Fortinet FortiMail vs Proofpoint Email Protection comparison

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12,659 views|10,155 comparisons
97% willing to recommend
Fortinet Logo
6,664 views|4,388 comparisons
93% willing to recommend
Proofpoint Logo
2,042 views|1,499 comparisons
94% willing to recommend
Comparison Buyer's Guide
Executive Summary
Updated on Sep 5, 2023

We compared Fortinet FortiMail and Proofpoint Email Protection across several parameters based on our users' reviews. After reading the collected data, you can find our conclusion below:

  • Features: Fortinet FortiMail is highly praised for its simplicity, intuitive interface, and smooth compatibility with other Fortinet products. Users describe Proofpoint Email Protection as a convenient all-in-one solution that offers effective defense against phishing attempts.

  • Room for Improvement: Fortinet FortiMail requires enhancements in integration, user management, and documentation. Proofpoint Email Protection could make its interface clearer and simplify admin management.

  • Service and Support: Fortinet FortiMail is considered to have a moderate and fair setup cost, which is seen as reasonable. Proofpoint Email Protection’s customer service is described as responsive, professional, and knowledgeable. However, there are some concerns about availability.

  • Ease of Deployment: The setup process for Fortinet FortiMail is described as relatively easy and can be completed within a few hours or up to 14 working days. It is flexible and can be tailored to specific needs, although it may require help from technical professionals. Proofpoint Email Protection can be set up in a relatively short amount of time. Some users found it simple, while others mentioned that it requires technical skills.

  • Pricing: Fortinet FortiMail is considered to have a moderate and fair setup cost, which is seen as reasonable. The opinions on the cost of Proofpoint Email Protection vary, with some users finding it costly while others find it reasonable.

  • ROI: Fortinet FortiMail provides enhanced email communication, decreased spam, stabilized collections, and altered expenses. The opinions on the cost of Proofpoint Email Protection vary, with some users finding it costly while others find it reasonable.

Comparison Results: Fortinet FortiMail and Cisco Secure Email have distinct features and functionalities. Fortinet FortiMail is known for its simple setup, user-friendly interface, and effective email filtering. It can be customized and seamlessly integrated with other Fortinet products. Proofpoint Email Protection provides effective email protection and strong threat-detection features. However, it needs to simplify its user interface and administration.

To learn more, read our detailed Fortinet FortiMail vs. Proofpoint Email Protection Report (Updated: January 2024).
771,170 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Featured Review
Quotes From Members
We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use.
Here are some excerpts of what they said:
Pros
"Defender helps us prioritize threats across our organization.""The benefit that stands out to me is the ability for multiple individuals to collaborate simultaneously within the same document. Additionally, there is the option to save the document directly in the integrated OneDrive or SharePoint.""There are several features that I consider valuable.""The solution is very easy to use. All you have to do is to assign the license to the end-user and it's done. The customer will only have the feature activated, and the solution will monitor the emails to determine if they are a threat or not.""The product is not resource-intensive.""Our customers are satisfied with Defender for 365 because Microsoft products are easy to use and customize to meet the client's needs. Everything is in one place, so we can adjust policies as needed for phishing, DLP, ATP, or any other security features that our clients want to apply.""Microsoft Defender for Office 365 helps people to work remotely. It is a secure solution. We don't need to use our company's computers or get VPN connections to the networks. I can control how they share screens and what they send to the devices. It keeps our organizations confidential and sensitive information safe.""Microsoft Defender for Office 365 has improved my organization's security. It makes it easier to manage the infrastructure without the help of third-party applications."

More Microsoft Defender for Office 365 Pros →

"The key benefits of this solution are its user-friendly interface and clear instructions, as well as the wealth of online resources and helpful health community available for support. These features make it easy for users to navigate and utilize the solution effectively.""The most valuable feature of the solution is its interface, allowing users to get around the solution easily. The integration capabilities in the solution are also very easy.""Fortinet FortiMail is easy to use and the detection rate is very good. You can customize content filters and profiles are done easily. Additionally, there is a sandbox integration feature that is good.""This excellent email gateway minimizes spam, inspects suspicious emails and isolates infected attachments with little administrative effort.""When combining this solution with other Fortinet products, such as FortiGate, it integrates well and provides a comprehensive protection package.""Fortinet FortiMail is a complete product addressing mail security concerns. It helps to know spam subscriptions and create restriction policies.""FortiMail is a stable product.""The solution can scale."

More Fortinet FortiMail Pros →

"They have customized security rules, mature rules, anti-virus protection, as well as email authentication similar to SPF, DKIM, and DMARC.""The initial implementation is pretty easy to handle.""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.""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.""The most valuable feature of Proofpoint Email Protection is the blocking capabilities, it blocks a lot of potential threats.""There is no downtime.""Proofpoint Email Protection is the best solution from the perspective of email security.""The most valuable features are the business email compromise protection and targeted attack prevention."

More Proofpoint Email Protection Pros →

Cons
"Several simulation options are available within 365, and the phishing simulation could be better.""They can improve their security in a way where a customer can know if all their attachments are safe or not to open through a report. The solution does its job perfectly, but it never reports to the customer whether those attachments have been stopped before or not.""There's room for improvement regarding the time frame for retrieving emails.""The custom alerts have to improve a lot.""The pre-sales cost calculations could be more transparent.""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.""There needs to be an improvement in integrating the product to work across multiple operating systems, and to have better support for non-Microsoft file types.""In one of the reports I can get the exact place where a vulnerable file resides. But for that, I need to explicitly go into the device and check. If they could include that file part in the report, without my having to go to the device itself, that would help."

More Microsoft Defender for Office 365 Cons →

"The security products stop their operations once the subscription period expires. It is a wrong policy. If I trust a product, it has to continue working even after expiry. It should have a grace period of 30, 40, or 60 days. We can extend the subscription during those days. In some places, subscription extensions can take up to six weeks. During the renewal process, the support offered by the company is very poor. It also reduces security. We pay for the expired period but do not get protection during those times. The user of Fortinet FortiMail should have a feature to see spam names.""Fortinet FortiMail could improve general user management. There are no password policies for users.""I would like it if the solution could be more affordable.""The only drawback to this solution is that the firmware is frequently updated, and each update results in downtime.""The product should work on licensing and provide more detail once the license is selected for the customer.""Online support sometimes takes up to a week to get back to you.""It's difficult for me to talk about areas for improvement in Fortinet FortiMail because I'm the general manager of the company and I'm an engineer with knowledge about the solution, but I'm not deeply involved in its implementation. As I mentioned previously, Fortinet FortiMail is also being used within the company, and I'm happy with its functionality, but sometimes, attacks pass and avoid the Fortinet FortiMail filters, but those could be very sophisticated attacks. There could still be an improvement in the filtering feature of the solution, though the security of Fortinet FortiMail is okay for me because I believe you can't implement one hundred percent security in any solution. The initial setup for the solution also needs improvement. The setup is supposed to be simple, but then the customer starts to complain that some of the false positive emails are reaching quarantine, so my team has to configure it again. There have been instances when Fortinet FortiMail rejects valid emails because some of the service partners of the customer have not been configured accurately, so the system considered valid mails as attacks to be quarantined, so aside from improving the filters, there should also be an improvement in the categorization of emails in the server. My team has to modify the configuration so that valid emails could pass and for Fortinet FortiMail to correctly filter the SPAM traffic. A feature that could be added to Fortinet FortiMail in its next release is advanced AI, so it can analyze and decide accurately on which mail is valid and which mail is SPAM.""I don't know if it is possible, but I would like to see Artificial Intelligence and machine learning introduced."

More Fortinet FortiMail Cons →

"The incident reporting on offer needs to be improved. It's lacking right now. It should be on the platform somewhere.""I would want better spear phishing protection in the essentials package.""The reporting section could be enhanced. I like some reports but if they could allow us to create custom reports with more flexibility it would enhance the reports more.""The solution's server console and cluster dashboard have been the same for four years so need to be upgraded.""Proofpoint Email Protection is an expensive solution.""Pricing for the platform could still be cheaper.""Integration and filtering out who you want and don't want to have integrated ID could be improved.""There is room for improvement in detecting and preventing phishing attacks. While the solution performs well in some aspects, it struggles with phishing threats."

More Proofpoint Email Protection Cons →

Pricing and Cost Advice
  • "It's a user-base subscription."
  • "From the pricing point of view, like any other product in the market, there is scope for negotiation."
  • "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."
  • "For licensing, it's usually a yearly package for customers who are subscribed to Office 365, but they can also pay on a monthly basis."
  • "Microsoft Defender for Office 365 is an add-on to the Office license. Many customers are purchasing this solution."
  • "Microsoft Defender for Office 365 comes with Microsoft Windows. It is free with the operating system."
  • "The solution saves money so we have seen a return on investment."
  • "Defender for 365 comes in various plans and licenses, along with other Microsoft security solutions. Purchasing this kind of package or security bundle gives good value for money, and that's what I recommend."
  • More Microsoft Defender for Office 365 Pricing and Cost Advice →

  • "The licensing model for this solution is better because it is based on the box and not the number of users."
  • "It is an expensive product."
  • "The annual cost is $55,000."
  • "Pricing is straight-forward and renewable without complicated pricing structures."
  • "Pricing is based on initial license purchase and use volume."
  • "In the future I would like it if there's a possibility to lower the price of the bandwidth and UTM. It is quite expensive."
  • "This is a good solution and value for the money."
  • "If you don't need the full bundle that includes everything, you have options for the small or medium enterprise environments."
  • More Fortinet FortiMail Pricing and Cost Advice →

  • "Annually, it costs us about $92,000. This is pretty much what it costs us. There is no additional cost."
  • "The price is reasonable."
  • "Proofpoint is fairly expensive."
  • "The licensing is basically $8/user."
  • "It is multiple times more expensive, which made it very much less attractive."
  • "Pricing has recently been increased and the cost is a downside"
  • "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."
  • More Proofpoint Email Protection Pricing and Cost Advice →

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    Questions from the Community
    Top Answer:Threat Explorer is an invaluable tool for me, and it plays a crucial role in helping me discern the origins of various… more »
    Top Answer:The product must provide better malware detection. The detection algorithms don't perform the way I hope they would.
    Top Answer:Customers do not prefer the tool because of its price. The tool is very expensive. However, it provides value for money.
    Top Answer:Sometimes, the tool flags legitimate incoming traffic as spam.
    Top Answer:The product is costly. I rate the product price a seven on a scale of one to ten, where one is low price and ten is high… more »
    Top Answer:The whole configuration management piece of the product requires some work, as it is one of the areas where the tool has… more »
    Comparisons
    Also Known As
    MS Defender for Office 365
    FortiMail
    Proofpoint Enterprise Protection, Cofense PhishMe
    Learn More
    Overview

    Microsoft Defender for Office 365 is a comprehensive security solution designed to protect organizations against advanced threats in their email, collaboration, and productivity environments. It combines the power of Microsoft's threat intelligence, machine learning, and behavioral analytics to provide real-time protection against phishing, malware, ransomware, and other malicious attacks.

    With Microsoft Defender for Office 365, organizations can safeguard their email communication by detecting and blocking malicious links, attachments, and unsafe email content. It employs advanced anti-phishing capabilities to identify and prevent sophisticated phishing attacks that attempt to steal sensitive information or compromise user credentials.

    This solution also offers robust protection against malware and ransomware. It leverages machine learning algorithms to analyze email attachments and URLs in real-time, identifying and blocking malicious content before it reaches users' inboxes. Additionally, it provides advanced threat-hunting capabilities, allowing security teams to proactively investigate and respond to potential threats.

    Microsoft Defender for Office 365 goes beyond email protection and extends its security features to other collaboration tools like SharePoint, OneDrive, and Teams. It scans files and documents stored in these platforms, ensuring that they are free from malware and other malicious content. It also provides visibility into user activities, helping organizations detect and mitigate insider threats.

    Furthermore, this solution offers rich reporting and analytics capabilities, providing organizations with insights into their security posture and threat landscape. It enables security administrators to monitor and manage security incidents, track trends, and take proactive measures to enhance their overall security posture.

    As cyber attacks become more sophisticated, it is crucial for email security solutions to offer multi-layered protection. Fortinet's proven email security platform, FortiMail, is a comprehensive multi-layered threat protection solution designed to secure users from the full spectrum of email-based threats, which includes zero-day threats, credential impersonation, spam, phishing, malware, and business email compromise (BEC) attacks.

    Fortinet FortiMail offers a variety of deployment models to best fit your organization’s email security needs. On-premises, private or public cloud, or hybrid email environments can be deployed and managed in-house by your team or managed by Fortinet’s data centers. FortiMail also employs virtual machines that provide robust scalability options and flexible deployment of email security infrastructure.

    Fortinet FortiMail Benefits

    Fortinet FortiMail provides your organization with the following benefits:

    • Eliminate message-based threats by using FortiMail’s advanced inspection capabilities before they can harm your users.
    • Flexible licensing ensures that you don’t have to create a license for each user as you scale your network upwards.

    • Achieve regulatory compliance with sophisticated messaging content archiving, quarantining, and routing tools.
    • Stop spam before it takes over your messaging system and network resources, ensuring that your messaging performance remains optimized.

    Fortinet FortiMail Benefits

    Some of Fortinet FortiMail’s top features include:

    • Spam and malware prevention: FortiMail employs advanced techniques and technologies, such as outbreak protection, impersonation detection, content disarm and reconstruction, and sandbox analysis to provide users with high-performing antispam and antimalware tools designed to prevent unwanted bulk email, ransomware, and other targeted attacks.
    • Powerful data loss prevention: Identity-based email encryption and archiving help prevent the loss of sensitive and important information and ensure that your organization adheres to compliance with corporate and industry regulations.
    • Automatic updates: Receive dynamic updates from the FortiGuard subscription services that automatically upgrade your antispam and antivirus functionality using intelligence gathered by Fortinet's dedicated global threat research team.
    • Seamless integration: Integrations with other Fortinet products and external third-party components enable companies to enhance their security by sharing indicators of compromise (IoCs) across a unified security system.
    • Easy email management: Gain full visibility over real-time email traffic with Fortinet FortiMail’s intuitive dashboards, rich reporting features, centralized quarantine tools, and end-user controls. Control email traffic with the solution’s full mail transfer agent and mail-handling capabilities. The solution’s quick-start setup wizard greatly reduces the complexity of deployment and management.

    Reviews from Real Users

    Fortinet FortiMail stands out among its competitors for a number of reasons. Two major ones are its powerful anti-virus tool and its robust spam protection capabilities.

    Flamur P., head of security management at Ipko Telecommunications, writes, "Fortinet FortiMail has a lot of valuable features. It works great. It also has an antivirus feature. Support for Fortinet FortiMail was also great when my team wanted to block some geographic IPs, but couldn't figure out how to do it. The support team provided clear communication on how to resolve that issue. Another valuable feature of Fortinet FortiMail is spam filtering which tells you how many spammy emails you've received. Based on my current use cases, I'm happy with Fortinet FortiMail."

    Proofpoint Email Protection is a machine learning email gateway that catches both known and unknown threats. Through Target Attack Protection, emails will be analyzed and potentially blocked from advanced threats while users gain visibility around these threats. The technology can also classify various types of email and can be deployed both on premises or as a cloud service. In addition, users can tag suspicious emails to help raise user awareness and track down any email quickly.

    Proofpoint Email Protection offers Advanced BEC Defense, which can precisely detect and block different types of emails, even if they don’t involve a malicious payload, such as business email compromise (BEC). Email Protection, which is powered by NexusAI, is a sophisticated detection technique developed to stop a variety of kinds of email fraud from affecting compromised accounts. It’s specifically designed to analyze message components, such as the sender’s IP address (including reputation and x-originating IP), the message header, and the message body. Using machine learning and AI, it will then determine if that message is a BEC threat.

    Benefits of Proofpoint Email Protection

    Proofpoint Email Protection is a favorite for organizations looking to utilize their cybersecurity budget accurately, and provides the user with incredible visibility. While preventing email fraud, the technology can also detect and block advanced malware as well as identifying possible risks.

    Email Protection offers many benefits, including:

    • Email warning tag - Raise user awareness and reduce the risk of possible compromises by automatically tagging suspicious emails.

    • Gain granular control of unwanted email - Gain control over low-priority emails through granular email filtering, which can pinpoint gray mail, like newsletters and bulk mail.

    • Multi-layered detection - Defend against continuous evolving threats with reputation and content analysis. Email Protection offers a dynamic classification of various emails, including malware, spam, phishing, imposter threats, and bulk email.

    • Smart search - Track down an email based on dozens of search criteria in seconds. Smart search also provides the ability to trace where emails came from.

    Reviews from Real Users

    Proofpoint Email Protection enables business continuity capabilities through their machine learning, AI-powered email gateway. With its innovative approach toward detecting, analyzing, identifying, and blocking advanced threats, users can gain unique visibility into their business data environments. Users especially like the ability to block spam, as well as the business email compromise protection.

    An anonymous reviewer who is a principal consultant at a tech company, notes, "Proofpoint is the main tool for blocking spam because it denies the connection altogether."

    Sridhar R., a security professional at Qatar Computer Services WLL, writes, "The most valuable features are the business email compromise protection and targeted attack prevention."

    Sample Customers
    Microsoft Defender for Office 365 is trusted by companies such as Ithaca College.
    Magromer Cueros y Pieles S.A.
    Blocket, University of Waterloo, Lincoln Memorial University, WellSpan Health, U-Haul, Carestream Health, Westinghouse
    Top Industries
    REVIEWERS
    Computer Software Company17%
    Manufacturing Company17%
    Comms Service Provider13%
    Financial Services Firm7%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Computer Software Company17%
    Financial Services Firm9%
    Manufacturing Company7%
    Government7%
    REVIEWERS
    Comms Service Provider17%
    Computer Software Company14%
    Manufacturing Company14%
    Government14%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Educational Organization44%
    Computer Software Company9%
    Comms Service Provider6%
    Government5%
    REVIEWERS
    Computer Software Company15%
    Financial Services Firm15%
    Retailer11%
    Healthcare Company11%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Educational Organization25%
    Computer Software Company12%
    Financial Services Firm8%
    Manufacturing Company6%
    Company Size
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business42%
    Midsize Enterprise16%
    Large Enterprise42%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business30%
    Midsize Enterprise19%
    Large Enterprise51%
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business46%
    Midsize Enterprise31%
    Large Enterprise24%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business18%
    Midsize Enterprise55%
    Large Enterprise27%
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business44%
    Midsize Enterprise26%
    Large Enterprise30%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business20%
    Midsize Enterprise35%
    Large Enterprise45%
    Buyer's Guide
    Fortinet FortiMail vs. Proofpoint Email Protection
    January 2024
    Find out what your peers are saying about Fortinet FortiMail vs. Proofpoint Email Protection and other solutions. Updated: January 2024.
    771,170 professionals have used our research since 2012.

    Fortinet FortiMail is ranked 5th in Email Security with 57 reviews while Proofpoint Email Protection is ranked 1st in Secure Email Gateway (SEG) with 44 reviews. Fortinet FortiMail is rated 8.6, while Proofpoint Email Protection is rated 8.4. The top reviewer of Fortinet FortiMail writes "Good GUI and configuring security policies is easy but the pricing needs improvement". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Proofpoint Email Protection writes "A reasonably priced product that offers protection to emails, along with spam filters". Fortinet FortiMail is most compared with Cisco Secure Email, Microsoft Exchange Online Protection (EOP), Barracuda Email Security Gateway, Fortinet FortiMail Cloud and Trend Micro Email Security, whereas Proofpoint Email Protection is most compared with Microsoft Exchange Online Protection (EOP), Palo Alto Networks WildFire, Cisco Secure Email, KnowBe4 and Barracuda Email Security Gateway. See our Fortinet FortiMail vs. Proofpoint Email Protection report.

    We monitor all Email Security 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.