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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
7.0
Number of Reviews
50
Ranking in other categories
Email Security (2nd), Security Awareness Training (2nd), Digital Risk Protection (3rd), Office 365 Protection (2nd)
Symantec Messaging Gateway
Ranking in Secure Email Gateway (SEG)
5th
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 February 2025, in the Secure Email Gateway (SEG) category, the mindshare of Proofpoint Email Protection is 19.8%, down from 23.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Symantec Messaging Gateway is 5.0%, up from 4.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Secure Email Gateway (SEG)
 

Featured Reviews

AhmedRamadan - PeerSpot reviewer
Optimize email security with effective sandboxing and auto Pull for quarantine
Proofpoint is used as an email security gateway for big enterprises, primarily for their on-premises servers. Many customers also use it alongside Office 365 Proofpoint offers a complete solution for email security with features like DLP, email archiving, and encryption. The most valuable…
Girish Vijay - PeerSpot reviewer
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 tool has improved our workflow by ensuring people receive only the emails they need for work rather than being inundated with hundreds or thousands of unnecessary emails daily."
"The most valuable features are the business email compromise protection and targeted attack prevention."
"It's detection of true positives are great, as it's cloud based it's very scalable and stable."
"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 is the best solution from the perspective of email security."
"Proofpoint Email Protection is stable enough and does its job of virus, malware, and email scam detection. Setting it up is not too complicated."
"URL scanning and online relay service are the most valuable features of Proofpoint Email Protection."
"Proofpoint Email Protection is a good product, and its most beneficial feature is the Threat Response Auto-Pull. I also like that it's an integrated email security solution."
"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."
"It has very good capabilities for managing malware."
"The solution is excellent at blocking spam."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is the content filtering policies because the solution offers huge options for configuration, such as hardware manipulation, et cetera, and the dictionaries make the work easier."
"The cloud-based interface is very user-friendly."
"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."
"The feature that I like the best is the fingerprinting concept."
"It is a solid and stable product."
 

Cons

"The setup requires expertise. It needs someone with experience on managing it, and I would rate the implementation as needing someone experienced."
"There is room for improvement in detecting and preventing phishing attacks. While the solution performs well in some aspects, it struggles with phishing threats."
"The incident reporting on offer needs to be improved. It's lacking right now. It should be on the platform somewhere."
"Unfortunately, the whole product is going downhill right now, ever since they were sold to Thoma Bravo. We're constantly having problems with stability and the product in general."
"Proofpoint Email Protection could improve on the training. Every organization is different and to fine-tune it to block everything properly there needs to be better training. Sometimes it can block some of the information it shouldn't."
"One major threat is QR code phishing, along with TOAD (Telephone-Oriented Attack Delivery). TOAD attacks don't include links, URLs, or attachments in emails. Instead, attackers try to trick you into calling them, often by offering something enticing like a 50% discount on football matches."
"The solution could lower its price."
"Integration for reporting needs to be improved, it's too complex."
"What's 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 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."
"They really need to create a good package that competes with Microsoft."
"The false positive submissions must be improved."
"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."
"It could be more scalable."
"Symantec Messaging Gateway should include better exclusions and exceptions for better administration."
"The solution interface is from 2003 and is outdated. Symantec Messaging Gateway needs to update the interface."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Pricing has recently been increased and the cost is a downside"
"Clients pay for an annual subscription of Proofpoint Email Protection. Every client always finds it expensive."
"Proofpoint Email Protection has comparable pricing."
"The solution is expensive."
"I rate the price of Proofpoint Email Protection a four out of five."
"The price is reasonable."
"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 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."
"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."
"A subscription for technical support costs extra."
"For 150 users, we pay INR 1,60,000."
"It's a bit expensive compared to its competitor Barracuda Email Security Gateway but cheaper than Sophos Email."
"Symantec Messaging Gateway’s pricing is very cheap."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
32%
Computer Software Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Computer Software Company
20%
Financial Services Firm
18%
Government
9%
Manufacturing Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Proofpoint Email Protection?
Proofpoint is considered a very expensive solution compared to others like FortiMail, being double in cost. Customers pay around $90,000 yearly for a 1,000-user organization, with the subscription ...
What needs improvement with Proofpoint Email Protection?
Phishing detection & Response capabilities could improve further to match some of the capabilities offered by competitors. Proofpoint could expand its PDR capabilities to improve its efficiency...
What needs improvement with Symantec Messaging Gateway?
The solution takes up a lot of memory. The system becomes slow. The performance must be improved.
What is your primary use case for Symantec Messaging Gateway?
We use the solution to secure our data and emails.
 

Also Known As

Proofpoint Enterprise Protection, Cofense PhishMe, 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: January 2025.
838,640 professionals have used our research since 2012.