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Infosec IQ vs Proofpoint Email Protection comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 15, 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

Infosec IQ
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
5.5
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
Security Awareness Training (10th)
Proofpoint Email Protection
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
94
Ranking in other categories
Email Security (1st), Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) (3rd), Digital Risk Protection (3rd), Office 365 Protection (1st), Secure Email Gateway (SEG) (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

Infosec IQ and Proofpoint Email Protection aren’t in the same category and serve different purposes. Infosec IQ is designed for Security Awareness Training and holds a mindshare of 3.7%, up 1.1% compared to last year.
Proofpoint Email Protection, on the other hand, focuses on Secure Email Gateway (SEG), holds 21.1% mindshare, down 21.8% since last year.
Security Awareness Training Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Infosec IQ3.7%
KnowBe416.3%
Riot7.4%
Other72.6%
Security Awareness Training
Secure Email Gateway (SEG) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Proofpoint Email Protection21.1%
Microsoft Defender for Office 36519.9%
Mimecast Email and Collaboration Threat Protection17.1%
Other41.9%
Secure Email Gateway (SEG)
 

Featured Reviews

Vagner Nunes - PeerSpot reviewer
Account Manager at IBLISS Digital Security
An Automatic Solution for providing Tailored Training To Employees
I was responsible for training for a partnership with Infra Infra  company and for that I used SecurityIQ.  They have a a a knowledge base and a program. They have a very robust training system for the new for different levels of of professionals. That is their most valuable feature.  The…
AshishKochhar - PeerSpot reviewer
Information Technology Team Lead at a manufacturing company with 201-500 employees
Advanced email protection has blocked targeted attacks and reduces manual threat handling
I feel Proofpoint Email Protection is overpriced. I cannot say that the security level being provided does not justify the cost, but when comparing the similar level of security with other applications or security systems, it is overpriced. If Proofpoint could provide offers or discounts for customers who are already using the product or for new customers implementing it, along with some free services or add-ons, that would be helpful in terms of financial expense. Proofpoint Email Protection has recently introduced AI functionality in terms of data security capabilities and protecting AI assistance from targeted attacks. This is important since everything is now related to AI. The solution is doing threat detection and real-time threat detection and response pretty well. There are a few things I would like to see improved. Sometimes Proofpoint Email Protection takes time to analyze the workflow and the nature of the email. In this age of AI, the solution should analyze an email on the first receipt and determine whether it should pass or be marked as spam without checking previous data. Another improvement would be to have a more user-friendly dashboard. Additionally, if Proofpoint could add the same features in BCP as part of email protection in BCP, it would be helpful since I currently have to take a different add-on for BCP, and integrating it would save costs. I cannot say that threats have increased or decreased with Proofpoint Email Protection because it depends on the mail flow. The solution captures and filters out all threats, and the email threats vary every day depending on how many users are receiving how many emails per day. Today there might be 1,000 emails, tomorrow 5,000, and the day after 500. Proofpoint Email Protection does its job by scanning all emails and threats are reduced to some extent. Since I am aware that virus definitions are updated every day, I cannot blame Proofpoint Email Protection if they take time to determine the nature of an email being received. There are sometimes emails that are false positives, and Proofpoint Email Protection is a bit strict in analyzing false positives, sometimes stopping emails that are actually required. It analyzes the previous nature of an email and if a template looks like an informational template or related to spam, it blocks it because it looks similar to one blocked earlier. However, the template might actually be required. If I receive the same template today that is also blocked by Proofpoint Email Protection, that particular template might be useful and should not be blocked. In such cases, I have to raise it as a false positive stating that this is something in use or my users use and should be released. When AI starts doing its work, it analyzes the email from a sender with a particular template and releases it, but if the same email and template come from another sender, it blocks it according to the policies.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"They have a a a knowledge base and a program. They have a very robust training system for the new for different levels of of professionals. That is their most valuable feature."
"It's the top choice because no company can operate without security. Ensuring email protection is a major priority for any organization when building its infrastructure."
"Overall, it is a good product, providing everything in a single dashboard where we can find all the information related to the risks involved within a suspicious email."
"My advice to others is the solution seems to be good and stable with a very easy-to-use user interface."
"The solution's technical support is good. I rate the technical support a ten out of ten."
"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."
"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."
"Proofpoint Email Protection is a very robust solution."
"The solution blocks malicious emails containing viruses and malware and reduces them out of spam."
 

Cons

"The training should be improved in regards to the needs of the customers. It has to be understood what kind of training should be provided and also provide assessments."
"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."
"Some use cases haven't been dealt with yet."
"We'd like to have the ability to create more customized reports."
"As a manager with multiple customers using Proofpoint Email Protection, having the ability to manage the admin console more efficiently would be beneficial."
"I want Security Awareness Training in there as a package deal. A lot of companies are starting to value email security a little bit more and take it a little bit more seriously, and the great product that we link together with a lot of these sales is a training product called Security Awareness Training. It is an upsell that we do with Proofpoint, and it is definitely something that I recommend everybody with email security to look into. It would be great if Security Awareness Training is included with the email security."
"Unfortunately, the whole product is going downhill right now, ever since they were sold to Thoma Bravo. We're constantly having problems with stability and the product in general."
"Integration for reporting needs to be improved, it's too complex."
"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."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"The solution charges per user per month to use it. There are not any additional fees in addition to the standard living fees."
"Clients pay for an annual subscription of Proofpoint Email Protection. Every client always finds it expensive."
"Customers pay around $90,000 yearly for a 1,000-user organization, with the subscription license being the main expense, apart from implementation fees."
"They are competitively priced, but I have been forced to get quotes for other solutions now because they haven't been responding to requests to do the work that we would like them to do."
"It is multiple times more expensive, which made it very much less attractive."
"The licensing is basically $8/user."
"We sell annual licenses for this solution."
"Annually, it costs us about $92,000. This is pretty much what it costs us. There is no additional cost."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business28
Midsize Enterprise24
Large Enterprise43
 

Questions from the Community

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Proofpoint Email Protection?
I do not handle the pricing, setup cost, and licensing for Proofpoint Email Protection, but I think it's a bit pricey compared to other solutions, even though we found no competitor with comparable...
What needs improvement with Proofpoint Email Protection?
Some of the old portal features of Proofpoint Email Protection are missing in the new portal, so some of the settings could be modernized. The TRAP mail gateway product of Proofpoint Email Protecti...
What is your primary use case for Proofpoint Email Protection?
Proofpoint Email Protection is primarily used for anti-spam purposes. As other companies receive a lot of malware, phishing emails, and unwanted bulk email, Proofpoint Email Protection stops unwant...
 

Also Known As

No data available
Proofpoint Enterprise Protection, Proofpoint Digital Protection
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Technical Financial Solutions, Arkansas Securities Department, America’s Car-Mart
Blocket, University of Waterloo, Lincoln Memorial University, WellSpan Health, U-Haul, Carestream Health, Westinghouse
Find out what your peers are saying about KnowBe4, Huntress, Proofpoint and others in Security Awareness Training. Updated: March 2026.
885,444 professionals have used our research since 2012.