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Fortinet FortiMail vs Symantec Messaging Gateway comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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

Microsoft Defender for Offi...
Sponsored
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
52
Ranking in other categories
Email Archiving (1st), Email Security (1st), Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) (1st), Microsoft Security Suite (11th), Secure Email Gateway (SEG) (1st)
Fortinet FortiMail
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
64
Ranking in other categories
Email Security (6th)
Symantec Messaging Gateway
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
20
Ranking in other categories
Secure Email Gateway (SEG) (6th)
 

Mindshare comparison

Email Security
Secure Email Gateway (SEG)
 

Featured Reviews

Tolu Omolaja - PeerSpot reviewer
Great URL scanning and attachment scanning, but I would like more proactive threat analysis
The two main features that prove most beneficial for us are URL scanning and attachment scanning. URL scanning involves an automatic scan of links and emails. When a user clicks on a link within an email, the system promptly checks the link's safety. If the link is deemed safe, access is granted automatically. However, if it is flagged as unsafe, we receive feedback and notification to caution us about the potentially harmful link. At this point, we are presented with the option to proceed or return. I have personally witnessed the system identify a few unsafe links, making this the primary advantage of using the solution. The second crucial aspect is the scanning of attachments. When an email containing an attachment arrives, we receive a notification of the new email, along with information that the attachment is being scanned for threats. This additional layer of security provides peace of mind for our organization. While Microsoft Defender for Office 365 offers numerous features, these two stand out as particularly impressive and valuable to us.
MOHAN SUKUMAR - PeerSpot reviewer
Secure email management improves through advanced filtering and dynamic virus scanning
Fortinet FortiMail offers capabilities like settings for mail delivery, mail filtering, spam controls, and email bursting prevention. It also allows for email forwarding, dynamic filtering, and scanning based on virus signatures. I can set varying levels of security. The tool is flexible and provides essential features for mail security and management.
Girish Vijay - PeerSpot reviewer
A stable and reasonably priced solution that performs well and has a very good malware database
Since Symantec merged with Broadcom, they might have lost some good technical engineers. Maybe that’s the reason why the product is performing poorly. When we have a good marketing and sales team, even though our product cannot perform, we will sell it at a high price because of the buzzwords. However, at the end of the day, the product should perform. Most of the products might not perform. Symantec is a very good product, but the services are basic. I rate the technical features of the product a nine out of ten. However, I would rate the services provided by the solution a six out of ten. Overall, I rate the tool an eight out of ten.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The most valuable feature of Microsoft Defender for Office 365 is data backups that we can provide through ticket requests."
"Microsoft Defender for Office 365 is a stable solution."
"Some of the valuable features on the email side are anti-phishing, anti-malware, and Safe Links."
"The product is not resource-intensive."
"It has significantly decreased my time to detection and response."
"The technical support is good and quick to resolve issues."
"Does a thorough job of examining email and URLs for malicious content."
"The initial setup was easy."
"Fortinet FortiMail is easy to use and the detection rate is very good. You can customize content filters and profiles are done easily. Additionally, there is a sandbox integration feature that is good."
"After implementing FortiMail, the spam, and malicious emails we receive have significantly reduced, making it much simpler to manage."
"The anti-spam functionality is good and works well."
"The solution is very, very stable."
"FortiMail effectively filters all emails coming to our mail server, blocking malicious ones automatically."
"The deployment is simple and once up and running it is easy to manage."
"When combining this solution with other Fortinet products, such as FortiGate, it integrates well and provides a comprehensive protection package."
"Fortinet FortiMail has a lot of valuable features. It works great. It also has an antivirus feature. Support for Fortinet FortiMail was also great when my team wanted to block some geographic IPs, but couldn't figure out how to do it. The support team provided clear communication on how to resolve that issue. Another valuable feature of Fortinet FortiMail is SPAM filtering which tells you how many spammy emails you've received. Based on my current use cases, I'm happy with Fortinet FortiMail."
"Symantec’s spyware and malware signature database is very good compared to other products."
"Symantec Messaging Gateway has a huge knowledge base about phishing, spamming, spoofing, etc."
"The setup is pretty simple."
"Symantec is a secure product."
"The solution is stable and the performance is good."
"What I like most about Symantec Messaging Gateway is its usability. I also find its interface very friendly. The solution has a very good interface."
"The feature that I like the best is the fingerprinting concept."
"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."
 

Cons

"Too many false positives and lacks an accurate capability to detect malicious SharePoint sites."
"Microsoft should provide more documentation for users so they can self-educate. I would like to see more documentation for advanced security features."
"I'd like some additional features any product can give me to protect our environment in a better way."
"We still see many false positives from time to time with Microsoft Defender for Office 365, so it would be good if we can reduce those false positives and provide better workflows for our end users, as sometimes they may not know what to do when they encounter a false positive."
"The phishing and spam filters could use some improvement."
"The UI needs to be more user-friendly."
"We need a separate license and we don't know how to get the license that is required."
"There is a different console for different things; I just want one consolidated console."
"The product's price is an area with shortcomings, making it an area where improvements are required."
"What's missing in Fortinet FortiMail is some sandbox information for some of the emails. It's probably configuration-based, where it could be configured on some emails. For example, there was malware in some emails that weren't detected in some of the Fortinet FortiMail sessions, but it should have been configured from my company's end to better catch scam emails, but overall, the solution is okay. At the moment, my company is okay with the current Fortinet FortiMail offerings, but in the past, because of a lack of understanding, my team wasn't able to quickly implement the geographical IP blocking feature. It was time-consuming to implement that feature, but that wasn't a fault of Fortinet FortiMail. The issue was from my team's end, but just by emailing the support team, that issue was resolved, so right now, there isn't any additional feature I'd like added to Fortinet FortiMail."
"Issues with the current email search functionality."
"It would be nice if we could manage the solution from the cloud so I could handle things off-site if necessary."
"The tool needs to improve its pricing policy. Also, it needs to be more user-friendly. I would want it to improve email security as well."
"High Availability needs improvement."
"It's difficult for me to talk about areas for improvement in Fortinet FortiMail because I'm the general manager of the company and I'm an engineer with knowledge about the solution, but I'm not deeply involved in its implementation. As I mentioned previously, Fortinet FortiMail is also being used within the company, and I'm happy with its functionality, but sometimes, attacks pass and avoid the Fortinet FortiMail filters, but those could be very sophisticated attacks. There could still be an improvement in the filtering feature of the solution, though the security of Fortinet FortiMail is okay for me because I believe you can't implement one hundred percent security in any solution. The initial setup for the solution also needs improvement. The setup is supposed to be simple, but then the customer starts to complain that some of the false positive emails are reaching quarantine, so my team has to configure it again. There have been instances when Fortinet FortiMail rejects valid emails because some of the service partners of the customer have not been configured accurately, so the system considered valid mails as attacks to be quarantined, so aside from improving the filters, there should also be an improvement in the categorization of emails in the server. My team has to modify the configuration so that valid emails could pass and for Fortinet FortiMail to correctly filter the SPAM traffic. A feature that could be added to Fortinet FortiMail in its next release is advanced AI, so it can analyze and decide accurately on which mail is valid and which mail is SPAM."
"Fortinet FortiMail's technical support team has shortcomings and needs improvement."
"This product would benefit from better integration with Symantec Endpoint Protection."
"Symantec Messaging Gateway can improve detection because most of them are false negatives or false positives that we are trying to troubleshoot. Additionally, we are having routing problems and they are somehow connected to DNS issues."
"Sometimes the solution picks up false positive for viruses during scans."
"What's lacking when you compare it with Proofpoint and other threat protection solutions is that it does the basic stuff, but we need more advanced threat handling."
"The false positive submissions must be improved."
"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 biggest problem is it's an on-prem product and we're trying to get out of having equipment in data centers."
"Symantec Messaging Gateway should include better exclusions and exceptions for better administration."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"From the pricing point of view, like any other product in the market, there is scope for negotiation."
"Microsoft Defender for Office 365 is an add-on to the Office license. Many customers are purchasing this solution."
"The solution could be better by simplifying the business model of their licensing. It was hard to figure out how to get the licensing done for the environment, initially."
"For licensing, it's usually a yearly package for customers who are subscribed to Office 365, but they can also pay on a monthly basis."
"I know that the product is incredibly expensive."
"I was working in the government and it was too expensive for us to use our Microsoft products."
"It is much more expensive than using another solution because we have had to include some options and upgrade our license."
"The license is expensive because the cost is based on the number of users."
"FortiMail is not cheap."
"Fortinet Fortimail has reasonable pricing."
"I find Fortinet FortiMail pricing reasonable. There's no additional cost apart from its standard licensing fees."
"My company has a three-year license for Fortinet FortiMail, including the support, but I'm not so sure of how much the solution costs because I'm not part of the procurement team. What's more important to me is the functionality and stability of Fortinet FortiMail. In terms of Fortinet FortiMail licensing, the cost is calculated based on company requirements. For example, it's based on the features you need for your environment, on capacity, how many CPUs you have, etc."
"Fortinet FortiMail has an annual license agreement."
"There is a license required for this solution and it is on an annual basis. I am satisfied with the price."
"I have no information on pricing for the competition because right now, my company is working only with Fortinet, but I can say that in general, the price for Fortinet FortiMail was accepted by the customers easily. The POC is also important when a customer is buying a solution. The customer wants to see how the product runs, and as Fortinet FortiMail is a stable product that runs without big issues, it has a bigger chance of getting chosen by customers over its competitors, even if its price may be a little higher. Pricing for the solution is competitive. Sometimes it's less, sometimes it's a little bit higher, but it isn't far from what other solutions charge."
"The pricing is good."
"A subscription for technical support costs extra."
"Symantec Messaging Gateway’s pricing is very cheap."
"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."
"For 150 users, we pay INR 1,60,000."
"They're a little costly compared to Microsoft."
"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
16%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
6%
Educational Organization
43%
Computer Software Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
6%
Government
5%
Financial Services Firm
21%
Computer Software Company
21%
Government
8%
Manufacturing Company
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Microsoft Defender for Office 365?
Threat Explorer is an invaluable tool for me, and it plays a crucial role in helping me discern the origins of variou...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Microsoft Defender for Office 365?
Money-wise, it is a part of the Office 365 ( /products/office-365-reviews ) suite, making it slightly more expensive ...
What needs improvement with Microsoft Defender for Office 365?
The main area for improvement is simplifying the implementation and rollout process. There are many conditions to be ...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Fortinet FortiMail?
Fortinet FortiMail is considered overpriced by Indian rupee standards. My organization is not profit-making, and acad...
What needs improvement with Fortinet FortiMail?
Fortinet FortiMail should keep pace with features offered by cloud-based services like Google and Microsoft Outlook. ...
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

MS Defender for Office 365
FortiMail
Symantec.cloud, Symantec Email Security.cloud
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Microsoft Defender for Office 365 is trusted by companies such as Ithaca College.
Magromer Cueros y Pieles S.A.
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 vs. Symantec Messaging Gateway and other solutions. Updated: January 2024.
850,671 professionals have used our research since 2012.