Proofpoint vs. the Competition
Proofpoint v. the competition

Switch from the rest to what's next.

Level up from Cisco to Proofpoint for more advanced and reliable protection.

Overview

Protect your inbox with Proofpoint

Proofpoint provides a human-centric approach to security that stops more attacks that cause data breaches and financial loss than Cisco. Our flexible deployment options (secure email gateway or API) are more effective and let you choose the email protection that works best for your organization. Analysts, industry experts and customers agree that our unmatched global threat intelligence and pioneering AI offer better efficacy and accuracy.

Legacy security won’t stop modern, targeted attacks. That’s why you need Proofpoint.

1%
of the Fortune 100 use Proofpoint to stop human-targeted attacks and safeguard their data
1M
users, from 500+ customers, have switched from Cisco to Proofpoint since 2019
1%
more threats are delivered to inboxes by Cisco than Proofpoint (on average)
Why Proofpoint

Why switch to Proofpoint?

Seamless migration

Free migration services for email security to make it easier for you. Join the hundreds of organizations we've helped move from Cisco to Proofpoint.

Flexible protection

Achieve more effective protection that easily fits into any IT environment with flexible deployment options, both secure email gateway and API, and integrations with other best-in-class security vendors.

Competitive pricing

Take advantage of our limited time special offer to take the pain out of switching. To learn more, talk to one of our experts today.

Human-centric visibility

coworkers reviewing a presentation

Cisco offers basic reporting for top recipients and blocked messages. But without visibility into trends and user behavior, it can’t provide contextual insights on employee risk or potential impact.

Proofpoint provides the detailed forensics you need to focus on your very attacked users, understand how they’re being attacked and how they respond. We act as your early warning system, keeping you one step ahead today and in the future.

Advanced threat detection

Cisco’s email security struggles to keep up with modern human-targeted threats, relying on artificially limited sandboxing and legacy reputation detection.

Proofpoint Nexus®, our unmatched AI-driven detection platform, combined with world-class threat intelligence catches more costly phishing, business email compromise and malware attacks with 99.99% accuracy.

Lighten your security load

Cisco’s priorities lie outside of email, contributing to less frequent updates and very few automation capabilities. This causes significant manual remediation for administrators. And data is often siloed across many products and requires additional licensing.

Proofpoint delivers an average 30% improvement in efficacy for new customers, significantly reducing incidents. And it offers automated remediation for AI-detected and user reported threats. No hands-on work needed.

Proofpoint vs. Cisco at a glance:

Threat Protection Capabilities
Proofpoint
Cisco

Advanced BEC Detection

(Add-on)

Threat Protection Capabilities
Proofpoint
Cisco

Automated message remediation

(Add-on)

Threat Protection Capabilities
Proofpoint
Cisco

User-reported message automation

 
Threat Protection Capabilities
Proofpoint
Cisco

Cloud account takeover visibility

 
Threat Protection Capabilities
Proofpoint
Cisco

In-depth threat reporting including VAPs

 
Threat Protection Capabilities
Proofpoint
Cisco

Threats blocked pre-delivery

Threat Protection Capabilities
Proofpoint
Cisco

Malware & Phish Detection

Threat Protection Capabilities
Proofpoint
Cisco

URL sandboxing for malware, ransomware, & credential theft

Reputation

Threat Protection Capabilities
Proofpoint
Cisco

Click-time protection

Threat Protection Capabilities
Proofpoint
Cisco

Email warning tags with report suspicious

 
Threat Protection Capabilities
Proofpoint
Cisco

Customizable configuration and mail routing

Threat Protection Capabilities
Proofpoint
Cisco

Anti-spam (AS), anti-virus (AV, graymail, and user mail controls

AV/AS only

Threat Protection Capabilities
Proofpoint
Cisco

Executive/VIP mail control of unknown senders (Circle of Trust)

 
Threat Protection Capabilities
Proofpoint
Cisco

Isolate suspicious clicks on rewritten URLs

 
Threat Protection Capabilities
Proofpoint
Cisco

User risk dashboard (People Risk Explorer)

 
Threat Protection Capabilities
Proofpoint
Cisco

Threat Scanning for Internal Mail

(Add-on)

Threat Protection Capabilities
Proofpoint
Cisco

Advanced BEC Detection

(Add-on)

Automated message remediation

(Add-on)

User-reported message automation

 

Cloud account takeover visibility

 

In-depth threat reporting including VAPs

 

Threats blocked pre-delivery

Malware & Phish Detection

URL sandboxing for malware, ransomware, & credential theft

Reputation

Click-time protection

Email warning tags with report suspicious

 

Customizable configuration and mail routing

Anti-spam (AS), anti-virus (AV), graymail, and user mail controls

AV/AS only

Executive/VIP mail control of unknown senders (Circle of Trust)

 

Isolate suspicious clicks on rewritten URLs

 

User risk dashboard (People Risk Explorer)

 

Threat Scanning for Internal Mail

(Add-on)

The Proof

Proofpoint is the proven leader.

Despite recent acquisitions, Cisco has not made major enhancements or innovations to close the identified gaps in their security capabilities. Their customer support continues to suffer, while they continue to rely heavily on third parties and OEM relationships.

 

Proofpoint addresses all these key areas and more. We are consistently named the market leader in email security by analysts such as Gartner, Frost & Sullivan and Forrester.

Proofpoint ranked No. 1 in G2's Summer 2023 Email Security Report

Best Relationship Enterprise Summer 2023
Momentum Leader Summer 2023
Proofpoint G2 Leader Summer 2023 badge
G2 Awards
G2 Awards
More Reasons

Future-proof your security with Proofpoint’s human-centric cybersecurity platform

Proofpoint’s human-centric cybersecurity platform can help future-proof your organization by consolidating your discrete IT security controls in critical areas, such as impersonation protection, account takeover protection, security awareness training, and email archiving and compliance.

A comprehensive platform

Cisco’s focus on telecommunications technology has led to lagging email security functionality and minimal integrations. However, for most customers, email is a core security area as it remains the No. 1 threat vector.

Proofpoint email security customers can benefit from our entire platform of protection. It blocks threats in channels beyond email, strengthens user education, defends against both compromised user and supplier accounts and more.

Stop Human Targeted Attacks

Cloud access and data loss prevention

Cisco’s data loss prevention and management access for email accounts is similarly restricted. They rely heavily on basic protections and manual rule creation and management.

Proofpoint provides dynamic, out-of-the-box data loss prevention for our cloud access management that’s simple to deploy, reduces false positives and provides real-time reporting.

Resources

We’re recognized as an industry leader by leading analyst firms and customers alike