KnowBe4 PhishER/PhishER Plus vs. ThreatDown, powered by Malwarebytes

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
KnowBe4 PhishER/PhishER Plus
Score 9.2 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
ThreatDown, powered by Malwarebytes
Score 8.8 out of 10
N/A
ThreatDown (formerly Malwarebytes for Business), combines Malwarebytes' endpoint security capabilities in four bundles. The basic Core tier includes incident response, Next-gen AV, device control, vulnerability assessments, and the ability to block unwanted application.
$345
per year per endpoint (minimum 5)
Pricing
KnowBe4 PhishER/PhishER PlusThreatDown, powered by Malwarebytes
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
Core
$345
per year per endpoint (minimum 5)
Advanced
$395
per year per endpoint (minimum 5)
Elite
$495
per year per endpoint (minimum 5)
Ultimate
$595
per year per endpoint (minimum 5)
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
KnowBe4 PhishER/PhishER PlusThreatDown, powered by Malwarebytes
Free Trial
NoYes
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional DetailsOptional Add-Ons include server and mobile device protection. Server protection ranges from $129 to $179 per annum depending on service tier. Mobile security is $10 per device, no matter the service tier. A 10% discount is offered for choosing a two-year billing plan.
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
KnowBe4 PhishER/PhishER PlusThreatDown, powered by Malwarebytes
Considered Both Products
KnowBe4 PhishER/PhishER Plus
Chose KnowBe4 PhishER/PhishER Plus
We evaluated the Titan options because we have already used their DNS filtering product. However, KnowBe4 came in with a better price per user and a significantly stronger product lineup, particularly with its security awareness training component.
Chose KnowBe4 PhishER/PhishER Plus
Hands down superior
Chose KnowBe4 PhishER/PhishER Plus
Email customization looks like a carbon copy. Layout is more convoluted. We would have to purchase three separate elements to achieve what we get with KnowBe4 PhishER/PhishER Plus at double/triple the cost. The KnowBe4 PhishER/PhishER Plus product lineup is better, more …
Chose KnowBe4 PhishER/PhishER Plus
Only tool that has features like rip and flip
Chose KnowBe4 PhishER/PhishER Plus
KnowBe4's PhishER was the deciding factor for us.
Chose KnowBe4 PhishER/PhishER Plus
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 …
Chose KnowBe4 PhishER/PhishER Plus
None of the other security awareness applications we used or considered offered a similar product to PhishER or their overall security awareness application was so subpar that we didn't even consider if they had an option similar to PhishER.
Chose KnowBe4 PhishER/PhishER Plus
No comparison in their capabilities.
Chose KnowBe4 PhishER/PhishER Plus
KnowBe4 PhishER/PhishER Plus had a better user interface and a greater option for growth
Chose KnowBe4 PhishER/PhishER Plus
We decided on KnowBe4 PhishER to make our response process smoother and cut down on the time and effort needed to handle threats. We wanted to reduce manual work and focus our team on real threats. PhishER’s fast analysis and response were key in our decision. Overall, …
Chose KnowBe4 PhishER/PhishER Plus
we have not looked at other products
Chose KnowBe4 PhishER/PhishER Plus
Our organization has always solely trusted KnowBe4.
Recommended by our outside IT vendor- they continuously do random research on other similar products and time and time again, find KnowBe4 to be the best out there for value and product
Chose KnowBe4 PhishER/PhishER Plus
Arctic Wolf also offers a similar product to PhishER using their Phish Tell engine. However, it was severely lacking in terms of workflow automation. Switching to Arctic Wolf's email reporting and response product would have increased the number of manual hours spent on email …
Chose KnowBe4 PhishER/PhishER Plus
Microsoft's backed in email reporting tool is good but the time to resolution varies for all messages. It claims that it will help train filters to better classify messages into the tenant, but we have not seen much of that.

Barracuda offered a similar product to PhishER but …
Chose KnowBe4 PhishER/PhishER Plus
Some other providers offer similar training but have found Phisher tends to be where we get the most value compared to other products
Chose KnowBe4 PhishER/PhishER Plus
We researched several, however, KnowBe4 was our first choice and we've been with them since the beginning of our time with these types of products.
Chose KnowBe4 PhishER/PhishER Plus
Abnormal is on an entirely nother level both in cost and functionality. Costs is 25x but is borderline magic. Barracuda was finicky and cost more. Defender for email we already had but falls short in a lot of areas, especially with the reporting piece.
Chose KnowBe4 PhishER/PhishER Plus
We use the two tools in parallel to ensure that we can effectively manage and report on Phishing and further enhance our training campaigns.
Chose KnowBe4 PhishER/PhishER Plus
We liked the integration and ease of use.
Chose KnowBe4 PhishER/PhishER Plus
PhishER is an add-on to the email client which makes it easy to setup and readily available to use for all staff. Other products require much more indepth setup and can be confusing for untrained staff. PhishER is easy to use for all staff and this encourages staff to use it …
Chose KnowBe4 PhishER/PhishER Plus
I think that KnowBe4 PhishER/PhishER Plus is better than Huntress by precisely telling you in real time what your other defenses are missing. Encourage targeted, just-in-time training against actual threats. Provides evidence and data to demonstrate a true risk reduction.
Chose KnowBe4 PhishER/PhishER Plus
We view KnowBe4 PhishER as another piece to the security puzzle. It works well alongside the other security applications and services in use at our organization.
Chose KnowBe4 PhishER/PhishER Plus
We only have evaluated and/or used PhishER since it is a part of the complete KnowB4 package that we subscribe to.
Chose KnowBe4 PhishER/PhishER Plus
KnowBe4 PhishER requires less hands-on involvement from our small (but mighty) IT team. Threats are alleviated quickly without our team having to drop something important that they are working on to respond to a phishing email.
ThreatDown, powered by Malwarebytes
Chose ThreatDown, powered by Malwarebytes
ThreatDown, powered by Malwarebytes, performs so many more functions than simple, traditional anti-virus tools. The cost is less than most others too! The centralized deployment and management console is super-easy to use, yet highly functional. In this day and age, I’m a bit …
Chose ThreatDown, powered by Malwarebytes
Selected this because it seemed like a good solution. After 2 years of using, I find that the system had not been working for FOUR MONTHS! even though system reported that ALL WAS WELL
Chose ThreatDown, powered by Malwarebytes
It's no contest. Cisco AMP, Umbrella and Endpoint use vast amounts of resources and provide little protection when compared with Malwarebytes. One client recently replaced Cisco with MWB and found over 7,300 vulnerabilities on 352 endpoints, including 120 listed as Critical …
Chose ThreatDown, powered by Malwarebytes
I think Malwarebytes Endpoint Protection is hands down better from any point of view other than price. Malwarebytes is a little bit more costly than Webroot. However, Malwarebytes detects more threats, protects against more malicious URL's, allows more in customization of …
Chose ThreatDown, powered by Malwarebytes
In the past, we've used McAfee, ESET, and Trend Micro. Each of these has their pros and cons, and all are variably priced. They are all overall "good enough" antivirus software, but what makes Malwarebytes Endpoint Protection stand out more is that it's more affordable, it's …
Chose ThreatDown, powered by Malwarebytes
We chose Malwarebytes Endpoint Protection after reviewing hundreds of reviews from peers and calculating to cost of ownership and ROI which Malwarebytes handily beat any potential competitors we dealt with. They really worked with us to come up with a plan and a price that …
Chose ThreatDown, powered by Malwarebytes
Avast and Bitdefender. Malwarebytes works well in the background, with little input require from the user. The software does not seem to slow down the network while it is scanning. The increase in security level justifies the upfront cost of implementing this type of protection.
Chose ThreatDown, powered by Malwarebytes
In my experience, Malwarebytes doesn't compete with other endpoint protection products but it complements them for a more effective defense in depth strategy. While it is possible to run Malwarebytes as your only endpoint protection solution, I have found it best to use it in …
Chose ThreatDown, powered by Malwarebytes
We have not used any other product consistently. We occasionally have used SuperAntiSpyware as an added scanning too, but do rely on or install it on our machines.
Chose ThreatDown, powered by Malwarebytes
Forticlient is very good software, but it's more of a anti-virus software. We have used Symantec but it has so many issues, and the list is long.
Chose ThreatDown, powered by Malwarebytes
It provides excellent cover in terms of ransomware, and when running various testing tools to see the effectiveness, it scored much more highly than our existing product. It also has excellent recovery options, with the roll back feature. I selected it because of the experience …
Chose ThreatDown, powered by Malwarebytes
I stick with Malwarebytes Endpoint Protection because of the simplicity of deploying and managing the product and policies. Most importantly - because it works to defend our network and systems so well that we have had little to no need for intervening on any items. …
Chose ThreatDown, powered by Malwarebytes
We used some of the other products as our endpoint protection and they were not up to today's threats. Malwarebytes found threats the others let in from the 1st day we used it. We knew right then we had made the right choice.
Chose ThreatDown, powered by Malwarebytes
Malwarebytes Endpoint Protection is dedicated to protecting against and the remediation of malware. No other product does it better. Their consumer version of the software is often refereed to by other security products and security researchers to clean infected systems. It …
Features
KnowBe4 PhishER/PhishER PlusThreatDown, powered by Malwarebytes
Incident Response Platforms
Comparison of Incident Response Platforms features of Product A and Product B
KnowBe4 PhishER/PhishER Plus
8.7
Ratings
1% below category average
ThreatDown, powered by Malwarebytes
-
Ratings
Company-wide Incident Reporting8.70 Ratings00 Ratings
Integration with Other Security Systems8.50 Ratings00 Ratings
Centralized Dashboard8.70 Ratings00 Ratings
Machine Learning to Prevent Incidents8.70 Ratings00 Ratings
Live Response for Rapid Remediation8.60 Ratings00 Ratings
Endpoint Security
Comparison of Endpoint Security features of Product A and Product B
KnowBe4 PhishER/PhishER Plus
-
Ratings
ThreatDown, powered by Malwarebytes
8.8
Ratings
3% above category average
Anti-Exploit Technology00 Ratings8.50 Ratings
Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR)00 Ratings9.20 Ratings
Centralized Management00 Ratings9.70 Ratings
Hybrid Deployment Support00 Ratings8.00 Ratings
Infection Remediation00 Ratings8.50 Ratings
Vulnerability Management00 Ratings8.60 Ratings
Malware Detection00 Ratings8.70 Ratings
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User Ratings
KnowBe4 PhishER/PhishER PlusThreatDown, powered by Malwarebytes
Likelihood to Recommend
8.8
(0 ratings)
8.3
(0 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
8.3
(0 ratings)
10.0
(0 ratings)
Usability
8.0
(0 ratings)
10.0
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
8.2
(0 ratings)
10.0
(0 ratings)
Implementation Rating
9.1
(0 ratings)
10.0
(0 ratings)
Configurability
7.3
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Ease of integration
8.2
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
KnowBe4 PhishER/PhishER PlusThreatDown, powered by Malwarebytes
Likelihood to Recommend
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.
Read full review
I would absolutely recommend Malwarebytes Endpoint Protection to a colleague and I have recommended it to many of my peers in the IT world. Malwarebytes is well suited for any environment that requires protection from mal/ransomware which is most companies these days. In particular for companies that host their own big data that the operation of the company relies on. The only place Malwarebytes Endpoint Protection may not be AS appropriate would be one where there is near zero reliance on computers, networks and data.
Read full review
Pros
  • Well structured KMSAT, PAB is a great addition.
  • Good Training Library, ability to customize templates
  • Phish/ER opens a windows to types & volume of suspect emails and allows admins to act upon.
  • "Rooms" in Phish/ER, to me, is considered my entry point to start my admin duties.
  • PAB and Phish/ER work very well together.
  • KnowBe4 Learner App is a great addition.
Read full review
  • The biggest plus with this software is that you can manage all the clients from a management console. You can push the install/updates through it. If the client cannot connect to the management console, then it will update directly from their website. This means you are always up to date and protected.
  • The software on the client machine has very low overhead so it doesn't affect the performance.
  • You can create policies based on the types of users or by the department. You can customize these policies so it will let you micro-manage the clients.
Read full review
Cons
  • 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
  • poor customer service
  • dashboard says product is working EVEN THOUGH IT WAS NOT!
  • slow response to concerns that should be easy to remedy
  • creates baggage which caused certain computers and the network to run more slowly
  • caused 3 computers on our network top have windows errors and network issues
Read full review
Likelihood to Renew
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.
Read full review
When I first used the tool in my home systems MANY years ago, I wished for a Business version. I was once at a focus group for a major antivirus company, and one attendee’s feedback to “what could we do better?” was “buy out MalwareBytes and add it to your tool”. I’ve used the Business version since it first became available, and have continued to be a dedicated user through the many iterations and improvements
Read full review
Usability
I think that the system is well designed and makes it easy to fine phishing emails that have been reported. It also has a simple user interface that allows you to review and address threat emails also providing an automated component that allows for automated threat mitigation and customized feedback responses to users
Read full review
It simply works. It doesn't require the hand-holding and monitoring that some other solutions do. It's simple to deploy and maintain, and adding custom content such as Exceptions require minimal effort. I’ve had to add a few exceptions for internal-use, in-house-developed tools, but it’s quite simple to do so within the online interface
Read full review
Support Rating
Responses to questions were answered quickly and accurately.
Read full review
Whenever I've had a query for the support team, they have got back to me very quickly, and given me very well detailed advice on fixing whatever the issue I had was. They also pointed me to help documents and such where I could find more information if I needed
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Implementation Rating
It was very simple to implement - with just a few settings needed to connect it to our O365 environment
Read full review
I first implemented this more than 10 years ago, when it required an in-site setup with SQL Server (or SQL Express), and even that was pretty easy. With the move to centralized web management some treats ago, it’s become even easier to deploy
Read full review
Alternatives Considered
We evaluated the Titan options because we have already used their DNS filtering product. However, KnowBe4 came in with a better price per user and a significantly stronger product lineup, particularly with its security awareness training component.
Read full review
I think Malwarebytes Endpoint Protection is hands down better from any point of view other than price. Malwarebytes is a little bit more costly than Webroot. However, Malwarebytes detects more threats, protects against more malicious URL's, allows more in customization of policies, has better administration GUI, and has better means of implementation.
Read full review
Return on Investment
  • There has been a 700% increase in emails being reported now. Previously, staff were only reporting 4 emails a month. It is easier for us to promote the phish alert button, receive automated remediation and rapidly respond.
  • We had no reports on the amount of phishing emails were coming through Mimecast but now we have reports for the board of trustees.
  • Every Wednesday we talk about cyber security to all staff, PhishER allows us to point out the trend and what to look out for which raises awareness. Never before were we able to talk about cyber security like this.
Read full review
  • Other than over billing our company by $6,821.76, our clients are very happy with our approach to network security and malware protection
  • Our service and lack of data breaches (do in part to Malwarebytes) has allowed us to retain our client base for over two decades.
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.