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Proofpoint Email Protection vs SonicWall Email Security comparison

Why PeerSpot?
 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 3, 2024

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

Proofpoint Email Protection
Ranking in Email Security
1st
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
110
Ranking in other categories
Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) (5th), Digital Risk Protection (5th), Office 365 Protection (1st), Secure Email Gateway (SEG) (1st)
SonicWall Email Security
Ranking in Email Security
26th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
15
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2026, in the Email Security category, the mindshare of Proofpoint Email Protection is 5.9%, down from 7.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SonicWall Email Security is 0.9%, up from 0.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Email Security Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Proofpoint Email Protection5.9%
SonicWall Email Security0.9%
Other93.2%
Email Security
 

Featured Reviews

Siva_Prasad - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Consultant at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
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.
Mahendra Basera - PeerSpot reviewer
Sr. Engineer at InterGlobe Technology Quotient
Improved email threat visibility and security posture through adaptive reputation and analytics
I have experience with Cisco and other vendors like Sophos. I have more than 10 years of experience in this field. I worked with the Adaptive Reputation Management feature of SonicWall. Machine learning plays an important role in updating threat intelligence, particularly with SonicWall. The pricing for SonicWall Email Security is reasonable and budget-friendly. My overall rating for SonicWall Email Security is 8 out of 10 because, apart from the areas that need improvement, it was overall good.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Proofpoint Email Protection has positively impacted my organization by ensuring we are not at risk of a breach through email."
"The most valuable feature is the ability to remove bad messages that were delivered, prior to being classified as unwanted."
"Proofpoint Email Protection has massively improved the attack surface and has limited a lot of user compromise events."
"We've observed that we have almost 99.9% control over our emails now in an easy to configure and easy to implement solution."
"The best features of Proofpoint Email Protection are the advanced level of anti-spam and antivirus technology, the TAP feature that helps me scan URLs and provides URL defense, outbound filtering and prevention capabilities, and particularly the TRAP feature where I can pull out all phishing emails from all users' mailboxes in a single click."
"Proofpoint Email Protection has increased the efficiency of the organization, as before a single end user might be receiving fifteen, twenty, or thirty spam emails in a week, but with Proofpoint Email Protection, they have decreased by approximately eighty percent, so users are receiving many fewer spam emails and do not have to go through all the spam emails just to verify if they are legitimate or not."
"The solution has very strong detection for most of the phishing and malicious emails received from the outside."
"The most valuable features of Proofpoint Email Protection are the performance from being on the cloud."
"According to our customers, the product's most valuable feature is the ability to detect spam and reduce phishing emails."
"Behind the reason we chose SonicWall for my company is it has excellent packet analysis of normal and SSL encrypted traffic, application intelligence visualization and control, multiple Gigabit Ethernet LAN and WAN ports, flexible configuration and redundancy options."
"The most valuable feature of SonicWall Email Security is the blocking of emails using keywords. If there are any particular keywords in the subject, that we want to block from receiving from a particular person we can do it. Additionally, the blocking of emails is easy. we can release that one and we can block some of the keywords also like that."
"The pricing for SonicWall Email Security is reasonable and budget-friendly."
"Setup was easy. It took about 30 minutes."
"There are no wasted extras and the interface is really simple."
"The most valuable feature is that it protects from spam."
"This solution has been really good for us and I recommend using it."
 

Cons

"The solution's server console and cluster dashboard have been the same for four years so need to be upgraded."
"The downside is I feel the vendor support is a little lacking and should be more responsive."
"Proofpoint Email Protection needs to enhance its capabilities for AI-related threats as it is primarily a rule-based solution."
"The only limitation we have with Proofpoint Email Protection is when we implement it with Google Workspace."
"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 could be improved with the addition of PLP and email encryption features."
"We'd like to have the ability to create more customized reports."
"The price could be improved."
"SonicWall Email Security is scalable, but the price per license is expensive."
"SonicWall Email Security could improve by making the file blocking and the release feature easier to use"
"I am not satisfied with phishing protection, as it falls completely under the email domain security."
"We would like to see more information on a dashboard about what is happening when it comes to spamming and malware."
"There could be definition updates included in the subscription."
"A lot of spoofed emails are still coming to the end-user, so the configuration for this option needs to be improved."
"Updates could be released more frequently."
"The reporting needs improvement."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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 end customer is buying our solution, which can be for monthly or annual usage depending on our payment and business model."
"Annually, it costs us about $92,000. This is pretty much what it costs us. There is no additional cost."
"The solution uses a licensing model that is reasonable compared to other products."
"It is expensive."
"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 solution is expensive."
"The licensing cost of Proofpoint Email Protection is a lot higher than other solutions, such as Barracuda."
"Our customers purchase the solution's yearly license."
"The overall price of SonicWall Email Security should be reduced and there should be an option to purchase one or two licenses more instead of their current policy of bulk increases only. There should be more flexibility in the licensing model. Each license cost approximately $33 annually."
"We have a two-year license subscription and the price is very high."
"When compared with Cisco, it is very well priced. Cisco is very expensive."
"The platform offers a yearly license."
"The cost is cheaper than Sophos. I would rate it as five out of ten."
"I rate the application’s pricing a five out of ten."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
13%
Outsourcing Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Comms Service Provider
6%
Construction Company
16%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Marketing Services Firm
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business31
Midsize Enterprise23
Large Enterprise62
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business12
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise3
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Proofpoint Email Protection?
To improve Proofpoint Email Protection, I suggest breaking down the URL into one versus three different GUIs. Regarding Proofpoint Email Protection's AI capabilities, I think its governance and sec...
What is your primary use case for Proofpoint Email Protection?
My main use case for Proofpoint Email Protection includes phishing emails, spam, URL isolation, and training. I utilize the email protect portal to ensure that none of our employees in any of the b...
What needs improvement with SonicWall Email Security?
Policy deployment could be time consuming and represents an area for improvement in SonicWall Email Security.
What is your primary use case for SonicWall Email Security?
SonicWall Email Security was used for security purposes, which aligns with the product's core function.
 

Also Known As

Proofpoint Enterprise Protection, Proofpoint Digital Protection
Dell SonicWALL Email Security Platform, SonicWall Hosted Email Security
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Blocket, University of Waterloo, Lincoln Memorial University, WellSpan Health, U-Haul, Carestream Health, Westinghouse
Star Kay White, Locala Community Partnerships
Find out what your peers are saying about Proofpoint Email Protection vs. SonicWall Email Security and other solutions. Updated: November 2026.
920,769 professionals have used our research since 2012.