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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

"I recommend Proofpoint Email Protection because it provides everything in one place, such as security control."
"Proofpoint is the main tool for blocking spam because it denies the connection altogether."
"Proofpoint Email Protection is stable enough and does its job of virus, malware, and email scam detection. Setting it up is not too complicated."
"Proofpoint Email Protection is a good product, and its most beneficial feature is the Threat Response Auto-Pull. I also like that it's an integrated email security solution."
"Proofpoint Email Protection has provided top shelf email protection services and has prevented breaches and loss of data."
"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 overall security posture, making it easier for users to encrypt files right in the portal and send them to customers, and it is simple for customers to access those files without difficulty."
"The most valuable features of Proofpoint Email Protection are ease of use, data loss prevention, antivirus, and spam protection."
"The most valuable features of Symantec Messaging Gateway are advanced content filtering, malware, and antivirus defense."
"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."
"Symantec Messaging Gateway has a huge knowledge base about phishing, spamming, spoofing, etc."
"The solution is highly customizable. You can make rules for domains and configure policies for spam or malware. Messaging Gateway is an on-prem solution, so it's useful for companies without a cloud presence."
"The solution is excellent at blocking spam."
"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 anti-malware and spam features are valuable."
"The solution is stable and the performance is good."
 

Cons

"The management portal of Proofpoint Email Protection has an outdated UI that requires an update for better usability."
"I remember having multiple tickets and cases from customers where when a link was broken or incorrect, URL Defense would start to apply and completely block the URL."
"Phishing detection could improve further to match some of the capabilities offered by competitors."
"The solution can be expensive."
"The initial setup is complex."
"There is room for improvement in detecting and preventing phishing attacks. While the solution performs well in some aspects, it struggles with phishing threats."
"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."
"The only limitation we have with Proofpoint Email Protection is when we implement it with Google Workspace."
"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."
"Where it is not available, as is the case with unstructured data, this product fails miserably."
"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."
"The biggest problem is it's an on-prem product and we're trying to get out of having equipment in data centers."
"It will provide Excel reports and PDF reports, but it would be great if they supported the concept of Crystal Reports."
"If the customer has to think about budget and solutions to reduce IT cost, they should get away from Symantec and try using Microsoft."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"In general, the pricing is competitive."
"The end customer is buying our solution, which can be for monthly or annual usage depending on our payment and business model."
"I rate the product price a seven on a scale of one to ten, where one is low price and ten is high price."
"Proofpoint Email Protection is a reasonably priced product, which means that it is neither too low nor too high in terms of price."
"It is multiple times more expensive, which made it very much less attractive."
"The licensing is basically $8/user."
"The solution is expensive."
"The solution charges per user per month to use it. There are not any additional fees in addition to the standard living fees."
"It's a bit expensive compared to its competitor Barracuda Email Security Gateway but cheaper than Sophos Email."
"A subscription for technical support costs extra."
"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."
"For 150 users, we pay INR 1,60,000."
"Symantec Messaging Gateway’s pricing is very cheap."
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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.
903,933 professionals have used our research since 2012.