No more typing reviews! Try our Samantha, our new voice AI agent.

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
6.7
Number of Reviews
98
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)
11th
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 April 2026, in the Secure Email Gateway (SEG) category, the mindshare of Proofpoint Email Protection is 19.9%, down from 22.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Symantec Messaging Gateway is 2.5%, down from 2.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Secure Email Gateway (SEG) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Proofpoint Email Protection19.9%
Symantec Messaging Gateway2.5%
Other77.6%
Secure Email Gateway (SEG)
 

Featured Reviews

Vivek_Jaiswal - PeerSpot reviewer
Cyber Security Senior Specialist at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
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

"Before deploying Proofpoint Email Protection, we were frequently attacked by phishing and DDoS, and after deploying it, attacks have been reduced by up to 80 percent and phishing has been completely eliminated, so it is working very efficiently."
"At this point in time, there's nothing that needs to be changed or improved in the tool."
"The solution's technical support is good. I rate the technical support a ten out of ten."
"Proofpoint Email Protection's advantage is that, when it's working properly, it tends to catch more threats as compared to other products."
"Proofpoint Email Protection has positively impacted our organization's protection and has maintained security very well."
"The flexibility is unbelievable and you could get extremely creative to accommodate real case scenarios."
"Proofpoint Email Protection has positively impacted my organization by significantly reducing the risk of employees clicking a malicious link or the company getting compromised."
"It's detection of true positives are great, as it's cloud based it's very scalable and stable."
"The solution is "set and forget". You pay for it and everything is done for you."
"It has very good capabilities for managing malware."
"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."
"The main thing that I appreciate about this product is that the database of spam, malware, and ransomware is very large."
"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."
"I've been using Messaging Gateway for ten years."
"Since Symantec Messaging Gateway is a Linux-based solution it is stable."
"We use the solution for its advanced virus protection, phishing and other features."
 

Cons

"The Secure Mail aspect should have an Outlook add-in, instead of an external dashboard that outside users have to access."
"Integration and filtering out who you want and don't want to have integrated ID could be improved."
"To improve Proofpoint Email Protection, I suggest improving the UI from the pod to align with the new admin.proofpoint.com interface, as the pod is still existing for a reason, but the interface is definitely outdated."
"The solution's server console and cluster dashboard have been the same for four years so need to be upgraded."
"Phishing detection could improve further to match some of the capabilities offered by competitors."
"The only downside with Proofpoint Email Protection is the cost."
"Proofpoint Email Protection can be improved in that it is quite a large product, so learning how to be fully conversant in it can take some time within the team; this is probably the biggest challenge at the moment for us, getting everyone fully conversant to support the product."
"Everything with Proofpoint Email Protection has room for improvement in my opinion."
"This product would benefit from better integration with Symantec Endpoint Protection."
"The solution interface is from 2003 and is outdated. Symantec Messaging Gateway needs to update the 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."
"Where it is not available, as is the case with unstructured data, this product fails miserably."
"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."
"It will provide Excel reports and PDF reports, but it would be great if they supported the concept of Crystal Reports."
"The biggest problem is it's an on-prem product and we're trying to get out of having equipment in data centers."
"Symantec Messaging Gateway should include better exclusions and exceptions for better administration."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution charges per user per month to use it. There are not any additional fees in addition to the standard living fees."
"Annually, it costs us about $92,000. This is pretty much what it costs us. There is no additional cost."
"Pricing has recently been increased and the cost is a downside"
"The price is reasonable."
"The solution is expensive."
"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."
"We sell annual licenses for this solution."
"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."
"Symantec Messaging Gateway’s pricing is very cheap."
"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."
"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."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Secure Email Gateway (SEG) solutions are best for your needs.
890,088 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
6%
Financial Services Firm
18%
Construction Company
9%
Computer Software Company
7%
Marketing Services Firm
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business28
Midsize Enterprise24
Large Enterprise51
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?
This is not something that I deal with regarding pricing, setup cost, and licensing.
What needs improvement with Proofpoint Email Protection?
I would like to see improvements in the transition from Proofpoint Protection Server to Proofpoint on Demand because Proofpoint Protection Server is not very user-friendly and requires logging into...
What is your primary use case for Proofpoint Email Protection?
In my environment, I am using Proofpoint Email Protection for advanced email threat protection. For malware, spam, and virus protection, we are using their email protection module and security modu...
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: April 2026.
890,088 professionals have used our research since 2012.