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Proofpoint Email Protection vs Symantec Messaging Gateway comparison

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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
111
Ranking in other categories
Email Security (1st), Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) (2nd), 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 August 2026, in the Secure Email Gateway (SEG) category, the mindshare of Proofpoint Email Protection is 18.3%, down from 21.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Symantec Messaging Gateway is 2.8%, up from 2.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Secure Email Gateway (SEG) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Proofpoint Email Protection18.3%
Symantec Messaging Gateway2.8%
Other78.9%
Secure Email Gateway (SEG)
 

Featured Reviews

Siva_Prasad - PeerSpot reviewer
Principal Consultant at Infosys
Email defenses have reduced phishing incidents and protect sensitive data across our enterprise
As things are evolving and threats develop in unpredictable ways, Proofpoint must adopt AI solutions and agentic solutions more aggressively and provide them to customers as part of service offerings. Inbuilt AI solutions would add more value and make Proofpoint a more premium choice for customers. With the help of AI solutions, agentic AI, and generative AI capabilities, the product would be more efficient than it currently is. Filtering false positives is highly challenging because it is impossible for humans to identify which emails are genuine and which are spam. Proofpoint should focus more on this area with back-end agents or other tools. Proofpoint should decide which emails are genuine and which are spam so it is not a challenge for end users. When receiving an email, end users should not have to determine whether to respond or not. Proofpoint should not release such spam emails and should strictly block such spam and spoof emails based on connection IPs. Currently, false positives occur in the product, and while this occurs in every product, it is an area where Proofpoint can focus on improving and reducing false positives. One email is enough for an end user to be deceived and lose money, so addressing this area is critical.
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

"The Phish Alarm button allows users to submit questionable emails for review and complete analysis."
"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."
"Proofpoint Email Protection has positively impacted my organization by preventing malicious URL and QR code scans from phishing emails."
"URL scanning and online relay service are the most valuable features of Proofpoint Email Protection."
"Out of these three, no other email gateway can be compared with Proofpoint Email Protection."
"The most valuable feature of Proofpoint Email Protection is the blocking capabilities, it blocks a lot of potential threats."
"The anti-spam features are excellent on the email firewalls."
"The spam filter for email is good."
"The stability is good; it's not buggy or glitchy, it works well, the performance is good, and they kept up with security patches."
"It is a solid and stable product."
"I've been using Messaging Gateway for ten years."
"We use the solution for its advanced virus protection, phishing and other features."
"The solution is excellent at blocking spam."
"The solution is a leader in anti-spam email products and you can block 99% of spam emails, making it very effective with great performance."
"Since Symantec Messaging Gateway is a Linux-based solution it is stable."
"Symantec is a secure product."
 

Cons

"We'd like to have the ability to create more customized reports."
"Proofpoint is fairly expensive."
"The price could be improved."
"Integration and filtering out who you want and don't want to have integrated ID could be improved."
"The incident reporting on offer needs to be improved. It's lacking right now. It should be on the platform somewhere."
"The false positives are an issue. There are many false positives that come in, which you report to Proofpoint."
"The solution should add post-sales training."
"Sometimes it doesn't detect actual spam emails, and sometimes it catches normal emails."
"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."
"They really need to create a good package that competes with Microsoft."
"The biggest problem is it's an on-prem product and we're trying to get out of having equipment in data centers."
"Support could be better. What's also 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."
"In a later release, it would be nice if the messaging gateway supported the cluster feature."
"Symantec Messaging Gateway should include better exclusions and exceptions for better administration."
"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."
"This product would benefit from better integration with Symantec Endpoint Protection."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"The licensing is basically $8/user."
"Proofpoint is fairly expensive."
"It is multiple times more expensive, which made it very much less attractive."
"I rate the product price a seven on a scale of one to ten, where one is low price and ten is high price."
"The licensing cost of Proofpoint Email Protection is a lot higher than other solutions, such as Barracuda."
"I rate the price of Proofpoint Email Protection a four out of five."
"The end customer is buying our solution, which can be for monthly or annual usage depending on our payment and business model."
"A subscription for technical support costs extra."
"It's a bit expensive compared to its competitor Barracuda Email Security Gateway but cheaper than Sophos Email."
"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."
"Symantec Messaging Gateway’s pricing is very cheap."
"For 150 users, we pay INR 1,60,000."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
13%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Outsourcing Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
6%
Construction Company
16%
Financial Services Firm
16%
Outsourcing Company
14%
Marketing Services Firm
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business30
Midsize Enterprise25
Large Enterprise62
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business11
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise9
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Proofpoint Email Protection?
The downside is I feel the vendor support is a little lacking and should be more responsive. The technical support is not up to the mark.
What is your primary use case for Proofpoint Email Protection?
I am leading this security domain, and my L1 and L2s have been using Proofpoint Email Protection and other modules of Proofpoint Email Protection for more than three years.We are currently working ...
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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: August 2026.
911,493 professionals have used our research since 2012.