Palo Alto Networks WildFire vs Proofpoint Email Protection comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide
Executive Summary
Updated on May 29, 2022

We performed a comparison between Palo Alto Networks WildFire and Proofpoint Email Protection based on our users’ reviews in five categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.

  • Ease of Deployment: While some WildFire reviewers report the initial setup to be straightforward, others feel that the setup can be complex. Most Proofpoint users report the initial setup to be straightforward.
  • Features: Users of both products are happy with their stability and scalability. WildFire reviewers like its VPN feature and say the solution has powerful security abilities but they find it difficult to configure and would like more integration options. Proofpoint users say it has excellent detection capabilities and praise its anti-phishing functionality but note that the UI could be enhanced
  • Pricing: Reviewers of both solutions note that their prices are relatively high.
  • ROI: WildFire reviewers do not mention ROI. Proofpoint users report seeing an ROI.
  • Service and Support: Most users of both solutions report being satisfied with the level of support they receive.

Comparison Results: Proofpoint has an edge over WildFire in this comparison. Compared with WildFire, it is easier to set up and has a proven ROI.

To learn more, read our detailed ATP (Advanced Threat Protection) Report (Updated: February 2024).
763,955 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
"The technical support is good.""What I like about Palo Alto is that it is a complete product, with everything in it.""The solution is easy to use and the Panorama feature is good. The software management or the malware blocking and some authentication management system are good.""Their technical support is outstanding and top-notch.""It is stable and pretty much scalable.""The most valuable feature of Palo Alto Networks WildFire is its ability to adapt to environments and its robustness.""I give the initial setup an eight out of ten.""The most valuable feature is the cloud-based protection against zero-day malware attacks."

More Palo Alto Networks WildFire Pros →

"The solution scales quite well.""It's very good at identifying threats.""URL scanning and online relay service are the most valuable features of Proofpoint Email Protection.""Proofpoint Email Protection is stable enough and does its job of virus, malware, and email scam detection. Setting it up is not too complicated.""The most valuable feature of Proofpoint Email Protection is the blocking capabilities, it blocks a lot of potential threats.""The spam filter for email is good.""The most valuable feature is the ability to remove bad messages that were delivered, prior to being classified as unwanted.""The most valuable features of Proofpoint Email Protection are ease of use, data loss prevention, antivirus, and spam protection."

More Proofpoint Email Protection Pros →

Cons
"There are more specialized solutions that compete with Wildfire. Therefore, they need to work on their machine learning and AI to be more competitive.""The free version does not have real-time updates. It is slow.""As a firewall and 360 degrees of security, there needs to be more maturity.""Any enhancements should likely be focused on the firewall appliance to further strengthen overall security capabilities, such as refining app and user identity features.""Our main concern is that everything has to be synced with the WildFire Cloud and has to be checked through the subscription.""The configuration should be made a little bit easier. I understand why it is as it is, but there should be a way to make it easier from the user side.""High availability features are lacking.""The data analytical system for deployment needs to improve."

More Palo Alto Networks WildFire Cons →

"Some use cases haven't been dealt with yet.""It's scalable, but the devil's in the details — you have to know your email volumes.""The email DLP portion could be a bit easier.""The high cost of the product is an area of concern where improvements are required.""The scalability can be improved, and the solution can be optimized.""We find the cost to be prohibitive.""Proofpoint Email Protection could improve on the training. Every organization is different and to fine-tune it to block everything properly there needs to be better training. Sometimes it can block some of the information it shouldn't.""The initial setup is complex."

More Proofpoint Email Protection Cons →

Pricing and Cost Advice
  • "It IS a bit expensive, but I think you get what you pay for. Value is there."
  • "It's not particularly cheap, but it is absolutely worth it."
  • "The pricing and licensing option should be categorized for various countries such as for Bangladesh."
  • "It is expensive, a feature more accessible to enterprise class customers, but provides an enhanced possibility that Zero- or near-Zero-day threats may be identified and mitigated. The cost of the product weighed against the potential impact of even one successful crypto malware-type exploit may justify the expense."
  • "​More expensive than other firewalls.​"
  • "The pricing is OK, it is not too expensive."
  • "It is a reasonable price compared to other solutions on the market."
  • "It's pretty expensive but with respect to value for money, it's okay."
  • More Palo Alto Networks WildFire 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: The Cisco Firepower NGFW Firewall is a very powerful and very complex piece of anti-viral software. When one considers that fact, it is all the more impressive that the setup is a fairly… more »
    Top Answer:FortiGate has a lot going for it and I consider it to be the best, most user-friendly firewall out there. What I like the most about it is that it has an attractive web dashboard with very easy… more »
    Top Answer:When looking to change our ASA Firewall, we looked into Palo Alto’s WildFire. It works especially in preventing advanced malware and zero-day exploits with real-time intelligence. The sandbox feature… more »
    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 price. When you want to change what capabilities you want in the product, you… 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 certain shortcomings. Though it is an easy-to-install product, it might be… more »
    Ranking
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    2,675
    Reviews
    17
    Average Words per Review
    372
    Rating
    8.5
    Views
    2,144
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    1,588
    Reviews
    24
    Average Words per Review
    443
    Rating
    8.2
    Comparisons
    Also Known As
    Proofpoint Enterprise Protection, Cofense PhishMe
    Learn More
    Overview

    Palo Alto Networks WildFire is a highly effective cloud-based advanced threat protection (ATP) solution that organizations in a wide variety of fields trust to help them keep safe from digital threats. It is designed to enable businesses to confront even the most evasive threats and resolve them. It combines many techniques to maximize the level of threat protection available to users.

    Palo Alto Networks WildFire Benefits

    Some of the ways that organizations can benefit by choosing to deploy WildFire include:

    Proactive real-time threat prevention. Organizations that utilize WildFire can take a proactive approach to their network security. Wildfire’s security scanning software is supported by powerful automation that enables it to run 180 times faster than other similar solutions. It also leverages machine learning to spot and address two times more malware monthly than its competitors. Users can solve issues as they arise, which prevents them from suffering severe harm.

    A holistic approach to security. WildFire leverages many of the security features and characteristics that can be found in some of the most effective security solutions in a way that provides users with a powerful protective blanket. It combines such things as machine learning, dynamic and static analysis, and a custom-built analysis environment, and enables users to cover many different potential avenues of attack. In this way, organizations can easily detect and prevent even the most sophisticated threats from harming them.

    Reduce overhead costs. Using WildFire cuts the expenses that a business incurs. Its architecture is based in the cloud and, as a result, users do not have to purchase hardware to run it. Additionally, those users do not have to pay anything more than a product subscription fee. They can scale it up as they wish and incur no additional costs.

    Palo Alto Networks WildFire Features

    Some of the many features WildFire offers include:

    Third-party integrations. WildFire gives users access to integrations that can enable them to combine Wildfire’s security suite with outside tools. If an organization thinks that they are missing something, they can easily use Wildfire’s third-party integrations to bolster their capabilities. These integrations can connect to many different types of tools, like security information or event management systems.

    URL filtering. Organizations can use a URL filtering feature to safeguard themselves against known threats. When this feature is active, it will scan for traffic coming from specific URLs that are known to be malicious. This keeps them one step ahead of those threats that they know about.

    Deep analytics. Wildfire comes with the ability to provide users with a detailed analysis of any threat that it finds across all of their network environments. It gives users insight into everything from their natures to the actions that they have performed.

    Reviews from Real Users

    WildFire is a solution that stands out when compared to its primary competitors. Two major advantages that it offers are the high speeds at which it can analyze network traffic for threats and the accuracy with which it can pick out genuine threats from false positives.

    Ahmad Z., the principal consultant at Securelytics, writes, “The analysis is very fast. The intermittent is a millisecond and has a speedy response time.”

    Christopher B., the senior systems administrator at a government agency, says, “It gives a more accurate assessment of a virus in terms of whether it's truly a virus, malware, or a false positive. We have some legacy software that could pop up as being something that is malware. WildFire goes through and inspects it, and then it comes back and lets us know if it's a false positive. Usually, when it finds out that it's not a virus, it lets us know that it's benign, and it can exclude it from that scan, which means I don't even have to worry about that one popping up anymore.”

    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
    Novamedia, Nexon Asia Pacific, Lenovo, Samsonite, IOOF, Sinogrid, SanDisk Corporation
    Blocket, University of Waterloo, Lincoln Memorial University, WellSpan Health, U-Haul, Carestream Health, Westinghouse
    Top Industries
    REVIEWERS
    Financial Services Firm18%
    Government12%
    Computer Software Company12%
    Comms Service Provider9%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Computer Software Company16%
    Government9%
    Financial Services Firm9%
    Manufacturing Company7%
    REVIEWERS
    Financial Services Firm15%
    Computer Software Company15%
    Healthcare Company12%
    Retailer12%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Educational Organization25%
    Computer Software Company12%
    Financial Services Firm7%
    Manufacturing Company6%
    Company Size
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business42%
    Midsize Enterprise20%
    Large Enterprise38%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business23%
    Midsize Enterprise15%
    Large Enterprise62%
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business46%
    Midsize Enterprise22%
    Large Enterprise32%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business20%
    Midsize Enterprise34%
    Large Enterprise46%
    Buyer's Guide
    ATP (Advanced Threat Protection)
    February 2024
    Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft, Palo Alto Networks, ESET and others in ATP (Advanced Threat Protection). Updated: February 2024.
    763,955 professionals have used our research since 2012.

    Palo Alto Networks WildFire is ranked 3rd in ATP (Advanced Threat Protection) with 21 reviews while Proofpoint Email Protection is ranked 1st in SEG (Secure Email Gateway) with 30 reviews. Palo Alto Networks WildFire is rated 8.4, while Proofpoint Email Protection is rated 8.4. The top reviewer of Palo Alto Networks WildFire writes "Intuitive, stable, and scalable zero-day threat prevention solution with a machine learning feature". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Proofpoint Email Protection writes "Powerful data analysis with robust algorithms, machine learning, and strong rules". Palo Alto Networks WildFire is most compared with Cisco Secure Firewall, Fortinet FortiGate, Juniper SRX Series Firewall, Fortinet FortiSandbox and Check Point SandBlast Network, whereas Proofpoint Email Protection is most compared with Microsoft Defender for Office 365, Microsoft Exchange Online Protection (EOP), Cisco Secure Email, Fortinet FortiMail and KnowBe4.

    We monitor all ATP (Advanced Threat Protection) 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.