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Perception Point Advanced Email Security vs Proofpoint Email Protection comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 12, 2025

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

Microsoft Defender for Offi...
Sponsored
Ranking in Email Security
1st
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
48
Ranking in other categories
Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) (1st), Microsoft Security Suite (11th)
Perception Point Advanced E...
Ranking in Email Security
17th
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
23
Ranking in other categories
Internet Security (6th)
Proofpoint Email Protection
Ranking in Email Security
3rd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
51
Ranking in other categories
Security Awareness Training (2nd), Digital Risk Protection (3rd), Office 365 Protection (1st), Secure Email Gateway (SEG) (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Email Security category, the mindshare of Microsoft Defender for Office 365 is 13.1%, down from 19.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Perception Point Advanced Email Security is 2.2%, up from 1.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Proofpoint Email Protection is 8.1%, down from 12.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Email Security
 

Featured Reviews

Tolu Omolaja - PeerSpot reviewer
Great URL scanning and attachment scanning, but I would like more proactive threat analysis
The two main features that prove most beneficial for us are URL scanning and attachment scanning. URL scanning involves an automatic scan of links and emails. When a user clicks on a link within an email, the system promptly checks the link's safety. If the link is deemed safe, access is granted automatically. However, if it is flagged as unsafe, we receive feedback and notification to caution us about the potentially harmful link. At this point, we are presented with the option to proceed or return. I have personally witnessed the system identify a few unsafe links, making this the primary advantage of using the solution. The second crucial aspect is the scanning of attachments. When an email containing an attachment arrives, we receive a notification of the new email, along with information that the attachment is being scanned for threats. This additional layer of security provides peace of mind for our organization. While Microsoft Defender for Office 365 offers numerous features, these two stand out as particularly impressive and valuable to us.
Jijin Joseph - PeerSpot reviewer
Gives in-depth analysis reports to end users for any malicious content found in emails
Our users would like the solution to scan outgoing emails. So, if my system is compromised, and I have malicious content in my system, then there is a possibility that I send malicious email to my colleague. There is a dependency on AWS cloud.This means if the cloud service is down, which may impact the perception point's email delivery.So it would be great if there is any HA for the solution. I would like a user-friendly configuration, like APIs. This solution is API-friendly configuration by following the steps provided. It would be great if it could be automate it, like the Avanan.Also, it would be good if Perception Point Advanced Email Security could have an MSP model. During the early stages of working with this solution, there were some constraints and issues.
AhmedRamadan - PeerSpot reviewer
Optimize email security with effective sandboxing and auto Pull for quarantine
Proofpoint is used as an email security gateway for big enterprises, primarily for their on-premises servers. Many customers also use it alongside Office 365 Proofpoint offers a complete solution for email security with features like DLP, email archiving, and encryption. The most valuable…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The stability of Microsoft Defender for Office 365 is fantastic."
"The basic features are okay and I'm satisfied with the Defender."
"I like its investigation capabilities, as that is what is most important to me. It is fairly simple with a user-friendly interface."
"The good part is that you don't have to configure it, which is very convenient."
"The product is not resource-intensive."
"The risk level notifications are most valuable. We get to know what kind of intrusion or attack is there, and we can fix a problem on time."
"Microsoft Defender for Office 365's most valuable feature is its performance."
"The email protection is excellent, especially in terms of anti-phishing policies."
"We haven't had a client, who uses their protection, have an email security breach. That is the best thing about what they do. We don't have to think too much. Their product just works and keeps bad emails away."
"We can use it to perform detection and analysis of emails. For any malicious content found in emails, it gives in-depth analysis reports to end users. If you log into the console, you can see in-depth detection and how it happens."
"What's really good about this platform is that you have full visibility, it has a very nice and very friendly UI, it's quick, and there's no latency in the scanning."
"The solution’s effectiveness when it comes to detection is very good. It has a very good mechanism. It scans our emails. It identifies any threat or phishing attempts and phishing campaigns as well as any bad reputation, servers, or links, then it blocks them. This is what I find to be very good about this system."
"The most valuable feature I have found is the speed of scanning emails."
"Their security engines are very effective at stopping malware and potential attacks before they reach a user's mailbox. They have the best detection engine."
"Perception Point Advanced Email Security has a correct price point and offers very good email filtering capabilities."
"The most valuable feature is the ability to identify malicious content and phishing emails and reduce the workload we have to do in terms of security."
"Proofpoint Email Protection offers an additional layer of protection compared to other brands like Microsoft, Mimecast, and Barracuda. While these major companies excel at detecting malicious attachments, the solution goes further by analyzing the context of emails, allowing for more nuanced decision-making."
"The solution scales well."
"I recommend all of my customers to migrate and start using Proofpoint as it is secure, minimizes risk, and eliminates phishing attacks."
"The archive feature is valuable."
"The tool has improved our workflow by ensuring people receive only the emails they need for work rather than being inundated with hundreds or thousands of unnecessary emails daily."
"The stability is very good."
"A one-stop shop for email protection"
"Its main defense is to stop malicious emails from coming through. There is a sandbox environment where you can open malicious or suspicious emails to make sure that they're not malicious, instead of taking the risk of having your employees do it. This is definitely something that everybody needs nowadays, especially with the rise in cyber attacks."
 

Cons

"Microsoft Defender for Office 365's Mac functionality requires improvement to deliver the same level of protection found on Windows devices."
"The only thing they should improve is the licensing model. They should stop changing it. A year ago, the five features I mentioned were included in one product. Now, three of them are bundled into one product, and you have to pay extra for the other two. I don't mind paying extra, but I don't want them to change it every year or every six months. I need to know what I'm looking at and not worry about it next year."
"Microsoft sometimes has downtime, and we'll get several incidents coming in back to back. We have a huge backlog of notifications, many of which may be false positives. However, there might be serious alerts, so we can't risk dismissing all of them at once."
"The GUI is sometimes slow to fetch the device report and could be improved."
"The product must provide better malware detection."
"They have moved features from one console to another. Things have been moved around in the interface and it takes me time to find where certain features are."
"The XDR dashboard has room for improvement."
"The changes to customer service, specifically the new model for support agreements, are not favorable."
"Our users would like the solution to scan outgoing emails. So, if my system is compromised, and I have malicious content in my system, then there is a possibility that I am sending a colleague that malicious content."
"Integration and end-user interaction can be improved as the current system does not allow end-users to send back information to the platform, unlike Google Workspace or competitive tools like Ironscales."
"They could improve their anti-spam engine a little bit, because there are a lot of false positives. Sometimes, emails pass through their system but are spam. In terms of security and engines for malicious emails and antivirus, they're doing a good job. Their other engines can be improved."
"There is still room for improvement with BEC. There is more work to be done by Perception Point on machine learning and neuro language as well. BEC is very difficult if you don't have a computer language looking into the content of the email and trying to make a determination through that. With BEC you often don't have an attachment or a URL."
"This is an option to preview an email in their console, and that could be improved. If you open the preview, then it auto scrolls. Therefore, it is hard to look at the email when it is going to the next page or scrolling. It should not have the auto-scroll."
"From a forensics point of view, it could improve a bit more from a threat intelligence aspect. So, if I find a malicious email, they could have more investigations about sources, headers, where it comes from, if they have seen it in other campaigns before, etc. I would like a little bit more from a threat intelligence point of view so I can understand who else might be affected and attacked as well as the vectors of attack."
"They need more customer engagement. The product works very well. The IR works very well when we contact them. However, day-to-day, they should have more in communication with their customers explaining new products and features. There is possibly something that if I would know about it, then I would buy and use it. Maybe I need it. They need to improve their communications."
"In terms of architecture, and I know that they're going to improve this, the solution needs to be much more redundant. There was an outage a month ago in AWS, and that basically stopped the service for two or three hours. Although in two years, this was the first time that something like that happened, our expectation from a company like Perception Point is that it should work with either a multi-cloud or multi-region architecture, to improve the resilience."
"Integration and filtering out who you want and don't want to have integrated ID could be improved."
"The solution's server console and cluster dashboard have been the same for four years so need to be upgraded."
"Integration for reporting needs to be improved, it's too complex."
"The solution could be improved with the addition of PLP and email encryption features."
"It's scalable, but the devil's in the details — you have to know your email volumes."
"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."
"Sometimes it detects false positives."
"Proofpoint Email Protection could improve by reducing the price."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing is normal. Considering its popularity, it's not overpriced."
"Defender is a little bit more expensive as compared to others. We are in the manufacturing environment. So, we don't have a high budget for all of our endpoint devices. Its cost is a major concern for us."
"The solution could be better by simplifying the business model of their licensing. It was hard to figure out how to get the licensing done for the environment, initially."
"It's a user-base subscription."
"The pricing has become expensive."
"Microsoft Defender is expensive. I typically recommend it only if clients have the budget. Otherwise, I would suggest an alternative."
"The product is very expensive."
"While Microsoft Defender for Office 365 necessitates pricier E3 or E5 subscriptions, the extensive functionality offered by these licenses across various Microsoft products justifies the investment."
"We would always like it to be cheaper and save more money. However, we are getting the value from it."
"Pricing is lower in comparison to Proofpoint."
"The pricing was fair in comparison with the other solutions. We have received good value for what we paid."
"It fits every budget. It has a low price. I can't go ahead and sell it for any price I want. They are quite strict. They say, "This is the price that you can sell it for and this is the price for you as a reseller." That is it. It is not a lot of money. I will not become rich from it, but I like that they keep a standard for everyone. They are a fair company."
"We were able to get reasonable pricing that matches the ROI we want, so I think that it is the correct price point."
"The pricing and licensing are very fair compared to competing companies in the same field."
"It has very reasonable pricing. Normally, the end user is paying. Perception Point is already in the Amazon marketplace, so we cannot sell it as a distribution partner. For example, we cannot take more than that margin of what they offer in the marketplace. Whatever the end user is paying, it is definitely worth it and it is not that high."
"They are not the most expensive vendor. There are much more expensive vendors. They are not cheap, but they are not the most expensive. They are somewhere in the middle."
"The solution charges per user per month to use it. There are not any additional fees in addition to the standard living fees."
"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."
"The licensing cost of Proofpoint Email Protection is a lot higher than other solutions, such as Barracuda."
"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 tool's pricing depends on the customer's preference, offering options for an annual license or a monthly subscription. The cost varies based on factors such as the number of users and specific requirements. Overall, the pricing is competitive."
"The end customer is buying our solution, which can be for monthly or annual usage depending on our payment and business model."
"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."
"The solution is expensive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
16%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
6%
Computer Software Company
18%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Retailer
5%
Educational Organization
30%
Computer Software Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Manufacturing Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Microsoft Defender for Office 365?
Threat Explorer is an invaluable tool for me, and it plays a crucial role in helping me discern the origins of variou...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Microsoft Defender for Office 365?
I don't have detailed specifics on pricing, setup cost, or licensing.
What needs improvement with Microsoft Defender for Office 365?
I am generally satisfied with how it currently is. If I could improve anything, I would reduce the cost.
What do you like most about Perception Point Advanced Email Security?
The most valuable feature is the technical support services.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Perception Point Advanced Email Security?
In Brazil, the dollar price affects the cost. Perception Point Advanced Email Security is about 50 percent less expen...
What needs improvement with Perception Point Advanced Email Security?
To improve the solution, maybe a portal for end users to consult their emails would be helpful. The end user could ac...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Proofpoint Email Protection?
In terms of pricing, it is okay compared to others. I would say it is normal. Additional costs do come in, but it enh...
What needs improvement with Proofpoint Email Protection?
In terms of improvement, the price could be better. Additionally, more security could be implemented.
 

Also Known As

MS Defender for Office 365
No data available
Proofpoint Enterprise Protection, Cofense PhishMe, Proofpoint Digital Protection
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Microsoft Defender for Office 365 is trusted by companies such as Ithaca College.
Information Not Available
Blocket, University of Waterloo, Lincoln Memorial University, WellSpan Health, U-Haul, Carestream Health, Westinghouse
Find out what your peers are saying about Perception Point Advanced Email Security vs. Proofpoint Email Protection and other solutions. Updated: March 2025.
845,040 professionals have used our research since 2012.