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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)
1st
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
103
Ranking in other categories
Email Security (1st), Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) (3rd), 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 June 2026, in the Secure Email Gateway (SEG) category, the mindshare of Proofpoint Email Protection is 19.0%, down from 21.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Symantec Messaging Gateway is 2.7%, up from 2.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Secure Email Gateway (SEG) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Proofpoint Email Protection19.0%
Symantec Messaging Gateway2.7%
Other78.3%
Secure Email Gateway (SEG)
 

Featured Reviews

Vivek_Jaiswal - PeerSpot reviewer
Security Engineer at LTI Mindtree
Advanced email defenses have protected healthcare staff and simplified incident response
There are many things that could be improved, but once you are very well-known about this application, you could perform that improvement plan. There are many scenarios where I have worked with Proofpoint Email Protection where a requirement was not fulfilled due to the limitation of the product. For example, we have Report Phish automation. With Proofpoint Email Protection, we can configure Report Phish and forward the email to any email addresses or shared mailboxes that we provide in the configuration. That email is forwarded as is with whatever the user reports as a phishing email. However, some organizations do not want the reported phishing email to go as is into their ticketing tool because it might contain malicious attachments and malicious links that are not required to go into their internal organization. Proofpoint Email Protection has that limitation. They cannot forward or restrict, but could forward only limited information such as some header information, sender subject details, or only limited information. As it is, the email can be forwarded, not as limited information. Proofpoint TRAP solution also has limitations. It cannot create alert notifications for some specific requirements because Proofpoint works the way it is designed, and if you want it to work based on our requirement, that should not be possible. There is a scope of limitations here. There are many improvements that should be made. First, they should work on their false positive minimization. Proofpoint generally takes all emails, investigates them, and classifies them. There are many situations where legit emails are blocked because that domain is found to be under a malicious category somehow, but actually it is not. False positive minimization could be improved, and they could enhance their other applications or solutions. There are many things that they could improve from each application and each portal.
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

"Using Proofpoint Email Protection definitely helps with reducing the SOC Analyst workloads."
"The most valuable features of Proofpoint Email Protection are ease of use, data loss prevention, antivirus, and spam protection."
"Overall, using Proofpoint Email Protection has positively impacted our security posture, and we are using multiple products in Proofpoint, including DLP and email protection, and the real-time experience has us very satisfied."
"Compared to other products, Proofpoint's real-time threat intelligence makes it less noisy; they collect and share threat information effectively, which benefits all customers."
"The solution offers very good flexibility. You can blacklist or whitelist with ease."
"Proofpoint Email Protection is really good at what they do within their email protection niche."
"Provides better control over emails, especially those sent via Office 365 on the cloud."
"That is why I can consider Proofpoint Email Protection as a number one vendor for email security."
"The stability is good; it's not buggy or glitchy, it works well, the performance is good, and they kept up with security patches."
"The solution is "set and forget". You pay for it and everything is done for you."
"Symantec Messaging Gateway has a good GUI, and it is very powerful in detecting viruses and spam."
"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."
"I like that it's simple and easy to configure, deploy, and manage."
"It is a solid and stable product."
"Symantec’s spyware and malware signature database is very good compared to other products."
"My advice to others who plan to use Symantec Messaging Gateway is that it's a very good product, it's very stable, and it's user-friendly, but the only problem is that it doesn't have good partner support here in Bolivia, where I'm located."
 

Cons

"There are a couple of pain points regarding uploading false negatives and other related issues."
"As an enterprise, we have high demands on the services, and if we have to wait for something like a week or weeks, it is not acceptable; we need solutions in one or two days sometimes because if there is spam going around, you cannot wait weeks."
"The false positives are an issue."
"We find the cost to be prohibitive."
"I think Proofpoint Email Protection could be slightly more intuitive."
"You only receive one model in Proofpoint Email Protection and the other ones you have to purchase at a high price. There should be more available with the solution and additional models should be less expensive."
"Proofpoint Email Protection could improve the Mail Trace feature and make navigation easier."
"They do not have an on-demand scan for the internal viruses and internal users, and they don't have a scan for the exchange server against viruses and spam as Symantec does."
"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."
"We've had issues in the past where the user finds spam, and Symantec does not recognize it as spam."
"The product must improve the user dashboards."
"It will provide Excel reports and PDF reports, but it would be great if they supported the concept of Crystal Reports."
"Where it is not available, as is the case with unstructured data, this product fails miserably."
"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."
"The biggest problem is it's an on-prem product and we're trying to get out of having equipment in data centers."
"In a later release, it would be nice if the messaging gateway supported the cluster feature."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"Annually, it costs us about $92,000. This is pretty much what it costs us. There is no additional cost."
"In general, the pricing is competitive."
"Proofpoint Email Protection is a reasonably priced product, which means that it is neither too low nor too high in terms of price."
"We sell annual licenses for this solution."
"Customers pay around $90,000 yearly for a 1,000-user organization, with the subscription license being the main expense, apart from implementation fees."
"I rate the price of Proofpoint Email Protection a four out of five."
"They are competitively priced, but I have been forced to get quotes for other solutions now because they haven't been responding to requests to do the work that we would like them to do."
"A subscription for technical support costs extra."
"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."
"For 150 users, we pay INR 1,60,000."
"They're a little costly compared to Microsoft."
"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
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Financial Services Firm
17%
Construction Company
9%
Computer Software Company
7%
Marketing Services Firm
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business27
Midsize Enterprise23
Large Enterprise58
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 would say that the pricing for Proofpoint Email Protection is a little costly compared to other email tools, but it is worth it.
What needs improvement with Proofpoint Email Protection?
I believe Proofpoint Email Protection can be improved; currently, it does not allow organizations to create their own IP listings, so whatever comes into Proofpoint is what helps to remove spam and...
What is your primary use case for Proofpoint Email Protection?
My main use case for Proofpoint Email Protection is working as an anti-spam and phishing analyst, where I need to protect the organization and public users from spam and phishing. In my daily work,...
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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: April 2026.
896,692 professionals have used our research since 2012.