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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
106
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 June 2026, in the Secure Email Gateway (SEG) category, the mindshare of Proofpoint Email Protection is 19.0%, down from 21.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Symantec Messaging Gateway is 2.7%, 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 Protection19.0%
Symantec Messaging Gateway2.7%
Other78.3%
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

"The stability is very good."
"There is no downtime."
"Proofpoint Email Protection is really good at what they do within their email protection niche."
"Proofpoint Email Protection provides quite comprehensive protection."
"When I manage a SOC and Proofpoint Email Protection is integrated with it, it gives me a consolidated alert, so when phishing alerts come in it is slightly easier to manage, even my L1 incident response team from the SOC can easily understand the alerts, perform basic checks on VirusTotal, and create complete SOAR automation from that information."
"Proofpoint Email Protection offers an additional layer of protection compared to other brands like Microsoft, Mimecast, and Barracuda. While these major companies excel at detecting malicious attachments, the solution goes further by analyzing the context of emails, allowing for more nuanced decision-making."
"The solution scales quite well."
"Proofpoint Email Protection has positively impacted my organization by simplifying the analysis of emails since it provides segregated statements that highlight the important parameters we need to check, allowing us to efficiently conclude if the alerts are false positives or true positives."
"Symantec Messaging Gateway has a good GUI, and it is very powerful in detecting viruses and spam."
"The main thing that I appreciate about this product is that the database of spam, malware, and ransomware is very large."
"It has very good capabilities for managing malware."
"Symantec Messaging Gateway is stable and scalable."
"The stability is good; it's not buggy or glitchy, it works well, the performance is good, and they kept up with security patches."
"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 "set and forget". You pay for it and everything is done for you."
"Symantec is a secure product."
 

Cons

"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 incident reporting on offer needs to be improved. It's lacking right now. It should be on the platform somewhere."
"They do not have an on-demand scan for the internal viruses and internal users, and they don't have a scan for the exchange server against viruses and spam as Symantec does."
"I believe if the GUI were more user-friendly for people using it for the first time, or if there were more training available for end users to share with them, that would be good."
"While Proofpoint is better, I find Abnormal to be much more effective because it uses an advanced AI engine to detect email spams and phishing."
"The solution's server console and cluster dashboard have been the same for four years so need to be upgraded."
"I think Proofpoint Email Protection could be slightly more intuitive."
"The price could be improved."
"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."
"They really need to create a good package that competes with Microsoft."
"Since it was purchased by Broadcomm, we've found there's been a general slide in terms of the local services we have access to and we are considering replacing them."
"The product must improve the user dashboards."
"In a later release, it would be nice if the messaging gateway supported the cluster feature."
"We've had issues in the past where the user finds spam, and Symantec does not recognize it as spam."
"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

"The licensing is basically $8/user."
"We sell annual licenses for this solution."
"The solution uses a licensing model that is reasonable compared to other products."
"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 solution is expensive."
"Annually, it costs us about $92,000. This is pretty much what it costs us. There is no additional cost."
"The price is reasonable."
"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."
"A subscription for technical support costs extra."
"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."
"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
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Computer Software Company
7%
Comms Service Provider
6%
Financial Services Firm
17%
Construction Company
11%
Marketing Services Firm
6%
Government
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business28
Midsize Enterprise24
Large Enterprise59
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?
I am not informed about the pricing, setup costs, or licensing as it is handled by a different team. I come from a technical perspective.
What needs improvement with Proofpoint Email Protection?
For improvement, the dashboard of Proofpoint Email Protection needs some enhancement. Currently, we are using multiple dashboards, and it would be beneficial if everything was integrated. A single ...
What is your primary use case for Proofpoint Email Protection?
In our environment, we are using Proofpoint Email Protection for inbound email protection as a primary gateway, while Microsoft 365 serves as the secondary gateway. In the primary gateway, it scans...
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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.
899,917 professionals have used our research since 2012.