployment took almost three months, including a one-month planning phase. During the planning phase, we prepared the documentation, designed the HLDs and LLDs, and high and low-level diagrams. Following acceptance from the customer, we started the implementation, which took roughly 50 to 60 days. The level of maintenance required depends on how many events per hour a particular tool is putting out. If a customer wants to check analytics or identify an email or data leak, that situation doesn't require much policy fine-tuning, and a single staff member could deal with it. The customer can also decide what coverage they want, which may be 24/7, an admin to monitor events only, or Monday-to-Friday support. The coverage determines how many engineers will be required. Another factor in maintenance requirements is the volume of events, as an extensive client could have more than 10,000 servers with many sensitive data in motion. The customer had 24,000 users for our last deployment, and there wasn't a dedicated team for the DLP. The engineering team took care of the network, endpoint, and data security together. There were ten of us on the team, with two engineers per shift for 24/7 coverage.

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VivekGupta7

DGM at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees

Versatile with good patching and a straightforward setup

There is some fine-tuning needed, even once you define something. We need to do a lot of configuration. It would be easier if they made the configuration simpler, especially in the beginning. They need to give the user more choices and provide more guidance to help avoid problems later on. We'd like some more built-in predictive analytics so we can be prepared for what might happen in the future. We did have some bandwidth issues during setup. If your update fails, you may have stability issues. We find it difficult to reach higher levels of support when we face larger issues.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The most valuable feature of Cloudflare DNS is security."

"The overall experience with Cloudflare is positive, with a rating of eight out of ten."

"New and innovative way to protect the client's data."

"The technical support is good."

"Cloudflare consolidates various capabilities into one product, streamlining processes."

"From what I've seen so far, there are no negatives to report as of yet"

"The most valuable features of the solution are performance and security."

"Smaller businesses have seen great ROI due to the low investment and strong performance."

More Cloudflare pros

"Forcepoint offers many policies that conform to global DLP best practices, including requirements specific to regions like the Middle East, Europe, etc. They have a policy database in their product. That feature is unique to Forcepoint. Their AI and fingerprinting are incredibly effective and robust. We have tested it multiple times. It always catches the correct data being leaked."

"The most valuable feature of this solution is that it captures where the data is being moved."

"One of the most valuable features is being able to see file movement, where files are going. Every week we review the files. It can identify software codes, so we code files and we know where they're going and who's doing what. It gives us visibility."

"The workflow remediation is quite good. That is a key feature because of which it has the upper hand over other DLP solutions."

"This solution has a great encryption feature."

"The tool is fine for the DLP features, especially when you are on an on-premises model with a data center."

"The built-in rules, templates, and content classifiers are among the most valuable features. Some of the built-in patterns are good places to get started with. Along with the phrases, they are helpful in putting together policies and fine-tuning our policies."

"The integration is great."

More Forcepoint Data Loss Prevention pros

"The pricing of the product is excellent. It's very affordable."

"It can scale."

"This solution has a rich set of policies."

"Offers some good protection features."

"The solution is very user-friendly and valuable."

"The most valuable features of McAfee Total Protection for Data Loss Prevention are the DLP. The DLP, data loss prevention is the most important feature right now that users are looking for."

"The solution has good stability and endpoint."

"The initial setup process was easy."

More McAfee Total Protection for Data Loss Prevention pros

Cons

"It should confirm audit findings of the assigned area with auditees to ensure that the audit conclusions are based on an accurate understanding of the issues."

"Support response time could be improved."

"The timing aspect can lead to it being considered overpriced. This is a particular concern we have with Cloudflare, as they may struggle with accurately detecting the client."

"The tool needs to improve caching of servers. The product needs to include PFX certificate as well."

"They lack a good way to manage DNS as a company, since everything is relegated to single account logins until you get to the higher levels. They have come out with a paid feature to remedy this, but I have not had a chance to fully review it yet to know if it fixes the access problem."

"It would be helpful if the solution could continue evolving to compete with the other solutions on the market."

"Integration involving API with other products could be more user-friendly."

"The reporting can definitely be improved to offer a lot more explanation on something that may have happened or has actually happened."

More Cloudflare cons

"The main challenge is the solution's high cost. Additionally, there is no discount for bulk purchases, making it difficult to get budget approvals."

"The protection of personal data needs to be improved."

"This solution has a tendency to provide false-positive results."

"We faced some issues with the endpoint installation of the agent as it is not from a common ground."

"Everything takes a long time, as it does in every software company, especially since COVID. That is something I notice with every product I use."

"The reporting features, the real-time reporting, can be improved in Forcepoint. On the dashboard, we don't have a feature that shows real-time incidents. We have to schedule a report in the environment."

"The product is good, but the biggest issue is needing direct support from Forcepoint."

"I would like to see improvement in the reporting. We can only get one week's worth of data; we can't get more than that. Also, the reporting console is very slow, making it very frustrating to use."

More Forcepoint Data Loss Prevention cons

"The interface can be improved, it's too cluttered."

"The pricing is high for licensing and support and the GUI interface is good but could use updating."

"We faced many issues with the solution's customer support, and it should be made customer-friendly and more responsive."

"There are a lot of vulnerabilities and viruses and malware can proliferate."

"Our client is not very happy with the lack of support, the skills, and the effectiveness of the tool."

"The UI needs to be simplified."

"The licensing cost for McAfee Total Protection could be cheaper, but apart from that, I don't need anything else. The software has what I need."

"The solution needs an easier integration in heterogeneous and dynamic environments."

More McAfee Total Protection for Data Loss Prevention cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"When you compare Cloudflare DNS to other solutions, such as Akamai, the price is reasonable."

"The tool is a premium product, so it is very expensive."

"A free version of the solution is available."

"The product's pricing is cheap."

"There are no additional costs beyond the standard licensing fees."

"The pricing depends on the usage, but the cheapest would be around 5,000 USD a month."

"The product's pricing is minimal compared to other products."

"That is one of the great features. I was able to access the majority of the features and services for free."

More Cloudflare pricing and cost advice

"I can't comment on the cost, as a different department handles that."

"One feature that I'm getting ready to take advantage of more is the ability to add more data crawlers to the DLP on-prem environment, without any extra Forcepoint costs or licensing needed for that additional data server. That will help in reducing the stress on the data server that we're using now."

"From one to ten, where one is low, and ten is high, I rate the solution's pricing to be an eight."

"The pricing is fine."

"I rate the tool's pricing a six out of ten."

"There is an annual subscription model and the amount depends on the type of implementation."

"I prefer Forceoint because it is cheaper than Symantec."

"Forcepoint has been very cost-effective because they gave us a good deal while procuring the DLP solution."

More Forcepoint Data Loss Prevention pricing and cost advice

"I'm paying the license for McAfee Total Protection yearly. It could be cheaper, but it's fine."

"The price of the solution could improve."

"I would rate the solution's pricing a six out of ten."

"The price of McAfee Total Protection for Data Loss Prevention is expensive. It is not the most expensive solution but it is typically 15 to 20 percent higher than other solutions. There is no additional cost to using McAfee Total Protection for Data Loss Prevention."

"If the client purchases the entire suite of McAfee Endpoint, the license is included."

"There is an annual license to use this solution."

"The pricing seems expensive both for the license and the support."

"It's not a cheap option."

More McAfee Total Protection for Data Loss Prevention pricing and cost advice

See which vendors are best for you

Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Data Loss Prevention (DLP) solutions are best for your needs.

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Educational Organization

15%

Computer Software Company

14%

Comms Service Provider

Financial Services Firm

16%

Computer Software Company

14%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Insurance Company

Computer Software Company

15%

Financial Services Firm

13%

Retailer

Real Estate/Law Firm

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

Which is the best DDoS protection solution for a big ISP for monitoring and mitigating?

Cloudflare. We are moving from Akamai prolexic to Cloudflare. Cloudflare anycast network outperforms Akamai static GR...

See all answers

Which would you choose - Cloudflare DNS or Quad9?

Cloudflare DNS is a very fast, very reliable public DNS resolver. It is an enterprise-grade authoritative DNS service...

See all answers

What do you like most about Cloudflare?

Cloudflare offers CDN and DDoS protection. We have the front end, API, and database in how you structure applications.

See all answers

What do you like most about Forcepoint Data Loss Prevention?

The technical support for the solution is very good.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Forcepoint Data Loss Prevention?

The pricing is reasonable and medium, not very low, but fair for the product offered.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Forcepoint Data Loss Prevention?

I would recommend aligning OCR with endpoints. This is a highly demanded technology globally, especially for endpoint...

See all answers

What do you like most about McAfee Total Protection for Data Loss Prevention?

The tool focuses on endpoints rather than networks. Endpoints cover everything. It wouldn't be possible to steal conf...

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for McAfee Total Protection for Data Loss Prevention?

McAfee Total Protection for Data Loss Prevention is expensive.

See all answers

What needs improvement with McAfee Total Protection for Data Loss Prevention?

The product’s pricing could be cheaper.

See all answers

Comparisons

Quad9 vs Cloudflare

Compared 50% of the time

Akamai vs Cloudflare

Compared 4% of the time

Azure Front Door vs Cloudflare

Compared 3% of the time

Azure DNS vs Cloudflare

Compared 3% of the time

Imperva DDoS vs Cloudflare

Compared 2% of the time

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Microsoft Purview Data Loss Prevention vs Forcepoint Data Loss Prevention

Compared 20% of the time

Symantec Data Loss Prevention vs Forcepoint Data Loss Prevention

Compared 11% of the time

Trellix DLP vs Forcepoint Data Loss Prevention

Compared 11% of the time

Digital Guardian vs Forcepoint Data Loss Prevention

Compared 10% of the time

Zscaler Zero Trust Exchange Platform vs Forcepoint Data Loss Prevention

Compared 6% of the time

More Forcepoint Data Loss Prevention Competitors

HP Wolf Security vs McAfee Total Protection for Data Loss Prevention

Compared 80% of the time

Microsoft Purview Data Loss Prevention vs McAfee Total Protection for Data Loss Prevention

Compared 5% of the time

Symantec Data Loss Prevention vs McAfee Total Protection for Data Loss Prevention

Compared 3% of the time

Trellix DLP vs McAfee Total Protection for Data Loss Prevention

Compared 3% of the time

Cisco Secure Endpoint vs McAfee Total Protection for Data Loss Prevention

Compared 2% of the time

More McAfee Total Protection for Data Loss Prevention Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Cloudflare

May 2025

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Buyer's Guide

Forcepoint Data Loss Prevention

May 2025

Download Forcepoint Data Loss Prevention product report

Buyer's Guide

McAfee Total Protection for Data Loss Prevention

May 2025

McAfee Total Protection for Data Loss Prevention report

Download McAfee Total Protection for Data Loss Prevention product report

Also Known As

Cloudflare DNS

Forcepoint DLP, Forcepoint Data Security Suite, Websense Data Security Suite

McAfee Total Protection for Data, McAfee Total Protection for DLP, Total Protection for Data, Intel Security Total Protection for Data

Overview

Cloudflare is a highly-regarded Content Delivery Network (CDN) and a Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) protection solution. The robust global connectivity cloud platform that is Cloudflare ensures users are able to connect to the Internet quickly, securely, and reliably. Cloudflare is one of the world's largest networks in the marketplace today. Using Cloudflare, businesses, educational entities, NGOs, vloggers, bloggers, and anyone else with an internet presence can experience more secure, faster websites and applications.

Currently, there are millions of Internet locations on Cloudflare, and the Cloudflare network
continues to grow every day by the thousands. The solution is able to fulfill the requests for
millions of websites seamlessly and serves on average 45 million HTTP requests per second.

Cloudflare has safe, secure data centers in close to 300 cities worldwide to ensure every
client request is filled as quickly as possible. It is Cloudflare’s edge network that makes this
possible by keeping content and other services as close to each client as possible, so the
information requests are always only seconds away.

Many organizations that work in democracy, civil society, human rights, or the arts are able to
access Cloudflare's highest levels of protection for free via Project Galileo. Additionally, official
election websites can be secured from hacking and fraud through Cloudflare’s Project
Athenian, also at no additional cost.

Cloudflare can also help organizations of all sizes develop a robust zero-trust strategy to
ensure the highest levels of productivity and profitability. Employees, stakeholders, and end users have a greater level of satisfaction and overall improved user experience, which can, in
turn, result in higher revenues and overall ROI. Zero-trust and BYOD (bring your own device)
access ensure end users and employees always have the best resources and technology
available to them at all times.

Cloudflare benefits

Cloudflare has many benefits. Some of its most valuable benefits include:

- Faster load times

- Robust DNS security

- Intuitive cloud Web Application Firewall (WAF)

- Free universal SSL

- Image enhancement

- Automatic browser caching

- Next-generation cloud load balancer

- Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP)

- Rate limiting

- Minification

- Zero-trust capabilities

- Cost-effective

- Reduced carbon footprint

Reviews from real users

“Many websites require an SSL certificate because they sell stuff and want SSL. Cloudflare
comes with an SSL certificate built in. It's automatic. You sign yourself up for Cloudflare, and
an SSL certificate automatically protects your website. If you have a connection between your
website and your host, the server, Cloudflare, and the host, you don't necessarily need a
certificate.” Spencer M., Owner at Tech Exchange

“What I like best about Cloudflare is that my company can use it to trace and manage
applications and monitor traffic. The solution tells you if there's a spike in traffic. Cloudflare
also sends you a link to check your equipment and deployment and track it through peering,
so it's a valuable tool.” Daniel P., Network Engineer at Ufinet

“The most valuable feature of Cloudflare is the GUI. You are able to control the solution very
well through the interface. There is a lot of functionality that is embedded in the service.” PeerSpot user, Competence Center Manager at a tech services company

Cloudflare

Forcepoint Data Loss Prevention offers comprehensive data protection with strong template support, seamless cloud integration, and detailed reporting. It ensures data security through extensive endpoint, network, and server-level controls.

Forcepoint Data Loss Prevention is equipped with advanced fingerprinting technology, optical character recognition, and a large library of predefined rules. Organizations gain comprehensive data visibility and effective policy enforcement, supported by dynamic user behavior analysis and compliance capabilities. Its intuitive interface and flexible deployment options position it as a top choice for data security, although it could improve in communication reliability and language support. Complex reporting, machine learning integration, and cross-platform compatibility require enhancements.

What are the key features of Forcepoint Data Loss Prevention?

Fingerprinting Technology: Enables precise data tracking and protection.
Optical Character Recognition: Enhances identification of sensitive information in documents.
Built-in Rules and Classifications: Offers a vast library ready for immediate use.
Dynamic User Behavior Analysis: Provides insights for proactive security management.
Cloud Integration: Ensures seamless data protection across cloud environments.

What benefits and ROI insights should users consider?

Policy Enforcement: Robust mechanisms to ensure compliance and data protection.
Comprehensive Visibility: Offers detailed insights into data movements and security posture.
Efficient Management: Simplified controls for streamlined security operations.
Compliance Support: Assists in meeting standards like PCI DSS.

Forcepoint Data Loss Prevention is utilized extensively in industries like finance and law to protect sensitive information from unauthorized transfers. It secures enterprise legal documents, financial assets, and personal data, employing features such as OCR to safeguard data across network, email, and cloud channels.

Forcepoint

McAfee Total Protection for Data solution suite protects your data using a combination of powerful encryption, access control, and user-behavior monitoring.

McAfee

Sample Customers

Trusted by over 9,000,000 Internet Applications and APIs, including Nasdaq, Zendesk, Crunchbase, Steve Madden, OkCupid, Cisco, Quizlet, Discord and more.

Alphawest, Betsson, Cellcom Israel Ltd., Chelsea & Westminster Hospital, Confartigianato Vicenza, EverBank, Finansbank, iGATE, Landa Digital Printing, Northern California Bank, Reliance Capital, Remosa, Toyota, Scavolini, Zim Integrated Shipping Services

Kleberg Bank

Buyer's Guide

Forcepoint Data Loss Prevention vs. McAfee Total Protection for Data Loss Prevention

April 2025

Free Report: Forcepoint Data Loss Prevention vs. McAfee Total Protection for Data Loss Prevention

Find out what your peers are saying about Forcepoint Data Loss Prevention vs. McAfee Total Protection for Data Loss Prevention and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.

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We monitor all Data Loss Prevention (DLP) reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.