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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 September 2026, in the Secure Email Gateway (SEG) category, the mindshare of Proofpoint Email Protection is 18.0%, down from 20.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Symantec Messaging Gateway is 3.0%, 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 Protection18.0%
Symantec Messaging Gateway3.0%
Other79.0%
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 by advancing our email security posture."
"Using Proofpoint Email Protection has improved my SOC analyst workloads significantly by reducing false positives and the number of incidents in the queue."
"Proofpoint Email Protection has positively impacted our organization in a very fruitful way."
"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."
"They have customized security rules, mature rules, anti-virus protection, as well as email authentication similar to SPF, DKIM, and DMARC."
"The most valuable features are the business email compromise protection and targeted attack prevention."
"Proofpoint Email Protection has positively impacted my organization by definitely lowering the amount of phishing or scam-type emails that our users were receiving, helping them focus more on their work rather than dealing with these types of fraudulent emails."
"It's very good at identifying threats."
"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."
"The main thing that I appreciate about this product is that the database of spam, malware, and ransomware is very large."
"The stability is good; it's not buggy or glitchy, it works well, the performance is good, and they kept up with security patches."
"The setup is pretty simple."
"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."
"The solution is a leader in anti-spam email products and you can block 99% of spam emails, making it very effective with great performance."
"The most valuable features of Symantec Messaging Gateway are advanced content filtering, malware, and antivirus defense."
"Symantec Messaging Gateway has a good GUI, and it is very powerful in detecting viruses and spam."
 

Cons

"I think Proofpoint Email Protection could be improved if the user interface portals could be consolidated into a single portal, as there are currently four, five, or six separate ones."
"You only receive one model in Proofpoint Email Protection and the other ones you have to purchase at a high price. There should be more available with the solution and additional models should be less expensive."
"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."
"Given my other experience with other vendors, I think they are a bit on the high end and a bit on the pricey end for the email security functionality that we were using."
"We find the cost to be prohibitive."
"If I had to pick one minor thing I would like to see improved in Proofpoint Email Protection, it would be integration with AutoTask or ConnectWise because I saw a few tickets where, when there is a notification on Proofpoint Email Protection, it takes a few minutes to maybe an hour to generate a ticket with ConnectWise and AutoTask."
"Proofpoint Email Protection has a limitation regarding third-party tool integration and SIEM integration."
"Proofpoint Email Protection can be improved by using more AI-powered features."
"They really need to create a good package that competes with Microsoft."
"Messaging Gateway's advanced malware detection could be improved."
"It will provide Excel reports and PDF reports, but it would be great if they supported the concept of Crystal Reports."
"The false positive submissions must be improved."
"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."
"This product would benefit from better integration with Symantec Endpoint Protection."
"What needs to be improved in Symantec Messaging Gateway is its local partner support, as it's not as technical."
"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."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is expensive."
"We sell annual licenses for this solution."
"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 price is reasonable."
"In general, the pricing is competitive."
"The licensing cost of Proofpoint Email Protection is a lot higher than other solutions, such as Barracuda."
"Customers pay around $90,000 yearly for a 1,000-user organization, with the subscription license being the main expense, apart from implementation fees."
"Clients pay for an annual subscription of Proofpoint Email Protection. Every client always finds it expensive."
"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."
"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."
"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
15%
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.
914,889 professionals have used our research since 2012.