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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)
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)
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 May 2026, in the Secure Email Gateway (SEG) category, the mindshare of Proofpoint Email Protection is 19.5%, down from 22.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Symantec Messaging Gateway is 2.6%, down from 2.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Secure Email Gateway (SEG) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Proofpoint Email Protection19.5%
Symantec Messaging Gateway2.6%
Other77.9%
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

"Proofpoint Email Protection has positively impacted our organization as it has been deployed for more than five years, serving as a good SEG that protects our staff members before email hits their inboxes and filters out junk or spam, allowing users to spend significantly more time on real work rather than going through unnecessary emails."
"The solution offers very good flexibility. You can blacklist or whitelist with ease."
"Considering Proofpoint Email Protection's end-to-end visibility in email threats, focusing on both the email and the person, it accomplishes what automation does in half the human work."
"The solution is a great product and the best existing option in 2022."
"The most valuable feature of Proofpoint Email Protection is the dashboards and their visibility, easy configuration, and artificial intelligence, and additionally, the reports are very important and helpful."
"Since I started using Proofpoint Email Protection, I have blocked numerous phishing emails, and while I cannot remember the exact numbers, it is more than 200 or 300."
"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."
"The solution blocks malicious emails containing viruses and malware and reduces them out of spam."
"The setup is pretty simple."
"It has very good capabilities for managing malware."
"Symantec Messaging Gateway is stable and scalable."
"Symantec’s spyware and malware signature database is very good compared to other products."
"The solution is "set and forget". You pay for it and everything is done for you."
"The most valuable features of Symantec Messaging Gateway are advanced content filtering, malware, and antivirus defense."
"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."
 

Cons

"The solution can be expensive."
"The solution's server console and cluster dashboard have been the same for four years so need to be upgraded."
"The setup requires expertise. It needs someone with experience on managing it, and I would rate the implementation as needing someone experienced."
"Pricing for the platform could still be cheaper."
"It became very expensive due to the nature of local circumstances, and I may advise Proofpoint to adjust marketing solutions based on each country."
"For Proofpoint Email Protection, when it comes to support, there are times when they do not meet the SLAs for support, mostly on Fridays."
"The management portal of Proofpoint Email Protection has an outdated UI that requires an update for better usability."
"The Secure Mail aspect should have an Outlook add-in, instead of an external dashboard that outside users have to access."
"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."
"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."
"The solution interface is from 2003 and is outdated. Symantec Messaging Gateway needs to update the interface."
"What needs to be improved in Symantec Messaging Gateway is its local partner support, as it's not as technical."
"It could be more scalable."
"We've had issues in the past where the user finds spam, and Symantec does not recognize it as spam."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We sell annual licenses for this solution."
"Annually, it costs us about $92,000. This is pretty much what it costs us. There is no additional cost."
"Proofpoint Email Protection has comparable pricing."
"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."
"It is expensive."
"The solution is expensive."
"Proofpoint is fairly expensive."
"They're a little costly compared to Microsoft."
"A subscription for technical support costs extra."
"For 150 users, we pay INR 1,60,000."
"Symantec Messaging Gateway’s pricing is very cheap."
"It's a bit expensive compared to its competitor Barracuda Email Security Gateway but cheaper than Sophos Email."
"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."
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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
16%
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 Business29
Midsize Enterprise24
Large Enterprise52
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?
For a beginner level, someone who is very new to email security might find it difficult to manage as an admin. Navigation can be concerning because Proofpoint Email Protection has different console...
What is your primary use case for Proofpoint Email Protection?
Proofpoint Email Protection serves as our email security solution. The entire SOC team uses Proofpoint Email Protection. The granularity in admin access is different, so each team has their own acc...
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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.
892,678 professionals have used our research since 2012.