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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) (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 July 2026, in the Secure Email Gateway (SEG) category, the mindshare of Proofpoint Email Protection is 18.6%, down from 21.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Symantec Messaging Gateway is 2.7%, 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 Protection18.6%
Symantec Messaging Gateway2.7%
Other78.7%
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

"Proofpoint Email Protection has positively impacted my organization because it has done its job; the company we support does not have any sort of vulnerability attacks by having it in place."
"Provides better control over emails, especially those sent via Office 365 on the cloud."
"Proofpoint Email Protection is stable enough and does its job of virus, malware, and email scam detection. Setting it up is not too complicated."
"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."
"The most valuable features are the business email compromise protection and targeted attack prevention."
"The stability is good; there are no bugs or glitches, it doesn't crash or freeze, and it's reliable."
"It's detection of true positives are great, as it's cloud based it's very scalable and stable."
"Proofpoint Email Protection has positively impacted my organization by blocking significantly more phishing emails, and phishing is the main entry point into getting compromised, so I have more peace of mind knowing that more malicious emails are getting blocked."
"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."
"I've been using Messaging Gateway for ten years."
"The cloud-based interface is very user-friendly."
"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 stable and the performance is good."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is the content filtering policies because the solution offers huge options for configuration, such as hardware manipulation, et cetera, and the dictionaries make the work easier."
"Messaging Gateway is stable."
 

Cons

"The stability and UI are the two areas of the solution with certain shortcomings that need improvement."
"As mentioned on the Proofpoint website, it blocks almost around 99.99%, but as far as the last six months of data which we have analyzed, it is slightly on the lower side, around 97 to 98%."
"Proofpoint Email Protection could improve on the training. Every organization is different and to fine-tune it to block everything properly there needs to be better training. Sometimes it can block some of the information it shouldn't."
"The price could be improved."
"I would want better spear phishing protection in the essentials package."
"However, for the cons, it requires continuous policy tuning to manage false positives. A Proofpoint Email Protection engineer requires continuous policy tuning to manage false positives, which is a disadvantage."
"Integration for reporting needs to be improved, it's a little complex."
"I feel Proofpoint Email Protection is overpriced. I cannot say that the security level being provided does not justify the cost, but when comparing the similar level of security with other applications or security systems, it is overpriced."
"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."
"Symantec Messaging Gateway should include better exclusions and exceptions for better administration."
"What needs to be improved in Symantec Messaging Gateway is its local partner support, as it's not as technical."
"The solution interface is from 2003 and is outdated. Symantec Messaging Gateway needs to update the interface."
"The solution takes up a lot of memory."
"Messaging Gateway's advanced malware detection could be improved."
"The documentation could have more detailed examples of how to use the product in various situations. As more companies shift to the cloud, they could better integrate the on-prem and cloud versions through an on-prem client."
"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

"Proofpoint is fairly expensive."
"The licensing is basically $8/user."
"I rate the product price a seven on a scale of one to ten, where one is low price and ten is high price."
"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."
"Clients pay for an annual subscription of Proofpoint Email Protection. Every client always finds it expensive."
"Pricing has recently been increased and the cost is a downside"
"Customers pay around $90,000 yearly for a 1,000-user organization, with the subscription license being the main expense, apart from implementation fees."
"In general, the pricing is competitive."
"For 150 users, we pay INR 1,60,000."
"Symantec Messaging Gateway’s pricing is very cheap."
"A subscription for technical support costs extra."
"They're a little costly compared to Microsoft."
"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
13%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Computer Software Company
7%
Comms Service Provider
6%
Financial Services Firm
18%
Construction Company
14%
Marketing Services Firm
6%
Government
6%
 

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 Enterprise9
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Proofpoint Email Protection?
Proofpoint Email Protection is not the cheapest option, but the pricing is reasonable for large enterprises where email security is a major concern. The cost mainly depends on the number of users, ...
What needs improvement with Proofpoint Email Protection?
There are some shortcomings on the Proofpoint end. The email protection tool works before the delivery of the email to the client, and there is another console called threat response in Proofpoint ...
What is your primary use case for Proofpoint Email Protection?
I work for a company that provides email services to our client, so we act as a mediator. We mostly deal with threat emails that are flagged up. The architecture is layered, so we also use Microsof...
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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.
903,871 professionals have used our research since 2012.