KnowBe4 holds a narrow lead over HoxHunt for employee training programs and phishing attack simulations. HoxHunt becomes the usual choice when organizations specifically seek gamified training and adaptive simulations.
Best security awareness training platforms for employees (2026)
My overall recommendation is KnowBe4 for most organizations. It offers a broad training library, automated phishing simulations, employee risk scoring, and reporting that can support both ongoing security awareness and compliance programs.
However, if your priority is changing employee behavior rather than simply completing mandatory training, Hoxhunt deserves a close look. If you already use Proofpoint for email security, its training platform may be a better fit for your existing security stack.
Best for: Microsoft 365 organizations that want to evaluate their existing security tools before buying another vendor.
Attack simulation training for phishing and social engineering.
Simulation results and user training workflows.
Potentially simpler administration within the Microsoft environment.
Trade-off: Availability depends on your Microsoft licensing, and you should compare its content library and broader training capabilities with dedicated platforms.
One important consideration: Microsoft Defender for Office 365's Attack Simulation Training requires Microsoft 365 E5 or Defender for Office 365 Plan 2 for full access. Check your current licensing before treating it as the lowest-cost option.
What I would evaluate before buying
Regardless of vendor, prioritize these five capabilities:
Realistic phishing simulations: Include credential-harvesting lures, business email compromise, QR-code phishing, and other scenarios relevant to your workforce.
Automated remedial training: Employees who struggle should receive targeted follow-up education.
Simple phishing reporting: Make it easy for employees to report suspicious real-world emails.
Actionable metrics: Track reporting rates, click rates, repeat failures, and training completion—not just whether employees watched a video.
Low administrative overhead: Look for identity-provider integration, automated onboarding, scheduling, and useful management reports.
My suggested shortlist is KnowBe4, Hoxhunt, and Microsoft Defender if you already have the appropriate Microsoft licensing. Run a pilot with each viable candidate and compare employee reporting behavior, administrator effort, and total annual cost.
Best phishing simulation and security awareness training services
As of October 2026, my shortlist would start with KnowBe4, Hoxhunt, Proofpoint, Cofense, and Microsoft Defender for Office 365. They serve different needs: comprehensive training libraries, personalized phishing exercises, enterprise threat intelligence, incident reporting, and Microsoft 365 integration. Independent buyer guides and Gartner Peer Insights reviews also identify KnowBe4, Hoxhunt, and Proofpoint among the leading platforms.
The most important distinction is whether you want to simply test employees' ability to recognize phishing or run a continuous program that improves security behavior and measures risk reduction.
Top recommendations at a glance
1. KnowBe4
(Best overall starting point)
Broad training library, automated phishing campaigns, remedial lessons, compliance content, and reporting. A strong all-round choice for small businesses through large enterprises that want one platform to manage a workforce-wide program.
Best for: broad coverage, program maturity, and flexible administration.
Emphasizes personalized phishing simulations, short follow-up training, gamification, and encouraging employees to report suspicious messages. Worth prioritizing when engagement and sustained behavior change matter more than having the largest content catalog.
Best for: engaging employees and building consistent reporting habits.
Strong option for organizations that want awareness training connected to a broader email-security and threat-intelligence strategy. Particularly worth evaluating if Proofpoint is already part of your security environment.
Best for: enterprise security teams and threat-informed training.
Particularly attractive when you want employees to report suspicious emails and have those reports feed into security operations and phishing investigation workflows.
Best for: phishing reporting, triage, and SOC integration.
Its Attack Simulation Training capability is a natural option for Microsoft 365 organizations, with simulated phishing and targeted training workflows integrated into Microsoft's security ecosystem. Check your existing license before purchasing another platform.
Best for: Microsoft-centric organizations and leveraging existing licenses.
These are best-fit recommendations rather than a universal ranking: capabilities, licensing, and suitability vary by organization.
Other services worth evaluating
Service
Where it stands out
Infosec IQ
Broad awareness and compliance training, with phishing simulations.
NINJIO
Short, story-driven video lessons designed to make training more memorable.
SANS Security Awareness
Security education and role-based training for organizations that want deeper educational content.
These are credible alternatives for different training styles, existing security stacks, and organizational requirements.
How to choose the right service
I would evaluate vendors against these six criteria before making a purchase.
1. Realistic phishing exercises
Look for spear-phishing, business email compromise, executive impersonation, credential-harvesting simulations, QR-code lures, and scenarios relevant to your industry.
2. Effective education
Employees should receive brief, relevant coaching after a simulated mistake, alongside ongoing lessons on MFA, password security, data handling, and social engineering.
3. Useful performance metrics
Require reporting on click rates, credential-submission rates, suspicious-message reporting rates, repeat failures, and trends over time. Completion rates alone aren't enough.
4. Automation and integrations
Check support for Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace, single sign-on, HR directories, learning management systems, and your incident-reporting workflow.
5. Compliance and audit evidence
If you have regulatory obligations, verify course coverage, completion records, exportable reports, and evidence retention against your specific requirements.
6. Total cost and administrative effort
Compare annual cost per employee, minimum seat requirements, available modules, implementation fees, and the staff time needed to run campaigns.
What I would do before buying
Run a pilot with two or three shortlisted vendors using the same employee groups, similar simulation difficulty, and a comparable measurement period.
Track these metrics before and after training:
Phishing click rate: the percentage of recipients who click a simulated malicious link.
Credential-submission rate: the percentage who enter credentials into a simulated phishing page.
Reporting rate: the percentage who correctly report suspicious messages.
Repeat susceptibility: whether employees who previously fell for a simulation improve over time.
Time to report: how quickly suspicious messages reach the security team.
Prefer a platform that improves reporting behavior and reduces repeat susceptibility without overwhelming employees or your security operations team. Keep exercises educational and proportionate; avoid collecting real passwords or using simulations to shame individual employees.
My final recommendation
For most organizations: start with KnowBe4.
For an engaging, adaptive program: evaluate Hoxhunt.
For an enterprise already invested in email security: compare Proofpoint and Cofense.
For an organization already licensed for Microsoft Defender for Office 365: assess Microsoft's built-in simulation capabilities before adding a separate vendor.
One question that would help me narrow this to the best two or three options: approximately how many employees need training, and are you primarily using Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace?
Top-tier providers in the market categorize into distinct operational styles:
KnowBe4 is the massive industry heavyweight. It offers the world’s largest library of security awareness content, modular training templates, and extensive, highly customizable automated phishing campaigns. It is ideal for organizations that want a massive selection of content and deep, rigid compliance reporting.[]()
Proofpoint Security AwarenessProofpoint Security Awareness — Exceptional for its deep integration with global threat intelligence, letting organizations build simulations directly modeled on active, real-world attacks observed in the wild.
IRONSCALESIRONSCALES — Combines integrated security awareness training with an AI-powered phishing simulator and automated incident response, making it strong for fusing human reporting with technical mitigation.
Leading employee security awareness platforms with phishing simulation (2026)
The strongest shortlist for employee security awareness programs includes KnowBe4, Hoxhunt, Proofpoint ZenGuide, Cofense, and Microsoft Defender for Office 365. Other strong options include Mimecast, Infosec IQ, SoSafe, and NINJIO.
These platforms combine employee training with simulated phishing attacks, reporting, and analytics. The main difference is whether your priority is broad training content, realistic adaptive simulations, compliance, or integration with your existing security stack. Gartner Peer Insights and recent 2026 comparisons identify several of these vendors as leading options in the category.
Choosing the "best" security awareness platform depends heavily on your company culture, size, and how much administrative overhead your IT/security team can handle . There isn't a single universal winner, but a few industry leaders stand out based on distinct organizational needs.
The top platforms on the market for phishing simulations and awareness training fall into these key categories:
KnowBe4 — Best for massive content libraries & compliance
The Vibe: The heavyweight champion and market giant.
Pros: Features an enormous (and constantly updated) template library for phishing simulations, robust automated assignment features (like Smart Groups and AIDA AI orchestration), and great compliance training tracking.
Hoxhunt — Best for high engagement & gamified micro-training
The Vibe: Behavior-change focused, modern, and user-loved.
Pros: Inverts the traditional annoying training model by using heavy gamification, positive reinforcement, and personalized micro-challenges right inside the user's inbox (Outlook/Gmail). It boasts high employee engagement and brilliant drop-in deployment.
Cons: Less traditional long-form compliance content if you need strict, check-the-box regulatory training modules.
Proofpoint Security Awareness Training — Best for threat intelligence integration
The Vibe: Data-driven and enterprise-grade.
Pros: Leverages massive real-world threat telemetry. If an active phishing campaign is hitting your industry in the wild, Proofpoint can dynamically mirror those exact attack vectors into your simulation queue. Excellent user-reporting tools (like PhishAlarm) tie right back into remediation.
Cons: Shines brightest if you are already utilizing Proofpoint's broader email security ecosystem; standalone deployment can be heavier.
NINJIO — Best for Hollywood-style storytelling & micro-learning
The Vibe: Entertaining, bite-sized, and narrative-driven.
Pros: Uses engaging, 3-to-4-minute episodic micro-videos (often styled like mini-dramas/cartoons) based on real breaches. Consistently scores exceptionally high on user satisfaction and renewal intent.
Cons: Less granular automated orchestration compared to enterprise behemoths like KnowBe4.
To help narrow down which platform fits your team best, tell me:
What is your approximate employee count?
Do you use Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace for email?
Are you trying to solve a general security culture issue or do you have strict compliance/regulatory requirements (like HIPAA or SOC2)?
If your goal is actually reducing phishing risk—not just checking an annual training box—I’d shortlist KnowBe4, Hoxhunt, and Proofpoint.
My recommendation
🥇 Best overall: KnowBe4
KnowBe4 is the safest all-around choice for most organizations. It combines a very large training library with highly configurable phishing simulations, automated campaigns, risk scoring, and reporting. Independent 2026 comparisons currently put it at or near the top for overall security-awareness programs.
Proofpoint Security Awareness Training stands out by tying its education directly to threat intelligence. It leverages real-world phishing lures intercepted "in-the-wild" and uses "Very Attacked People" (VAP) telemetry from your actual email stream to automatically target high-risk individuals with relevant simulations.
IRONSCALES integrates phishing simulation and awareness training directly into an AI-powered email security and incident response platform. This is ideal if you want a consolidated tool where reported phishing simulations and real email threats feed into the exact same remediation workflow.
Arctic Wolf Managed Security Awareness provides a human-assisted, managed approach. If your internal IT or security team lacks the bandwidth to run campaigns, build schedules, and analyze failure rates, Arctic Wolf manages the program for you.[](https://doozy.live/blog/best-security-awareness-training-platforms)
To help narrow down which platform fits your organization, let me know:
How large is your employee workforce?
Do you have a dedicated security team to run campaigns, or do you need a fully managed/automated service?
What is your primary goal? (e.g., passing compliance audits vs. changing daily user habits)
Broad training content, automated phishing campaigns, customizable simulations, risk scoring, and reporting. A strong option for organizations that want a comprehensive, dedicated awareness program.
Best for: SMBs through large enterprises, compliance, and mature training programs.
Emphasizes personalized, gamified phishing simulations and short, targeted learning experiences. Worth evaluating if you want employees to build lasting habits rather than simply complete annual courses.
Best for: Organizations prioritizing engagement and measurable employee behavior.
Threat-intelligence-informed awareness training, phishing simulations, user risk assessment, and targeted learning. Particularly worth considering if Proofpoint is already part of your email security environment.
Best for: Enterprises seeking alignment between email threats and employee training.
Focuses on phishing preparedness and employee reporting, with a broader phishing defense ecosystem that can connect user reports to security operations workflows. A good candidate if you want training to reinforce detection and incident response.
Best for: Security operations teams and organizations focused on phishing reporting.
5. Microsoft Defender for Office 365 Attack Simulation Training
Provides phishing simulations and training workflows within Microsoft's security environment. It may reduce the need for a separate platform if your organization already licenses the appropriate Microsoft 365 security capabilities.
Best for: Microsoft 365-centric organizations that want to leverage existing licensing.
Mimecast customers and teams seeking integrated awareness
Infosec IQ
Broad training catalog, phishing tests, assessments, reporting
Mid-market and enterprise training programs
SoSafe
Personalized learning and human-risk analytics
Organizations focused on human risk management
NINJIO
Short, story-driven video training and behavior-focused education
Teams that prioritize engaging training content
Phished
Automated simulations, microlearning, and behavior-based personalization
Lean IT teams seeking lower administrative overhead
How to choose the right solution
The following is my recommended shortlist by organizational priority, rather than a definitive vendor ranking.
Broad content and established program
Start with KnowBe4. Compare its training catalog, automation, reporting, and licensing tiers.
Adaptive training and engagement
Pilot Hoxhunt and compare whether personalized exercises improve reporting rates and reduce repeat mistakes.
Existing enterprise security ecosystem
Compare Proofpoint ZenGuide, Mimecast, and Microsoft Attack Simulation Training against your existing licenses and integrations.
Employee reporting and incident response
Evaluate Cofense, especially if you want reported suspicious emails to feed into security operations workflows.
Evaluation checklist
When comparing vendors, I would score each one against these criteria:
Simulation realism: customizable templates, credential-harvest scenarios, attachments, QR codes, and business email compromise.
Automated remediation: short lessons triggered by simulated phishing failures, with repeat-offender coaching.
Reporting and analytics: click rate, credential-submission rate, employee reporting rate, repeat failures, and trends over time.
Integration: Microsoft 365, Google Workspace, single sign-on, HR systems, SIEM/SOAR, and your email security platform.
Program administration: campaign scheduling, multilingual content, role-based training, and automation.
Cost and licensing: total annual cost, minimum seats, contract terms, support, and any additional charges.
One particularly important distinction: don't measure success by click rate alone. Measure whether employees recognize and report suspicious messages, and whether those behaviors improve over time. Mimecast's guidance also recommends recurring simulations with varied scenarios and educational follow-up.
My recommendation
For an initial procurement evaluation, I would compare KnowBe4, Hoxhunt, and Proofpoint ZenGuide, adding Microsoft Attack Simulation Training if you're already invested in Microsoft 365. Include Cofense if employee reporting and incident response are major priorities.
Pricing and feature availability depend on package and organization size, so obtain comparable quotes rather than relying on advertised starting prices.
To narrow this to the best three for your organization: approximately how many employees do you need to train, and are you primarily using Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace?
I'd choose Hoxhunt if your priority is getting employees to recognize and report real attacks rather than simply completing training. Its approach is more adaptive and gamified, with phishing simulations tailored to individual users and emphasis on reporting behavior.
🥇 Best for large enterprises already using Proofpoint: Proofpoint
Proofpoint is particularly compelling if you're already using its email-security ecosystem. Its training can use threat intelligence to create relevant simulations and can test multiple vectors including email, SMS and USB.
Cofense is also worth considering if you want phishing simulation tightly connected to employee reporting and incident response.
What I'd buy
For a typical 50–5,000 employee organization, I'd start with KnowBe4 vs. Hoxhunt and run a pilot with both. Don't judge them primarily by the lowest simulated click rate. Measure:
Phishing-report rate — do employees report suspicious messages?
Time to report — how quickly do they act?
Repeat failures — do the same employees keep clicking?
Admin workload — how much work does your security team spend creating campaigns?
Real-world reporting — do employees report actual suspicious emails, not just simulations?
Microsoft 365/Google Workspace integration — especially the reporting workflow.
That last point matters: modern programs are increasingly measuring behavior change and reporting, rather than treating training completion as the primary outcome.
Bottom line: If you want one answer without knowing anything else about your environment, start with KnowBe4. If you have a mature security team and care most about adaptive training and measurable behavior change, pilot Hoxhunt alongside it.
If you tell me your employee count, Microsoft 365 vs. Google Workspace, and approximate budget per employee/year, I can narrow this to the best 2–3 options and compare actual 2026 pricing and features.
