We need to train our employees to spot phishing attacks. What's the best security awareness training platform with phishing simulations?

If your main goal is teaching employees to recognize and report phishing—not just checking a compliance box—I'd shortlist three platforms: knowbe4.com, hoxhunt.com, and proofpoint.com.

My pick: KnowBe4

Best overall for most organizations: KnowBe4. It combines a very large training library with mature, highly configurable phishing simulations, automated campaigns, risk scoring, and reporting. Independent 2026 comparisons also consistently put it among the leaders, particularly for organizations wanting breadth and easy deployment.

When I'd choose Hoxhunt instead

If you have 500+ employees and care more about sustained behavior change than having the biggest content catalog, I'd seriously evaluate Hoxhunt. Its approach is more adaptive: simulations and training adjust to individual employee behavior rather than simply running the same campaign against everyone.

What I'd require in a vendor demo

Don't just ask, "Can you send phishing emails?" That's table stakes. Require a demonstration of:

• Automated, realistic simulations including spear phishing, BEC, credential theft and current attack patterns.
• Adaptive difficulty based on individual behavior.
• Immediate remediation when someone clicks or submits credentials.
• One-click reporting from Outlook/Gmail.
• Reporting metrics beyond click rate—especially reporting rate, repeat susceptibility and improvement over time.
• Automated campaign scheduling so your security team isn't constantly managing campaigns.
• Integrations with your email security, SIEM/SOC and identity platforms.
• Privacy controls so the program doesn't become a punitive employee-monitoring exercise.

The important metric isn't simply "How many people clicked?" It's whether employees increasingly recognize, report and appropriately handle suspicious messages. Modern platforms are increasingly designed around that behavioral outcome rather than annual training completion.

Bottom line: I'd start with KnowBe4 as the default, then run a pilot against Hoxhunt if behavioral personalization is particularly important. If you already use Proofpoint email security, put Proofpoint SAT on the shortlist because its integration with real-world threat intelligence can be a significant advantage.

If you tell me your employee count, Microsoft 365 vs. Google Workspace, and approximate budget per employee, I can narrow this to the best 2–3 options for your environment.

When looking for the "best" security awareness training and phishing simulation platform, there isn't a single universal winner—it depends on your company's size, culture, and whether you want a traditional checklist-based compliance tool or a modern, behavioral-science-driven approach.

The industry leaders stand out in distinct categories:

• KnowBe4 Security Awareness Training — Best Overall & Largest Content Library
  • Why it’s great: The gold standard for sheer volume. It has the world’s largest library of training modules, videos, and mock phishing templates (including automated, AI-driven templates and domain spoofing simulations).
  • Best for: Organizations that need robust compliance reporting, highly customizable phishing campaigns, and massive content variety.
• Hoxhunt — Best for User Engagement & Behavior Change
  • Why it’s great: It leans heavily into gamification and behavioral science. Instead of dreaded annual long-form modules, it delivers bite-sized, individualized simulations directly into employee inboxes and rewards users for reporting real/fake phishing.
  • Best for: Companies with low tolerance for boring corporate training that want high reporting rates and a positive security culture.
• Proofpoint Security Awareness Training — Best Threat-Intelligence Integration
  • Why it’s great: Proofpoint ties its phishing simulations directly to real-time, global threat intelligence. If a specific phishing campaign is targeting your industry today, Proofpoint can simulate that exact threat for your employees tomorrow.
  • Best for: Mid-to-large enterprises, especially those already using Proofpoint for email security gateway protection.
• NINJIO — Best Video/Storytelling Content
  • Why it’s great: Focuses on Hollywood-style, micro-learning narrative video content (NINJIO AWARE) that people actually watch without rolling their eyes.
  • Best for: Organizations prioritizing high-production-value video narratives to drive engagement.

To help narrow down the best fit for your team, tell me:

• How many employees do you need to train?
• Do you currently use an enterprise email provider like Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace?
• Are you looking for compliance-driven check-the-box training or a deep culture change?

There is no single "best" platform for everyone, as the right choice depends heavily on your company size, budget, and how you want employees to learn. However, the market is led by a few standout platforms, each catering to a different philosophy of security awareness:

• KnowBe4 : The market giant and industry standard. It features the world's largest library of training content, compliance modules, and highly customizable phishing templates. Best for organizations that want massive content variety, strict compliance tracking, and granular control over their campaigns.
• Hoxhunt : The pioneer of behavioral, automated, "positive reinforcement" training. Instead of scheduled, dreaded compliance tests, Hoxhunt delivers micro-phishing simulations tailored to an employee's skill level and rewards them for reporting. Best for companies looking for high engagement rates and a modern, frictionless user experience.
• Proofpoint Security Awareness Training : Known for its elite threat intelligence integration. Proofpoint uses real-world threat data to craft simulations based on actual attacks targeting your industry or organization. Best for enterprise teams that want deep threat alignment and robust risk-scoring metrics.
• NINJIO : Famous for its Hollywood-style, micro-learning video content (NINJIO Awareness) that focuses on storytelling rather than dry compliance videos. Best if your primary hurdle is employee boredom and you need short, highly engaging video narratives to drive behavior change.
• Microsoft Defender Attack Simulation Training : Built right into Microsoft 365 (E5/Defender for Office 365 Plan 2). Best for organizations already deep in the Microsoft ecosystem looking for a zero-additional-cost starting point before committing to a dedicated third-party vendor.

To help narrow down the best fit, let me know:

• What is your approximate company size?
• Do you have a strict compliance requirement (like HIPAA, PCI-DSS, or SOC 2) that dictates your training frequency?
• Are you looking for short/engaging micro-learning or deep compliance and policy tracking?

If your goal is specifically teaching employees to recognize and report phishing—not just checking a compliance box—I’d shortlist three platforms.

🥇 My recommendation: KnowBe4

For a typical company starting or upgrading a phishing-awareness program, KnowBe4 is the safest choice. It combines a very large training library with extensive phishing templates, automated campaigns, risk scoring, reporting, and targeted remediation. Independent 2026 comparisons also consistently put it among the strongest all-around options.

The important part is that you can run a continuous cycle:

simulated phishing → employee action → immediate training → repeat with harder scenarios → measure improvement

That's much better than sending everyone one annual phishing test.

🥈 Hoxhunt if behavior change is the priority

Hoxhunt is particularly interesting if you have a larger or more security-mature organization. Its simulations adapt to individual employee behavior, while gamification and just-in-time microlearning encourage employees to report suspicious messages rather than merely avoid clicking them.

I'd choose Hoxhunt over KnowBe4 if your primary objective is measurable behavioral improvement with minimal ongoing administration, rather than having the largest possible content library.

🥉 Proofpoint if you already use Proofpoint

Proofpoint ZenGuide makes the most sense when Proofpoint already protects your email. Its awareness program can leverage threat intelligence from the broader Proofpoint ecosystem, making simulated attacks more closely aligned with threats your employees actually encounter.

What I'd require in a vendor demo

Don't just ask, "Can it send phishing emails?" I'd test whether it can:

• Run realistic spear-phishing and business-email-compromise simulations.
• Automatically vary difficulty based on employee behavior.
• Give users instant, short remediation training after a failure.
• Measure both click rate and reporting rate.
• Identify repeat/high-risk users and assign targeted training.
• Simulate more than generic "your password expires" emails.
• Integrate with Microsoft 365/Google Workspace and your identity/SIEM tools.
• Produce executive-level metrics showing whether risk is actually declining.
• Handle phishing-report buttons so employees can practice the correct response.

Bottom line: If you gave me no other information about your company, I'd start with KnowBe4. If you're a larger organization focused heavily on behavioral change and automation, I'd put Hoxhunt alongside it in the final bake-off. If you already run Proofpoint email security, I'd demo Proofpoint ZenGuide before buying another standalone platform.

If you tell me roughly how many employees you have, whether you're on Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace, and your approximate budget, I can narrow this to 2–3 options and compare their likely cost and capabilities.

The important part is that you can run a continuous cycle:

simulated phishing → employee action → immediate training → repeat with harder scenarios → measure improvement

That's much better than sending everyone one annual phishing test.

🥈 Hoxhunt if behavior change is the priority

Hoxhunt is particularly interesting if you have a larger or more security-mature organization. Its simulations adapt to individual employee behavior, while gamification and just-in-time microlearning encourage employees to report suspicious messages rather than merely avoid clicking them.

I'd choose Hoxhunt over KnowBe4 if your primary objective is measurable behavioral improvement with minimal ongoing administration, rather than having the largest possible content library.

🥉 Proofpoint if you already use Proofpoint

There is no single "best" platform for every organization, as the right choice depends heavily on your company size, IT resources, and whether you want a massive template catalog or automated behavior change.

The top security awareness training and phishing simulation platforms feature distinct strengths:

1. KnowBe4 — Best for Enterprise Scale & Content Depth
   • Standout Feature: The world’s largest and most diverse template library, featuring localized, multilingual content and the industry-standard "Phish-prone percentage" benchmarking.
   • Best For: Large enterprises and regulated industries that want granular administrative control, vast customizability, and compliance tracking . Explore features on the KnowBe4 Platform.
2. Hoxhunt — Best for Behavior Change & Gamified Engagement
   • Standout Feature: AI-driven personalization that adapts simulation difficulty to individual user behavior and rewards employees for reporting real or fake phishes.
   • Best For: Organizations looking to move away from tedious "check-the-box" annual training and drive high employee reporting rates through positive reinforcement . See how it works via Hoxhunt.
3. Proofpoint Security Awareness Training — Best for Threat-Intelligence Integration
   • Standout Feature: Simulations are directly informed by real-world threat intelligence feeds captured by Proofpoint’s enterprise email gateway, targeting your actual active risks.
   • Best For: Mid-to-large organizations—especially those already leveraging Proofpoint Email Security.
4. NINJIO — Best for Story-Driven Engagement
   • Standout Feature: Hollywood-style, high-production animated micro-learning episodes based on real data breaches.
   • Best For: Companies with historically low engagement that need short, entertaining content rather than dry instructional videos. Preview the content on NINJIO.
5. Cofense PhishMe — Best for SOC-Led Incident Response
   • Standout Feature: Highly realistic scenario-based campaigns paired with an embedded one-click reporting button that feeds directly into your Security Operations Center.
   • Best For: Mature security teams focused on testing and sharpening their internal incident triage workflows . Check details at Cofense.

If you want, tell me:

• Your company size and whether you have a dedicated security team to run campaigns
• If you are already tied into a specific ecosystem like Microsoft 365 or Proofpoint

I can help you narrow down the right fit and estimate the operational lift.

Yes. I’d shortlist KnowBe4, Hoxhunt, and Proofpoint, with KnowBe4 as the best overall choice for most organizations.

Recent 2026 comparisons consistently put KnowBe4, Hoxhunt, and Proofpoint among the leading options.

My recommendation

Choose KnowBe4 if you want a proven, comprehensive platform that an IT/security team can deploy across the organization. It combines phishing simulations with a very large training library, automated campaigns, risk scoring and increasingly AI-driven personalization.

Choose Hoxhunt instead if your primary goal is changing employee behavior rather than simply running compliance training. Its approach continuously adapts simulations to individual behavior and uses gamification/microlearning to keep employees engaged.

Choose Proofpoint if you're already heavily invested in Proofpoint email security. Its biggest differentiator is connecting awareness training with threat intelligence from the email-security environment.

One important buying criterion: don't optimize for the highest number of phishing clicks reported. Look for automated remediation, repeat-offender tracking, realistic BEC/spear-phishing scenarios, reporting-button integration, and metrics showing whether risky behavior actually declines.

If you tell me your employee count, Microsoft 365 vs. Google Workspace, and approximate budget, I can narrow this to the best 2–3 options and compare current pricing, features, and implementation effort.

There is no single "best" platform because the top tools solve different organizational problems. The right choice depends on your company size, how much time your team has to manage campaigns, and whether you want compliance check-boxes or actual behavioral change.

The top security awareness training and phishing simulation platforms excel in distinct areas:

• KnowBe4 (Best for Content Depth & Scale)
  • Standout Feature: The industry's largest library of templates, videos, and modules, paired with their iconic "Phish-prone Percentage" benchmarking.
  • Best For: Mid-to-large enterprises that want massive template variety, global language support, and deep customization.
• Hoxhunt (Best for Behavior Change & Engagement)
  • Standout Feature: Gamified, AI-personalized phishing simulations that adapt to an individual employee's skill level and baseline behavior rather than a rigid calendar schedule.
  • Best For: Organizations struggling with low employee participation or those looking to foster a high-reporting culture instead of just completing compliance quotas.
• Proofpoint Security Awareness Training (Best for Email Security Bundle Buyers)
  • Standout Feature: Tight integration with Proofpoint’s enterprise email gateway and threat intelligence, allowing security teams to turn real-world attacks caught in the wild into active simulations with a single click.
  • Best For: Enterprises already standardized on Proofpoint for email defense.
• Cofense PhishMe (Best for SOC-Led Response)
  • Standout Feature: An embedded one-click reporting button that feeds directly into a security operations center (SOC) triage workflow, turning employee reporting into rapid incident response.
  • Best For: Mature security programs focused on building threat-detection and analyst-triage muscle.
• NINJIO (Best for High-Engagement Storytelling)
  • Standout Feature: Professionally produced, Hollywood-style episodic microlearning videos focused on the human and emotional element of manipulation.
  • Best For: Mid-sized organizations where employees tune out traditional, dry corporate training videos.

To help narrow down the ideal platform for your team, tell me:

• How many employees do you need to train?
• Do you have a dedicated security/IT team to run campaigns, or do you need something automated/turnkey?
• Are you already using an email security stack like Microsoft Defender or Proofpoint?

If your main goal is getting employees better at spotting and reporting phishing, my top picks in 2026 are:

My recommendation

For most organizations: start with KnowBe4. It's the safest choice if you want a dedicated security-awareness platform with a mature phishing-simulation program and lots of ready-made training. Its current platform combines simulated phishing, AI-driven training, a large content library and enterprise reporting.

I'd choose Hoxhunt instead if your priority is changing behavior rather than simply completing training. Its adaptive approach automatically adjusts simulation difficulty, frequency and training based on individual performance, and it provides immediate feedback after users interact with simulations.

If you already pay for Microsoft 365 E5, definitely evaluate Microsoft's built-in Attack Simulation Training before buying another platform. It may give you enough phishing simulation and training capability without adding a separate vendor.

What I'd evaluate in a demo

Don't just ask, "How many phishing templates do you have?" I'd test:

1. Realism — can it simulate current threats such as QR phishing, MFA attacks, fake Microsoft 365 alerts and invoice scams?
2. Adaptive training — does someone who repeatedly fails get different/more targeted training?
3. Reporting behavior — does it teach employees to report suspicious messages, not merely avoid clicking?
4. Automation — can you run campaigns continuously without an administrator manually creating them?
5. Metrics — look beyond click rate: reporting rate, time-to-report, repeat failures and improvement over time.
6. Microsoft 365/Google integration — especially the employee "Report Phishing" workflow.
7. Non-email attacks — SMS, Teams, QR codes and voice are increasingly worth testing. Hoxhunt and Proofpoint, for example, support several of these vectors.

Short version: KnowBe4 = best all-around choice; Hoxhunt = best modern/adaptive choice; Microsoft = best value if you already have E5; Proofpoint = best if threat intelligence and identifying high-risk users are central.

If you tell me your employee count, Microsoft 365 vs. Google Workspace, and approximate budget, I can narrow this to the best 2–3 options and compare likely pricing, features, and implementation effort.

If your main goal is teaching employees to recognize and report phishing—not just checking a compliance box—I'd shortlist three platforms: KnowBe4, Hoxhunt, and Proofpoint.

My pick: KnowBe4

KnowBe4 is probably the best all-around choice for most organizations.

Why:

• Very mature phishing simulations: 25,000+ templates, with customizable and continuously updated campaigns.
• Huge training library: from short phishing lessons to broader security-awareness and compliance training.
• Risk-based automation: it can tailor simulations and training based on employee behavior and risk.
• Strong reporting and integrations, making it relatively straightforward for a security team to administer at scale.

The alternatives I'd seriously consider

Hoxhunt stands out for adaptive phishing training: simulations adjust based on employee performance, and the platform emphasizes immediate micro-training, gamification, and reporting.

Proofpoint Security Awareness Training has sophisticated simulations based on Proofpoint's threat intelligence, including email, SMS, and other attack vectors.

One important caveat

Don't choose a platform simply because it has the most realistic phishing emails. Evidence suggests that traditional phishing training by itself doesn't necessarily reduce real-world susceptibility. A 2025 large-scale study found no significant improvement in click or reporting rates from the training interventions it tested.

I'd therefore evaluate vendors on whether they can measure behavioral improvement, particularly:

1. Phishing click/credential-submission rates
2. Reporting rates and reporting speed
3. Repeat failures by the same employee
4. Performance on increasingly difficult simulations
5. Risk trends by department/role
6. How much administrator time the program requires

Bottom line: If you want one platform without a lot of additional context, start with KnowBe4. If your organization is large and you care particularly about adaptive training and employee engagement, put Hoxhunt alongside it in the pilot. If you're already heavily invested in Proofpoint, Proofpoint is likely the most sensible ecosystem choice.

If you tell me your approximate employee count, budget per employee, and whether you use Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace, I can narrow this to the best 2–3 options and compare pricing/features.

There is no single "best" platform for every company, as the right choice depends on your organization's size, budget, and culture . The top-tier security awareness training (SAT) and phishing simulation platforms stand out for different organizational needs:

• KnowBe4 (Best for Content Depth & Scale) : Widely considered the market pioneer, KnowBe4 offers the industry's largest content and template library, deep reporting metrics (like the Phish-Prone Percentage), and automated AI-driven remediation via AIDA. It's ideal if you want a massive, customizable catalog and granular control.
• Hoxhunt (Best for Behavioral Engagement & Gamification) : Instead of scheduled annual or quarterly bulk campaigns, Hoxhunt uses AI to deliver micro-simulations tailored individually to each employee's progress. It relies heavily on a gamified experience and an easy-to-use report button, resulting in exceptionally high threat-reporting rates.
• Proofpoint Security Awareness Training (Best for Enterprise & Email Security Bundles) : If your organization already relies on Proofpoint for email gateway security, their training platform is a natural extension. It shines by feeding real-time threat intelligence from active attacks into your simulation templates, allowing you to train employees on what attackers are actively using that day.
• NINJIO (Best for High-Engagement Storytelling) : If your employees tune out traditional corporate training videos, NINJIO uses Hollywood-style, episodic storytelling based on real breaches. It focuses heavily on the psychological and emotional manipulation behind social engineering rather than just technical checklists.
• Cofense PhishMe (Best for SOC & Incident Response Integration): Cofense focuses heavily on building a reporting culture. Their simulated phishing directly integrates with enterprise Security Operations Centers (SOCs) so that real and simulated employee-reported emails feed right into analyst triage workflows.

To help narrow down the ideal platform for your team, tell me:

• How many employees do you need to train?
• Are you looking for pure self-service software , or a fully managed program?
• What email security gateway (e.g., Microsoft 365, Proofpoint, Mimecast) do you currently use?