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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
6.9
Number of Reviews
55
Ranking in other categories
Email Security (2nd), Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) (4th), Digital Risk Protection (3rd), Office 365 Protection (2nd)
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 January 2026, in the Secure Email Gateway (SEG) category, the mindshare of Proofpoint Email Protection is 20.3%, up from 20.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Symantec Messaging Gateway is 2.5%, down from 3.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Secure Email Gateway (SEG) Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Proofpoint Email Protection20.3%
Symantec Messaging Gateway2.5%
Other77.2%
Secure Email Gateway (SEG)
 

Featured Reviews

Steve Bradbury - PeerSpot reviewer
Consultant at Exelixis Inc
Email defenses have blocked advanced threats and provide deep visibility into risky users
The areas that have room for improvement in Proofpoint Email Protection include their cost of ownership, which is fairly high. To manage and run all their products, I have to list and manage administrators in seven or eight different places. That is too many places to keep track of since for this tool I have to go to one location, and for another tool I have to go to a different location. They need to simplify the administration management of administrators and consolidate that into one place for all their products. Access to all the different products is very scattered. For some products I go to one URL, and for different products I go to a different URL. They have a threat URL that has most of their products in it, but not all. They need to simplify the interface to show all the products I have access to in one location.
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's detection of true positives are great, as it's cloud based it's very scalable and stable."
"A one-stop shop for email protection"
"It's a mature product. It does a good job in detection."
"The spam filter for email is good."
"The archive feature is valuable."
"Its main defense is to stop malicious emails from coming through. There is a sandbox environment where you can open malicious or suspicious emails to make sure that they're not malicious, instead of taking the risk of having your employees do it. This is definitely something that everybody needs nowadays, especially with the rise in cyber attacks."
"The most valuable feature is the option to edit the inbound security."
"Proofpoint provides an expandable project model, including DLP, email archiving, and encryption, which makes it a complete email security solution."
"Messaging Gateway is stable."
"Symantec Messaging Gateway is stable and scalable. Installation is easy, and the deployment and maintenance can be done by one administrative person."
"The feature that I like the best is the fingerprinting concept."
"It is a solid and stable product."
"The anti-malware and spam features are valuable."
"The solution is "set and forget". You pay for it and everything is done for you."
"The setup is pretty simple."
"It has very good capabilities for managing malware."
 

Cons

"It became very expensive due to the nature of local circumstances, and I may advise Proofpoint to adjust marketing solutions based on each country."
"We'd like to have the ability to create more customized reports."
"The support team was a bit slow."
"Integration and filtering out who you want and don't want to have integrated ID could be improved."
"Integration for reporting needs to be improved, it's too complex."
"Sometimes it doesn't detect actual spam emails, and sometimes it catches normal emails."
"The solution's server console and cluster dashboard have been the same for four years so need to be upgraded."
"It has too many screens. It is kind of a conglomeration of products. In other words, they built product A, product B, and product C, and they are yet to integrate them into a single administrative console. I would certainly like to see a more seamless administrative interface. I would also like to see them include more bang for the buck, by including features like email fraud protection, rather than making their product so piecemeal, where you are buying little pieces. I agree with the idea of having multiple tiers or layers, but maybe as small, medium, and large, as opposed to an a la carte menu."
"It will provide Excel reports and PDF reports, but it would be great if they supported the concept of Crystal Reports."
"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."
"We've had issues in the past where the user finds spam, and Symantec does not recognize it as spam."
"Sometimes the solution picks up false positive for viruses during scans."
"They have updated the version of the Messaging Gateway and the new features they are adding the need to be re-evaluated. They have done some changes on the policy."
"Messaging Gateway's advanced malware detection could be improved."
"They really need to create a good package that competes with Microsoft."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"In general, the pricing is competitive."
"Pricing has recently been increased and the cost is a downside"
"It is on a yearly basis. Their floor for SMB doesn't matter. The user count is 100 users and below at $2,500 a year. Its cost is higher than other solutions. It is probably about 20% to 30% higher than what you would get with Microsoft. There are no additional costs. All costs are factored in. It can be improved pricing-wise so that it is affordable for the SMB market."
"We sell annual licenses for this solution."
"The end customer is buying our solution, which can be for monthly or annual usage depending on our payment and business model."
"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."
"The solution is expensive."
"It is multiple times more expensive, which made it very much less attractive."
"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."
"A subscription for technical support costs extra."
"It's a bit expensive compared to its competitor Barracuda Email Security Gateway but cheaper than Sophos Email."
"They're a little costly compared to Microsoft."
"For 150 users, we pay INR 1,60,000."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
11%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
6%
Financial Services Firm
18%
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business21
Midsize Enterprise14
Large Enterprise18
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?
In terms of pricing, it is okay compared to others. I would say it is normal. Additional costs do come in, but it enhances security.
What needs improvement with Proofpoint Email Protection?
I believe they still need to improve by consolidating some portals, as currently, you have to log in separately to a few of them.
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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: December 2025.
881,078 professionals have used our research since 2012.