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Fortinet FortiMail Cloud vs Symantec Messaging Gateway comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 5, 2024

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

Fortinet FortiMail Cloud
Ranking in Secure Email Gateway (SEG)
6th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
24
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Email (4th)
Symantec Messaging Gateway
Ranking in Secure Email Gateway (SEG)
9th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
20
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2025, in the Secure Email Gateway (SEG) category, the mindshare of Fortinet FortiMail Cloud is 4.6%, up from 2.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Symantec Messaging Gateway is 2.5%, up from 2.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Secure Email Gateway (SEG) Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Fortinet FortiMail Cloud4.6%
Symantec Messaging Gateway2.5%
Other92.9%
Secure Email Gateway (SEG)
 

Featured Reviews

Pravin Mandlik - PeerSpot reviewer
Provides enhanced email security with potential agent compatibility issues
There are definitely features that Fortinet should work on. I'm not the right person to implement those features. For a portable cloud solution, a customer has more affinity towards a solution where endpoint security is already in place. In endpoint security, they are not at the latest quadrant. That is why a customer with existing endpoint security solutions like Trend Micro might prefer a main security solution from that vendor. If we go for FortiMail Cloud and have a separate endpoint security solution, there are two agents that have to sit on a customer endpoint. From that perspective, Fortinet policies add an extra load to the endpoint. Maybe other solutions have an advantage when it comes to Fortinet.
Dennis O'Reilly - PeerSpot reviewer
The product provides good content filtering options, but the false positive submissions must be improved
The tool is very stable. I rate the stability a seven out of ten. It's an on-premise application that runs on a virtual machine. It has dependencies on the hypervisor host that we're running it on. If it's not configured, the application can be influenced by it. Sometimes, there is a service stop error while the service is still running. Sometimes, the service just stops. Some policies do not act the way that we intend them to respond.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"The deployment is simple."
"The return on investment for us was achieved since we did not have similar incidents again in our environment."
"The encryption features are most valuable to us."
"The most valuable features are email ATB and Malware Analysis."
"The most valuable features are filtering and sandboxing."
"Fortinet is good at providing security beyond our email solution assets."
"The quarantine feature of FortiMail is the most valuable, as it quarantines emails based on my policies."
"Fortinet's support is really good."
"The solution is excellent at blocking spam."
"It has very good capabilities for managing malware."
"Messaging Gateway is stable."
"It is a solid and stable product."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is the content filtering policies because the solution offers huge options for configuration, such as hardware manipulation, et cetera, and the dictionaries make the work easier."
"The solution is highly customizable. You can make rules for domains and configure policies for spam or malware. Messaging Gateway is an on-prem solution, so it's useful for companies without a cloud presence."
"The most valuable features of Symantec Messaging Gateway are advanced content filtering, malware, and antivirus defense."
"The feature that I like the best is the fingerprinting concept."
 

Cons

"I would like to see more advanced sandbox features, where you can actually download to a machine where you can test."
"Networking should be simplified."
"There are no specific new features I would suggest at this moment."
"Fortinet FortiMail Cloud doesn't have AI features, making it an outdated tool for me."
"I've not been able to use more than two domains in the back end. I like to view logs for the different domains. If I add any other domain I'm not able to get a proper cPanel for that domain. I am talking about the login factors. I'm not able to see logs for different domains in a different Window. Basically, it's an issue in the login process."
"This solution is slow and it should be made faster."
"FortiMail needs to develop further, particularly in integrating AI features, to keep up with rapidly advancing technology."
"They could look at strengthening anti-spam with the newly observed domains."
"Sometimes the solution picks up false positive for viruses during scans."
"Symantec Messaging Gateway should include better exclusions and exceptions for better administration."
"It could be more scalable."
"What needs to be improved in Symantec Messaging Gateway is its local partner support, as it's not as technical. The support my company gets from the partner isn't good. Vendor support is good, but local partner support isn't. I'm happy with Symantec Messaging Gateway as a solution, but the problem is with its partner support. To me, Symantec Messaging Gateway is a complete solution, but it can be very difficult to search the web for resolutions to issues or problems you experience from it. If this could be improved or resolved in the next release of Symantec Messaging Gateway, then that would be good."
"It is a nice product but is not user friendly in terms of the graphical interface. It is poor and is not rich in terms of the human interface."
"The product must improve the user dashboards."
"The solution takes up a lot of memory."
"Messaging Gateway's advanced malware detection could be improved."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The licensing is for three years. In the beginning, we did not pay monthly, it was paid once for three years."
"A license for our company using FortiMail and FortiCare (filtering and support) was $4000."
"I rate the price of Fortinet FortiMail Cloud a five on a one to ten scale, where one is the low price, and ten is the high price. It is an averagely priced product."
"The product's price is reasonable."
"I see how manageable and flexible the licenses are."
"The pricing depends on various factors, including the type of licenses and subscriptions you have procured"
"You only have to purchase one license for multiple participants."
"The price of this solution could be more competitive."
"They're a little costly compared to Microsoft."
"For 150 users, we pay INR 1,60,000."
"A subscription for technical support costs extra."
"The cost of Symantec Messaging Gateway is too expensive in general. However, the appliance also includes the price of the license in the same bundle."
"Symantec Messaging Gateway’s pricing is very cheap."
"It's a bit expensive compared to its competitor Barracuda Email Security Gateway but cheaper than Sophos Email."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
10%
University
7%
Non Profit
7%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Financial Services Firm
23%
Computer Software Company
15%
Government
8%
Manufacturing Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business16
Midsize Enterprise8
Large Enterprise2
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business11
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise8
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Fortinet FortiMail Cloud?
Content disarming and analysis are essential features in our email security setup
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Fortinet FortiMail Cloud?
The price of Fortinet FortiMail Cloud in Egypt is very competitive against other products, including the setup cost and licensing of this solution.
What needs improvement with Fortinet FortiMail Cloud?
The improvement in Fortinet FortiMail Cloud can be made regarding the classification process itself because it has some false positives.
What needs improvement with Symantec Messaging Gateway?
The solution takes up a lot of memory. The system becomes slow. The performance must be improved.
What is your primary use case for Symantec Messaging Gateway?
We use the solution to secure our data and emails.
 

Also Known As

No data available
Symantec.cloud, Symantec Email Security.cloud
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Black Gold Regional Schools, Amadeus Hospitality, Jefferson County, Chunghwa Telecom, City of Boroondara, Dimension Data
Doric, Joblink Plus, Our Lady of Mercy College, Parramatta, PPB Advisory, Slater & Gordon Lawyers, Sydney Adventist Hospital Ltd.
Find out what your peers are saying about Fortinet FortiMail Cloud vs. Symantec Messaging Gateway and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
867,497 professionals have used our research since 2012.