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Proofpoint Email Protection 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

Proofpoint Email Protection
Ranking in Secure Email Gateway (SEG)
2nd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
63
Ranking in other categories
Email Security (2nd), Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) (4th), Digital Risk Protection (3rd), Office 365 Protection (1st)
Symantec Messaging Gateway
Ranking in Secure Email Gateway (SEG)
12th
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 February 2026, in the Secure Email Gateway (SEG) category, the mindshare of Proofpoint Email Protection is 20.8%, down from 21.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Symantec Messaging Gateway is 2.3%, down from 3.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Secure Email Gateway (SEG) Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Proofpoint Email Protection20.8%
Symantec Messaging Gateway2.3%
Other76.9%
Secure Email Gateway (SEG)
 

Featured Reviews

IS
Threat Hunter at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees
Email protection has reduced phishing workload and keeps unwanted messages out of inboxes
A few things about how Proofpoint Email Protection can be improved include implementing artificial intelligence within their platform to start really understanding the organization that is using their product, what sort of emails they are expecting and if the emails that are being expected should be let in and if the emails that are not being expected should not be let in. I'll give you a further example for this. If someone just tries to send an email from a Gmail address, which is a free public service email service provider, then because anyone in the world can create a Gmail account, I think it is nice and good for Proofpoint Email Protection to actually first check and do a reality check if we have received an email from this address and look at the intent of the email to really see what the email is trying to do and then classify based on that. I still see there is a lack. Hence why I started this conversation with AI and hoping that Proofpoint Email Protection will bring AI in and to really start analyzing these emails, the intent, and whether they really fit the customer organization. We are a manufacturing company, so whether it really fits that profile. I would say if we can get a better user experience from Proofpoint Email Protection products, that would be good. For example, other service providers that provide secure email gateway have the functionality where you can split promotional and bulk email and have them sent to a separate folder. I think if we can have that sort of feature, that would be great where Proofpoint Email Protection just keeps the important emails in the inbox folder and move everything else that is not really business related into a promotional, spam, bulk folder. This is an improvement that I would really like to see. I give it an eight because I am expecting a lot more from Proofpoint Email Protection, more automations, more understanding of who their customer is, what sort of business they do, and what sort of email they are supposed to be receiving and letting through. I think the day when I really have only 1% of work to do and 99% is automated by whatever automation services Proofpoint Email Protection uses would be ideal. I think I have covered any other improvements needed for Proofpoint Email Protection pretty well right from AI to splitting emails based on priorities. I think I have given some pretty broad and good examples.
Girish Vijay - PeerSpot reviewer
Deputy Manager IT at Carl Bechem Lubricants India Pvt. Ltd.
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

"Proofpoint Email Protection offers an additional layer of protection compared to other brands like Microsoft, Mimecast, and Barracuda. While these major companies excel at detecting malicious attachments, the solution goes further by analyzing the context of emails, allowing for more nuanced decision-making."
"The setup was easy."
"When I manage a SOC and Proofpoint Email Protection is integrated with it, it gives me a consolidated alert, so when phishing alerts come in it is slightly easier to manage, even my L1 incident response team from the SOC can easily understand the alerts, perform basic checks on VirusTotal, and create complete SOAR automation from that information."
"Proofpoint Email Protection has massively improved the attack surface and has limited a lot of user compromise events."
"The solution blocks malicious emails containing viruses and malware and reduces them out of spam."
"It's a mature product. It does a good job in detection."
"It was easy to set up."
"I recommend all of my customers to migrate and start using Proofpoint as it is secure, minimizes risk, and eliminates phishing attacks."
"The cloud-based interface is very user-friendly."
"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 solution is excellent at blocking spam."
"It is a solid and stable product."
"The feature that I like the best is the fingerprinting concept."
"The setup is pretty simple."
"The solution is stable and the performance is good."
"The solution is "set and forget". You pay for it and everything is done for you."
 

Cons

"Pricing for the platform could still be cheaper."
"Proofpoint Email Protection could improve by allowing more customization of the reports, such as exceptions and black-and-white lists."
"Sometimes it detects false positives."
"A way Proofpoint Email Protection can be improved is to have training materials and documentation for every step, which would be useful."
"Unfortunately, the whole product is going downhill right now, ever since they were sold to Thoma Bravo. We're constantly having problems with stability and the product in general."
"The initial setup is complex."
"The high cost of the product is an area of concern where improvements are required."
"The scalability can be improved, and the solution can be optimized."
"Messaging Gateway's advanced malware detection could be improved."
"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."
"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."
"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 product must improve the user dashboards."
"The biggest problem is it's an on-prem product and we're trying to get out of having equipment in data centers."
"Sometimes the solution picks up false positive for viruses during scans."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Customers pay around $90,000 yearly for a 1,000-user organization, with the subscription license being the main expense, apart from implementation fees."
"Proofpoint Email Protection has comparable pricing."
"Clients pay for an annual subscription of Proofpoint Email Protection. Every client always finds it expensive."
"In general, the pricing is competitive."
"The licensing model for Proofpoint Email Protection is simple. It's based on the number of users. Price-wise, Proofpoint Email Protection is a five out of ten because it's a pretty expensive solution."
"Pricing has recently been increased and the cost is a downside"
"The solution charges per user per month to use it. There are not any additional fees in addition to the standard living fees."
"The price is reasonable."
"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."
"Symantec Messaging Gateway’s pricing is very cheap."
"A subscription for technical support costs extra."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
11%
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Retailer
6%
Financial Services Firm
18%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Marketing Services Firm
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business23
Midsize Enterprise17
Large Enterprise22
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business11
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise8
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Proofpoint Email Protection?
I do not know much about the licensing part, but I remember one customer mentioned that it cost them around one crore for approximately three thousand users. It is definitely cost-effective because...
What needs improvement with Proofpoint Email Protection?
A few things about how Proofpoint Email Protection can be improved include implementing artificial intelligence within their platform to start really understanding the organization that is using th...
Ask a question
Earn 20 points
 

Also Known As

Proofpoint Enterprise Protection, Proofpoint Digital Protection
Symantec.cloud, Symantec Email Security.cloud
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Blocket, University of Waterloo, Lincoln Memorial University, WellSpan Health, U-Haul, Carestream Health, Westinghouse
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 Proofpoint Email Protection vs. Symantec Messaging Gateway and other solutions. Updated: February 2026.
882,637 professionals have used our research since 2012.