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Fortra's Clearswift Secure Email Gateway vs Symantec Messaging Gateway comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary
 

Categories and Ranking

Microsoft Defender for Offi...
Sponsored
Average Rating
8.4
Number of Reviews
43
Ranking in other categories
Email Security (1st), Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) (1st), Microsoft Security Suite (9th)
Fortra's Clearswift Secure ...
Average Rating
8.6
Number of Reviews
0
Ranking in other categories
Email Security (40th)
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.
PC
Sep 10, 2020
Stable, but malware needs improvement and customer support is poor
We use a few features for web proxy, and another feature is the email content filter and malware for our internal policy in the email content. I'm a systems administrator and we are customers of Clearswift.  It's a stable solution.  They need to improve the malware in the product. I am not…
EO
Mar 28, 2023
Good protection, no maintenance required, and easy to set up
We primarily use the solution for mail. All messages go through the gateway. It helps maintain security. It helps with spam and protects emails.  It helps avoid mail threats.  It protects against spam bots and messaging threats. It's a full solution for email. We do not get any phishing.  We do…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Does a thorough job of examining email and URLs for malicious content."
"The technical support is good and quick to resolve issues."
"The most valuable feature of Microsoft Defender for Office 365 is the ease of use."
"It also gives the vulnerability status according to the versions you have selected. Let's say you have Google Chrome. It mentions the versions it has, and it updates. Within two hours of an update, it is reflected in the dashboard. That's really nice to have."
"There are several features that I consider valuable."
"It also gives me good visibility because, with Defender, I'm using a Microsoft product to defend Microsoft products. The integration was really seamless and I have wide visibility because it picks up almost everything. Literally, I can see almost every activity that happens, from the e-mail to the workstation itself."
"Microsoft Defender for Office 365's most valuable feature is its performance."
"Microsoft Defender for Office 365 is a stable solution."
"A stable solution."
"Ability to create your own content-filtering policies with relative ease."
"Symantec Messaging Gateway has a huge knowledge base about phishing, spamming, spoofing, etc."
"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."
"Symantec’s spyware and malware signature database is very good compared to other products."
"The solution is stable and the performance is good."
"The anti-malware and spam features are valuable."
"Symantec Messaging Gateway is stable and scalable. Installation is easy, and the deployment and maintenance can be done by one administrative person."
"Symantec Messaging Gateway has a good GUI, and it is very powerful in detecting viruses and spam."
"The cloud-based interface is very user-friendly."
 

Cons

"The company should focus on adding threats that the solution is currently unable to detect."
"The UI needs to be more user-friendly."
"Microsoft Defender for Office 365 must improve the overall management style, including the GUI. It also needs to change the filters so that it is easy to whitelist and blacklist data."
"I'd like some additional features any product can give me to protect our environment in a better way."
"Microsoft Defender for Office 365 should improve the troubleshooting tools. It's unclear whether the device is blocked at the firewall level or at the device itself. The granularity needed for troubleshooting is currently lacking. From my perspective, Microsoft should address this issue to benefit many users who likely share the same sentiment."
"We are always looking for others tools to increase automation on tasks. There can be better integration with other solutions, such as PowerPoint and email."
"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."
"Too many false positives and lacks an accurate capability to detect malicious SharePoint sites."
"Malware needs improvement."
"FTP server and TRUST Manager functionality."
"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."
"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."
"Messaging Gateway's advanced malware detection could be improved."
"They really need to create a good package that competes with Microsoft."
"We've had issues in the past where the user finds spam, and Symantec does not recognize it as spam."
"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 solution takes up a lot of memory."
"In a later release, it would be nice if the messaging gateway supported the cluster feature."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is much more expensive than using another solution because we have had to include some options and upgrade our license."
"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."
"The solution saves money so we have seen a return on investment."
"Defender is a little bit more expensive as compared to others. We are in the manufacturing environment. So, we don't have a high budget for all of our endpoint devices. Its cost is a major concern for us."
"The pricing is normal. Considering its popularity, it's not overpriced."
"From the pricing point of view, like any other product in the market, there is scope for negotiation."
"Microsoft Defender is expensive. I typically recommend it only if clients have the budget. Otherwise, I would suggest an alternative."
"I know that the product is incredibly expensive."
Information not available
"For 150 users, we pay INR 1,60,000."
"Symantec Messaging Gateway’s pricing is very cheap."
"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."
"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."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
17%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Government
6%
Computer Software Company
23%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Government
13%
Construction Company
7%
Computer Software Company
23%
Financial Services Firm
16%
Government
10%
Manufacturing Company
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

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?
While Microsoft Defender for Office 365 necessitates pricier E3 or E5 subscriptions, the extensive functionality offe...
What needs improvement with Microsoft Defender for Office 365?
Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps is a very good solution that allows you to use a single port or tool to control eve...
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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
No data available
Symantec.cloud, Symantec Email Security.cloud
 

Learn More

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Overview

 

Sample Customers

Microsoft Defender for Office 365 is trusted by companies such as Ithaca College.
Information Not Available
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 Microsoft, Cisco, Fortinet and others in Email Security. Updated: September 2024.
800,688 professionals have used our research since 2012.