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Fortinet FortiMail vs Symantec Messaging Gateway comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary
 

Categories and Ranking

Microsoft Defender for Offi...
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Average Rating
8.2
Number of Reviews
45
Ranking in other categories
Email Security (1st), Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) (1st), Microsoft Security Suite (10th)
Fortinet FortiMail
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
59
Ranking in other categories
Email Security (4th)
Symantec Messaging Gateway
Average Rating
8.2
Number of Reviews
20
Ranking in other categories
Secure Email Gateway (SEG) (5th)
 

Featured Reviews

Luis-Brown - PeerSpot reviewer
Aug 8, 2023
Allows for easy reporting of problems, valuable anti-phishing, and anti-malware support
Microsoft Defender for Office 365 lacks proactivity in assisting us with preparing for potential threats before they occur. While they employ a substantial amount of threat intelligence to preemptively prevent incidents, their effectiveness diminishes when it comes to delivering proactive threat intelligence alerts from Microsoft. Their focus primarily revolves around managing the internal environment. On the other hand, my other vendor, Check Point, along with my membership in MS-ISAC, supplements me with this type of information. The phishing and spam filters could use some improvement. It is adequate, but it doesn't match the quality of Proofpoint or Mimecast. However, it comes close in effectiveness. Plus, if we're obtaining it for free, investing in the other products seems impractical.
Andras Solt - PeerSpot reviewer
Dec 12, 2022
Reasonable pricing and good spam filtering but does not offer robust gatekeeping
The solution is primarily for mail security. We use it primarily for incoming and outgoing emails. We also use other products which are quite new for us. We just invested in GFI, and we use it also for the incoming email traffic to check with more antivirus monitoring The spam filtering is great.…
Girish Vijay - PeerSpot reviewer
Aug 25, 2023
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

"One of the best features of the tool is its capability to aggregate insights from different workloads, basically from the Office 365 and endpoints part."
"The product is not resource-intensive."
"Does a thorough job of examining email and URLs for malicious content."
"The solution is very easy to use. All you have to do is to assign the license to the end-user and it's done. The customer will only have the feature activated, and the solution will monitor the emails to determine if they are a threat or not."
"The email protection is excellent, especially in terms of anti-phishing policies."
"Defender helps us prioritize threats across our organization."
"The risk level notifications are most valuable. We get to know what kind of intrusion or attack is there, and we can fix a problem on time."
"The most valuable feature is the integration. It's a single console, so we don't have to switch around between multiple products. Another valuable feature is the ease of operations and maintenance."
"The anti-spam features are valuable."
"It can block a lot of fake emails."
"The integration with FortiSandbox is good, and something that we utilize often."
"Clean user interface and good sandbox."
"Fortinet FortiMail's most valuable features are antispam, antivirus, database, and data loss prevention (DLP)."
"The deployment is simple and once up and running it is easy to manage."
"The important feature is the application control, which makes administration much easier. It also has an intrusion prevention feature. There's also the wireless functionality, which works well with Huawei devices."
"Technical support is great. They're available 24/7 and their response time is typically within the hour."
"The anti-malware and spam features are valuable."
"The solution is "set and forget". You pay for it and everything is done for you."
"Symantec Messaging Gateway is stable and scalable. Installation is easy, and the deployment and maintenance can be done by one administrative person."
"Symantec’s spyware and malware signature database is very good compared to other products."
"The feature that I like the best is the fingerprinting concept."
"I like that it's simple and easy to configure, deploy, and manage. The reporting function has all the features we're looking for, and we are fine with that."
"Symantec Messaging Gateway has a huge knowledge base about phishing, spamming, spoofing, etc."
"The cloud-based interface is very user-friendly."
 

Cons

"They have moved features from one console to another. Things have been moved around in the interface and it takes me time to find where certain features are."
"It would be better if it were more scalable. It depends on the architecture, but we would like to make it more scalable for both data centers."
"Microsoft Defender for Office 365 could improve by giving customers information on techniques to prevent threats. For example, information about best practices on how to protect their own devices against hackers and scammers, such as educational information or training. This would help others have a better understanding of cyber security. Additionally, there can be more security features added."
"Sometimes, phishing emails manage to pass through the filter, so the system needs to enhance its phishing email detection capabilities."
"The company should focus on adding threats that the solution is currently unable to detect."
"The custom alerts have to improve a lot."
"Microsoft Defender for Office 365's Mac functionality requires improvement to deliver the same level of protection found on Windows devices."
"The UI needs to be more user-friendly."
"The only drawback to this solution is that the firmware is frequently updated, and each update results in downtime."
"The Ui isn't that intuitive."
"The biggest room for improvement would be the deployment. It will be hard for someone who doesn't understand the interface to deploy. If you understand it, you can find your way around the problems."
"It can be easier to configure or connect to the cloud to report on the attachments."
"The solution's pricing is flexible and can be adjusted for African utility companies. Microsoft often offers special pricing formulas for African governments and organizations and it is similar to Fortinet FortiMail. In my country, government institutions receive discounted pricing from Fortinet FortiMail."
"I have little to say about possible improvements, but the configuration for content blocking could be better. So, for example, if the email includes the line "You have a Bitcoin", I would like it to be easier to block it before it enters an inbox. Fortinet could maybe offer better or simpler help on how to do this properly."
"Limited ability to upgrade hardware may lead to some performance issues that might otherwise be improved."
"They should add a lot of threat-intelligence feeds from different sources - not only from one source (FortiGuard)."
"They really need to create a good package that competes with Microsoft."
"The false positive submissions must be improved."
"Symantec Messaging Gateway should include better exclusions and exceptions for better administration."
"The solution interface is from 2003 and is outdated. Symantec Messaging Gateway needs to update the interface."
"Sometimes the solution picks up false positive for viruses during scans."
"They have updated the version of the Messaging Gateway and the new features they are adding the need to be re-evaluated. They have done some changes on the policy."
"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."
"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."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Microsoft Defender is expensive. I typically recommend it only if clients have the budget. Otherwise, I would suggest an alternative."
"From the pricing point of view, like any other product in the market, there is scope for negotiation."
"The pricing has become expensive."
"The pricing is normal. Considering its popularity, it's not overpriced."
"While Microsoft Defender for Office 365 necessitates pricier E3 or E5 subscriptions, the extensive functionality offered by these licenses across various Microsoft products justifies the investment."
"Defender for 365 comes in various plans and licenses, along with other Microsoft security solutions. Purchasing this kind of package or security bundle gives good value for money, and that's what I recommend."
"Microsoft Defender for Office 365 is an add-on to the Office license. Many customers are purchasing this solution."
"I know that the product is incredibly expensive."
"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 is inexpensive."
"The price is acceptable for the support license it includes."
"Price-wise, you get what you pay for in Fortinet FortiMail. Apart from the licensing costs, no additional expenses are attached to the solution's pricing."
"Pricing is straight-forward and renewable without complicated pricing structures."
"The tool is very expensive."
"9,000 Euro per annum for Fortinet Mail and sandbox."
"The pricing is good."
"For 150 users, we pay INR 1,60,000."
"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."
"It's a bit expensive compared to its competitor Barracuda Email Security Gateway but cheaper than Sophos Email."
"A subscription for technical support costs extra."
"Symantec Messaging Gateway’s pricing is very cheap."
"They're a little costly compared to Microsoft."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
17%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
6%
Educational Organization
49%
Computer Software Company
9%
Government
5%
Financial Services Firm
4%
Computer Software Company
22%
Financial Services Firm
17%
Government
10%
Manufacturing Company
6%
 

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?
The pricing is reasonable since it comes integrated with our Office 365 license.
What needs improvement with Microsoft Defender for Office 365?
Sometimes, phishing emails manage to pass through the filter, so the system needs to enhance its phishing email detec...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Fortinet FortiMail?
Compared to its competitors, Fortinet's products are available at a higher price range. The free or open source in th...
What needs improvement with Fortinet FortiMail?
The tool does what it is supposed to do, so there is nothing I want in the tool. The product's price is an area with ...
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.
814,649 professionals have used our research since 2012.