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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
110
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 August 2026, in the Secure Email Gateway (SEG) category, the mindshare of Proofpoint Email Protection is 18.3%, down from 21.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Symantec Messaging Gateway is 2.8%, up from 2.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Secure Email Gateway (SEG) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Proofpoint Email Protection18.3%
Symantec Messaging Gateway2.8%
Other78.9%
Secure Email Gateway (SEG)
 

Featured Reviews

Siva_Prasad - PeerSpot reviewer
Principal Consultant at Infosys
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.
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

"A one-stop shop for email protection"
"The initial implementation is pretty easy to handle."
"Proofpoint Email Protection has positively impacted my organization by making things safer; when we rolled it out, it gave us better filtering than the previous product that we were using, capturing a lot more of the malicious material and being easier to use."
"Proofpoint Email Protection has positively impacted my organization by advancing our email security posture."
"I like all the features with Proofpoint, such as how it filters the spam and marketing mail, lost reality mail, blocks phishing attacks, blocks malicious attachments, and stops phishing links. Also it can defend against the business email compromise impersonation technique. It is a complete solution for all email attacks. It filters for the bad, malicious attachments. If there is any executable file, it can be deleted. It is a good, complete solution."
"Overall, we've been happy with the product and the results we've gotten."
"Proofpoint Email Protection's detection for true positives are great, false negatives or type two errors are very low, type one errors are acceptable and this capability is the one that allows the least amount of spam to enter."
"The Phish Alarm button allows users to submit questionable emails for review and complete analysis."
"The solution is "set and forget". You pay for it and everything is done for you."
"Symantec Messaging Gateway is stable and scalable. Installation is easy, and the deployment and maintenance can be done by one administrative person."
"The solution is excellent at blocking spam."
"Symantec’s spyware and malware signature database is very good compared to other products."
"It is a solid and stable product."
"Messaging Gateway is stable."
"It has very good capabilities for managing malware."
"Symantec Messaging Gateway has a huge knowledge base about phishing, spamming, spoofing, etc."
 

Cons

"The initial setup is complex."
"Proofpoint Email Protection's interface is confusing and could be improved."
"The scalability can be improved, and the solution can be optimized."
"Proofpoint Email Protection could improve by reducing the price."
"Proofpoint is a little bit expensive."
"Proofpoint Email Protection has a lot of false positives, and the infrastructure is a bit complex."
"Integration and filtering out who you want and don't want to have integrated ID could be improved."
"I have noticed some lagging and issues with the Proofpoint Protection Server, which is not the cloud solution or the Admin Portal solution. It seems to lag quite a lot when we try to work with folders, quarantine folders, or configure anything in there."
"In a later release, it would be nice if the messaging gateway supported the cluster feature."
"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 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."
"Symantec Messaging Gateway can improve detection because most of them are false negatives or false positives that we are trying to troubleshoot. Additionally, we are having routing problems and they are somehow connected to DNS issues."
"They really need to create a good package that competes with Microsoft."
"The false positive submissions must be improved."
"It will provide Excel reports and PDF reports, but it would be great if they supported the concept of Crystal Reports."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Proofpoint Email Protection is a reasonably priced product, which means that it is neither too low nor too high in terms of price."
"In general, the pricing is competitive."
"Clients pay for an annual subscription of Proofpoint Email Protection. Every client always finds it expensive."
"It is multiple times more expensive, which made it very much less attractive."
"Proofpoint is fairly expensive."
"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 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."
"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."
"Symantec Messaging Gateway’s pricing is very cheap."
"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."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
13%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Outsourcing Company
7%
Comms Service Provider
6%
Construction Company
16%
Financial Services Firm
16%
Outsourcing Company
13%
Marketing Services Firm
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business29
Midsize Enterprise25
Large Enterprise61
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business11
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise9
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Proofpoint Email Protection?
The downside is I feel the vendor support is a little lacking and should be more responsive. The technical support is not up to the mark.
What is your primary use case for Proofpoint Email Protection?
I am leading this security domain, and my L1 and L2s have been using Proofpoint Email Protection and other modules of Proofpoint Email Protection for more than three years.We are currently working ...
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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: June 2026.
909,725 professionals have used our research since 2012.