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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

"It has been comprehensive and easy to use for both users and administrators."
"Proofpoint Email Protection is a great security tool that is not only proactive but also reactive on a case-to-case basis and provides all the mature tools that can be utilized for the first layer and second layer message defense."
"Proofpoint Email Protection has positively impacted my organization by reducing the number of cyber email attacks we are receiving compared to the past."
"The Tap and Trap features. They are the best features."
"The most valuable feature of Proofpoint Email Protection is the TAP Dashboard. It provides more detailed information that can be used for forensic analysis. This is an advantage that other email security providers, such as Cisco, IronPort, or Microsoft do not offer in their dashboards."
"It's easy to use, even for those new to IT."
"The solution scales well."
"Proofpoint Email Protection is quite scalable; I have not experienced any issues with the onboarding and offboarding of users and devices."
"It is a solid and stable product."
"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 solution is excellent at blocking spam."
"Symantec Messaging Gateway has a huge knowledge base about phishing, spamming, spoofing, etc."
"The setup is pretty simple."
"It has very good capabilities for managing malware."
"The feature that I like the best is the fingerprinting concept."
"The stability is good; it's not buggy or glitchy, it works well, the performance is good, and they kept up with security patches."
 

Cons

"Proofpoint has a lot of false alarms. Even their mail flow rules are not the best thing."
"Proofpoint Email Protection can be improved by using more AI-powered features."
"However, for the cons, it requires continuous policy tuning to manage false positives. A Proofpoint Email Protection engineer requires continuous policy tuning to manage false positives, which is a disadvantage."
"The largest complaint that we hear from our customers is that there is no local support."
"I would like to see improvements in Proofpoint Email Protection's portal as it is sometimes slow."
"The solution could be improved with the addition of PLP and email encryption features."
"Some use cases haven't been dealt with yet."
"Phishing detection could improve further to match some of the capabilities offered by competitors."
"In a later release, it would be nice if the messaging gateway supported the cluster feature."
"Symantec Messaging Gateway can improve detection because most of them are false negatives or false positives that we are trying to troubleshoot."
"It will provide Excel reports and PDF reports, but it would be great if they supported the concept of Crystal Reports."
"They really need to create a good package that competes with Microsoft."
"Sometimes the solution picks up false positive for viruses during scans."
"This product would benefit from better integration with Symantec Endpoint Protection."
"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."
"Symantec Messaging Gateway should include better exclusions and exceptions for better administration."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We sell annual licenses for this solution."
"Proofpoint is fairly expensive."
"In general, the pricing is competitive."
"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 price is reasonable."
"It is expensive."
"Customers pay around $90,000 yearly for a 1,000-user organization, with the subscription license being the main expense, apart from implementation fees."
"The solution is expensive."
"Symantec Messaging Gateway’s pricing is very cheap."
"A subscription for technical support costs extra."
"For 150 users, we pay INR 1,60,000."
"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."
"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."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
6%
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.
896,563 professionals have used our research since 2012.