KnowBe4 PhishER/PhishER Plus vs. Proofpoint Security Awareness Training

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
KnowBe4 PhishER/PhishER Plus
Score 9.0 out of 10
N/A
PhishER is presented as a lightweight Security Orchestration, Automation and Response (SOAR) platform to orchestrate threat response and manage the high volume of potentially malicious email messages reported by users. And, with automatic prioritization of emails, PhishER helps InfoSec and Security Operations team cut through the inbox noise and respond to the most dangerous threats more quickly.
$0.75
per month (billed annually) per seat
Proofpoint Security Awareness Training
Score 10.0 out of 10
N/A
Proofpoint Security Awareness Training (formerly ThreatSim from Wombat Security) is a cloud-based training platform that simulates threat scenarios (e.g. phishing) and also provides assessment testing developed by Wombat Technologies, which was acquired by Proofpoint in March 2018.N/A
Pricing
KnowBe4 PhishER/PhishER PlusProofpoint Security Awareness Training
Editions & Modules
3001-5000 Monthly Pricing Per Seat
$0.75
per month (billed annually) per seat
2001-3000 Monthly Pricing Per Seat
$0.85
per month (billed annually) per seat
1001-2000 Monthly Pricing Per Seat
$1.00
per month (billed annually) per seat
501-1000 Monthly Pricing Per Seat
$1.15
per month (billed annually) per seat
101-500 Monthly Pricing Per Seat
$1.50
per month (billed annually) per seat
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
KnowBe4 PhishER/PhishER PlusProofpoint Security Awareness Training
Free Trial
NoYes
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoYes
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeOptional
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
KnowBe4 PhishER/PhishER PlusProofpoint Security Awareness Training
Features
KnowBe4 PhishER/PhishER PlusProofpoint Security Awareness Training
Incident Response Platforms
Comparison of Incident Response Platforms features of Product A and Product B
KnowBe4 PhishER/PhishER Plus
7.9
115 Ratings
12% below category average
Proofpoint Security Awareness Training
-
Ratings
Company-wide Incident Reporting7.194 Ratings00 Ratings
Integration with Other Security Systems7.692 Ratings00 Ratings
Centralized Dashboard8.6114 Ratings00 Ratings
Machine Learning to Prevent Incidents7.797 Ratings00 Ratings
Live Response for Rapid Remediation8.398 Ratings00 Ratings
Security
Comparison of Security features of Product A and Product B
KnowBe4 PhishER/PhishER Plus
-
Ratings
Proofpoint Security Awareness Training
9.0
1 Ratings
4% above category average
Single sign-on capability00 Ratings9.01 Ratings
Role-based user permissions00 Ratings9.01 Ratings
Security Awareness Training
Comparison of Security Awareness Training features of Product A and Product B
KnowBe4 PhishER/PhishER Plus
-
Ratings
Proofpoint Security Awareness Training
9.4
1 Ratings
10% above category average
Training Content Library00 Ratings10.01 Ratings
Multilingual Training Content00 Ratings9.01 Ratings
Training Gamification00 Ratings9.01 Ratings
Industry-Specific Security Training00 Ratings9.01 Ratings
Individualized Security Training Plans00 Ratings9.01 Ratings
Phishing Simulations00 Ratings10.01 Ratings
Security Reporting00 Ratings10.01 Ratings
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User Ratings
KnowBe4 PhishER/PhishER PlusProofpoint Security Awareness Training
Likelihood to Recommend
9.3
(118 ratings)
9.0
(46 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
8.7
(7 ratings)
7.3
(1 ratings)
Usability
8.6
(32 ratings)
8.6
(5 ratings)
Availability
8.2
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Performance
8.2
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
8.6
(5 ratings)
8.3
(44 ratings)
Implementation Rating
8.5
(3 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Configurability
7.7
(8 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Contract Terms and Pricing Model
9.1
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Ease of integration
9.1
(2 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Product Scalability
8.2
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Professional Services
8.2
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
8.2
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
9.1
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
KnowBe4 PhishER/PhishER PlusProofpoint Security Awareness Training
Likelihood to Recommend
KnowBe4
PhishER comes with some good features, such as PhishML, PhishRIP, PhishFlip, etc. These features help us manage phishing email reporting incidents. From reporting emails via Phish Alert Button plug-in to collecting all reported emails in one place at the PhishER dashboard. Now, the PhishML comes into play, scanning all reported emails and tagging each as clean, spam, or threat. With the help of this machine learning-based algorithm, our investigation process becomes easier. Other features, such as PhishRip, help to search and quarantine phishing emails, and PhishFlip converts a real phishing campaign to a test phishing campaign.
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Proofpoint
Perfect for regular (monthly) training of staff versus a "one and done" annual assignment on Cyber Security. Allows for a greater number of topics to be covered and for creating a "culture" of security awareness among all Staff throughout the entire company. NOT a replacement for IT Security Certifications amongst your technical staff (CISSPs & GSLCs on staff are a must have). Your Proofpoint Account Rep does most of the heavy lifting, but the program still requires "care and feeding" (resources) within your organization - preparing monthly user lists for training assignments and preparing reports for leadership on participation & progress
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Pros
KnowBe4
  • One platform that integrates reported emails and using PhishFlip to educated staff.
  • Automation to remove malicious emails from mailboxes.
  • Instantly report back to users if an email is safe or malicious.
  • Easily review vital technical information to help you make a decision if an email is a threat.
  • Allow comments to be left from staff and IT.
Read full review
Proofpoint
  • Proofpoint has a huge library of phishing emails to choose from. They add new examples every week.
  • The training modules are fun and interactive and keep the user engaged.
  • The posters, and downloadable materials are amazing and really give a great visual to support your security campaigns.
  • The product is easy to use, and Proofpoint Support Staff are always available to help with any issues you have.
Read full review
Cons
KnowBe4
  • Issues with Global Blocklist
  • Email Template Modification - Simplification
  • Target Specific Users vs. Groups
  • PhishRIP info tabs (i.e. if improperly check ripped emails are turned into tests. This has caused issues.) Info tabs or markers allow user to hover and get more information about what action a check box or slider provides.
Read full review
Proofpoint
  • The lack of a user rating on "cyber risk" is proving to be an immense difficulty. As we are looking at how to better hold our employees accountable as well as provide increased learning opportunities for those who need it most, it is becoming cumbersome--especially given the fact this is starting to become the standard for Security Awareness companies. The lack of this is resulting in a manual process vs being able to automate and moderate, thus taking up time and resources, which are always at a scarcity. It can also be cumbersome to look across the tools to see how a particular user is doing, vs being able to view all of their data in one space.
  • If you are a marketer, the editors for the Phishing Templates and Teachable Moments are quite frustrating. They feel out of date and clunky, as well as not featuring an auto-save, so you could lose the templates you are building. At this point, I have actually started to work in other email creation editors and learning HTML, to better customize and then moving all of the code into the editor. It has thus far proven to be less of a headache. I also do not believe the average user is working on branding their program, creating consistency for easy of navigation, and including additional resources in their teachable moments in the way we currently are. However, as more social science backgrounds continue to enter security awareness, I believe this will move towards the norm.
  • Some of the reporting numbers for Simulated Phishing could be better. For example, telling me how many people acknowledged the teachable moment out of the full email campaign is less meaningful than knowing how many people acknowledged it, from those who actually triggered/were shown the teachable moment.
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Likelihood to Renew
KnowBe4
When we first discovered that KnowBe4 released something like this, we saw a demo of it and were floored at what it could do and how it could help us from a security standpoint. Gone are the days of us in IT sending out a mass email saying please don't click on anything in the email from sender "X", and it allows us to quietly and easily ensure that people don't take any action on malicious emails.
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Proofpoint
  • The product is great for what we use it for
  • We have a good relationship with our vendor/Proofpoint, which I believe is needed to be successful in Security Awareness and using tools like this
  • The package/service as a whole is incredibly helpful
  • The integrations with Proofpoint's Trap is one of the most valuable things we could do. It turns your entire email user base into members of IT security, to be on the look out to report cyber attacks, and have them pulled out of everyone's email if the email is condemed/found malicious.
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Usability
KnowBe4
I give it an eight for the feature set. While I only give it an eight because the complexity and interconnectedness of the tools mean that there needs to be quite a bit of RTFM to get the most out of the products.
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Proofpoint
Overall, PSAT is integral to what we do. PSAT is a helpful tool to help us improve our employees ability to recognize, report, and respond to phishing. It works for us to use a longterm partner, who is incredibly helpful/supportive, and also bringing Proofpoint's greater cybersecurity & attack intelligence into PSAT. Honestly, we are pretty happy and would make the choice to go with PSAT again (we evaluated the major players in the space via Gartner's Magic Quadrant). The team behind the products are excellent and the product of itself is both intuitive and expansive. This combination allows us to reach our 10k+ employees who are located in over 20 countries
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Support Rating
KnowBe4
I haven't needed to reach out to support very often, but when I have the responses have been timely and have provided the solutions I have needed. The support has been friendly and have always been able to resolve any issues that have come up.
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Proofpoint
Proofpoint support has always been above average. A lot of companies provide a customer service manager for your account but few have proved as connected as Proofpoint. The CSM was able to give us a good start with the product and checked in periodically. I found them always helpful with any questions and very knowledgeable about the platform.
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Implementation Rating
KnowBe4
It was very simple to implement - with just a few settings needed to connect it to our O365 environment
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Proofpoint
No answers on this topic
Alternatives Considered
KnowBe4
Harmony does not provide security awareness training or simulated phishing emails like KnowB4. However, it does provide a phish alert button & workflow similar to PhishER & we may stop using PhishER because the Phish Alert reports from PhishER don't feed into Harmony to help train it from phishing emails that go through. We got Harmony after KnowB4 because we needed a tool to PREVENT phishing emails from getting to people's inboxes in the first place, which KnowB4 has very little capability for other than PhishER+ blacklists. It is a shame KnowB4 does not have the anti threat phishing prevention like Harmony considering all the email data it has & its existing AI analytic capabilities.
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Proofpoint
All three products have the pros and cons. Since we use other Proofpoint products, TAP, TRAP, etc. the integration with PSAT is much better. The other products do not integrate with TRAP nearly as well as PSAT.
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Return on Investment
KnowBe4
  • Phish/ER & PAD: Identifying email threats more quickly allowed us to send alert to the users' community in a timely manner based on the pattern of the threat.
  • KnowBe4 Training Campaigns have proven to noticeably increase users' awareness.
  • KnowBe4 Phishing Campaigns made users realize how dangerous and deceiving hacker can be.
Read full review
Proofpoint
  • I don't have any tangible numbers to provide, but we definitely have an increase in the number of staff reporting suspicious emails and fewer people clicking on phishing emails.
  • The cost we are paying per employee (<$2 pp)is low enough that we can consider this a "benefit" we offer to our employees. The knowledge gained can also be applied to your personal life with similar threats.
Read full review
ScreenShots

KnowBe4 PhishER/PhishER Plus Screenshots

Screenshot of how PhishER Plus enables a critical workstream to help IR teams work together to mitigate the phishing threat and is suited for any organization that wants to automatically prioritize and manage potentially malicious messages.