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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 October 2026, in the Secure Email Gateway (SEG) category, the mindshare of Proofpoint Email Protection is 17.7%, down from 20.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Symantec Messaging Gateway is 3.1%, 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 Protection17.7%
Symantec Messaging Gateway3.1%
Other79.2%
Secure Email Gateway (SEG)
 

Featured Reviews

Siva_Prasad - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Consultant at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
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.
Dennis O'Reilly - PeerSpot reviewer
Cyber SecOps Principal at Dotcom Security
The product provides good content filtering options, but the false positive submissions must be improved
The tool is very stable. I rate the stability a seven out of ten. It's an on-premise application that runs on a virtual machine. It has dependencies on the hypervisor host that we're running it on. If it's not configured, the application can be influenced by it. Sometimes, there is a service stop error while the service is still running. Sometimes, the service just stops. Some policies do not act the way that we intend them to respond.

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 has positively impacted my organization because it has done its job; the company we support does not have any sort of vulnerability attacks by having it in place."
"Proofpoint Email Protection has positively impacted my organization by making things safer; when we rolled it out, it gave us better filtering than the previous product that we were using, capturing a lot more of the malicious material and being easier to use."
"Out of these three, no other email gateway can be compared with Proofpoint Email Protection."
"In terms of detection of spam, malware, and virus, the detection is 99.9% accurate."
"We've observed that we have almost 99.9% control over our emails now in an easy to configure and easy to implement solution."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is that it's a one-stop shop for email protection."
"The stability is good; there are no bugs or glitches, it doesn't crash or freeze, and it's reliable."
"Proofpoint Email Protection has positively impacted our organization in a very fruitful way."
"The anti-malware and spam features are valuable."
"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 most valuable features of Symantec Messaging Gateway are advanced content filtering, malware, and antivirus defense."
"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."
"Symantec Messaging Gateway is stable and scalable."
"The feature that I like the best is the fingerprinting concept."
 

Cons

"Proofpoint Email Protection's interface is confusing and could be improved."
"I have not noticed much change in operational efficiency after implementing Proofpoint Email Protection, but the process execution is light."
"Everything with Proofpoint Email Protection has room for improvement in my opinion."
"We'd like to have the ability to create more customized reports."
"Proofpoint has a lot of false alarms. Even their mail flow rules are not the best thing."
"We have seen a reduction in phishing incidents with Proofpoint Email Protection, but not fully; it is not 100%, and there are still cracks within the walls of Proofpoint Email Protection that let this type of email in for various reasons."
"Proofpoint Email Protection is an expensive solution."
"It has too many screens. It is kind of a conglomeration of products. In other words, they built product A, product B, and product C, and they are yet to integrate them into a single administrative console. I would certainly like to see a more seamless administrative interface. I would also like to see them include more bang for the buck, by including features like email fraud protection, rather than making their product so piecemeal, where you are buying little pieces. I agree with the idea of having multiple tiers or layers, but maybe as small, medium, and large, as opposed to an a la carte menu."
"It will provide Excel reports and PDF reports, but it would be great if they supported the concept of Crystal Reports."
"The documentation could have more detailed examples of how to use the product in various situations. As more companies shift to the cloud, they could better integrate the on-prem and cloud versions through an on-prem client."
"The solution takes up a lot of memory."
"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."
"The biggest problem is it's an on-prem product and we're trying to get out of having equipment in data centers."
"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."
"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."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Proofpoint Email Protection is a reasonably priced product, which means that it is neither too low nor too high in terms of price."
"In general, the pricing is competitive."
"We sell annual licenses for this solution."
"Pricing has recently been increased and the cost is a downside"
"Proofpoint is fairly expensive."
"Proofpoint Email Protection has comparable pricing."
"The tool's pricing depends on the customer's preference, offering options for an annual license or a monthly subscription. The cost varies based on factors such as the number of users and specific requirements. Overall, the pricing is competitive."
"The solution charges per user per month to use it. There are not any additional fees in addition to the standard living fees."
"Symantec Messaging Gateway’s pricing is very cheap."
"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."
"They're a little costly compared to Microsoft."
"For 150 users, we pay INR 1,60,000."
"A subscription for technical support costs extra."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
13%
Outsourcing Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Comms Service Provider
6%
Outsourcing Company
19%
Construction Company
16%
Financial Services Firm
13%
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?
To improve Proofpoint Email Protection, I suggest breaking down the URL into one versus three different GUIs. Regarding Proofpoint Email Protection's AI capabilities, I think its governance and sec...
What is your primary use case for Proofpoint Email Protection?
My main use case for Proofpoint Email Protection includes phishing emails, spam, URL isolation, and training. I utilize the email protect portal to ensure that none of our employees in any of the b...
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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: September 2026.
915,325 professionals have used our research since 2012.