Hook Security vs Webroot SAT: An Honest Comparison for MSPs (2026)

Short answer: choose Webroot’s training if you already run the Webroot/OpenText console across your clients and want a basic awareness layer on the same bill. Choose Hook if the training itself is the point — a program built on current behavioral research, with monthly practice, coaching at the exact moment of the click, and a no-blame method employees don’t tune out.

Webroot Security Awareness Training — now sold as OpenText Core Security Awareness Training — is an established product with respectable reviews. This page says where it wins, where it and Hook differ, and what a switch actually takes, with every outside claim linked in the Sources section.

The short version

• Reviews: Webroot holds 4.4/5 across 71 G2 reviews; Hook holds 4.7/5 across 87. On G2’s head-to-head, Hook leads on meets requirements (9.5 vs 9.0), quality of support (9.5 vs 9.1) and product direction (9.5 vs 9.0); Webroot edges ease of use and ease of admin. Worth noting: most of Webroot’s G2 reviews were written between 2018 and 2020.
• Where it comes from: Webroot launched the product in August 2017 by acquiring Securecast, then passed through Carbonite to OpenText in 2019. Today training is one line in a very large security portfolio. At Hook, security awareness is the whole company.
• Speed: G2 buyers report implementing Hook in about 1 month and reaching ROI in about 5 months; Webroot’s reviewers report 2 months and 8 months.
• Methodology: Webroot’s program model is the one it launched with in 2017 — assign courses, run phishing simulations, track clicks for the annual compliance cycle. Hook’s PsySec method is built on the behavioral research published since.
• Pricing: OpenText does not publish pricing — it’s demo-and-quote. Hook prices per seat with every feature included: no add-on ladder, no multi-year term, no renewal escalation. MSP partner pricing is available on request.

Where Webroot is strong

Fairness first. If your stack is already Webroot endpoint and DNS protection, the console consolidation is real: awareness training lands in the same place you manage everything else, on one bill. Reviewers score it slightly ahead of Hook on ease of use (9.5 vs 9.3) and ease of admin (9.4 vs 9.3), the courses are short — most run five minutes or less — and OpenText refreshes the content library monthly with material from multiple publishers.

Where the two differ

The first difference is focus. For OpenText, awareness training is one product among dozens spanning endpoint, DNS, email and backup. For Hook, the training is the whole job, so the content, the coaching and the monthly cadence that Autopilot runs for you are the product, not a feature of something else.

The second is the operational gaps Webroot’s own reviewers describe: new employees are not enrolled automatically, content leans US-centric for international teams, some courses are described as too short or simplistic, and simulated phishing emails are frequently caught by spam filters before they reach the inbox. Hook auto-enrolls new hires, delivers simulations directly into Microsoft 365 and Gmail, and coaches at the click with the Training Moment.

Has the methodology kept up?

Webroot’s program design dates to its 2017 Securecast acquisition: assign a course, run a simulation, track the click rate, repeat for the annual cycle. OpenText’s own page frames the modules around meeting “annual industry and regulatory compliance requirements.” The platform has been around for years, and to be fair, its content library refreshes monthly — but a newer video inside the same assign-and-test loop is a content update, not a methodology update.

The science has moved since then. Peer-reviewed research shows the effect of phishing training fades within roughly six months without reinforcement, which makes an annual-compliance cadence a structural problem rather than a content one. Hook built PsySec on those findings: monthly spaced practice instead of an annual event, a friendly Training Moment at the exact second someone clicks, no-blame framing so employees report mistakes instead of hiding them, and measurement per manipulation tactic instead of a single click number.

What switching actually involves

• Export your history: pull completion and simulation records for each client before you sunset the old platform, so audit and insurance evidence stays intact.
• Safe-listing: allow Hook’s sending infrastructure in each client tenant — minutes per tenant with copy-paste rules, and it fixes the spam-filter problem Webroot reviewers describe.
• Onboarding: multi-tenant setup imports your client list, and Autopilot takes over the monthly cadence from there.
• Timing: move one pilot client first, then stage the rest around each client’s renewal date.

The bottom line

Stay on Webroot if console consolidation is what you value most and your clients genuinely engage with the training. Switch to Hook if the program has gone quiet — an annual course, slipping completion, employees clicking the same simulations — because that is a method problem, and the method is the thing Hook rebuilt.

Frequently asked questions

Is Webroot Security Awareness Training still supported?

Yes. OpenText sells it as OpenText Core Security Awareness Training and refreshes the content library monthly. The question for an MSP is not whether the product is alive, but whether the assign-and-test model it launched with in 2017 still changes employee behavior at your clients.

Is Hook or Webroot cheaper?

OpenText does not publish pricing, so request a quote on your real seat count and term. Hook prices per seat with every feature included — no add-on ladder and no multi-year term — and MSP partner pricing is available on request, so compare like for like.

Can we run Webroot and Hook side by side during a move?

Yes. The usual pattern is one pilot client on Hook for a monthly cycle while the rest of your book stays put, then staged moves as each client’s term ends.

Sources

MSSP Alert: Webroot acquires Securecast (August 2017) — launch date and MSP positioning.

OpenText: Core Security Awareness Training — current positioning, five-minute courses, monthly content refresh, annual compliance framing, pricing by demo and quote only.

G2: Webroot Security Awareness Training reviews — rating, review count, reviewer praise and complaints.

G2: Hook Security vs Webroot head-to-head — category scores, time to implement, time to ROI.

Reinheimer et al., USENIX SOUPS 2020 — phishing-training effects fade within months without reinforcement.

Keep reading

• Hook Security vs usecure — the same side-by-side against another MSP-focused platform.
• Hook Security vs Huntress SAT — how Hook compares with Huntress Managed SAT.
• Hook Security vs Phin — how Hook compares with Phin for MSPs.
• All Hook Security comparisons — every vendor side-by-side in one place.
• See Hook in action — an interactive phishing simulation demo, from the inbox to the Training Moment.