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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
109
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

"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."
"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."
"I have witnessed a positive impact of Proofpoint Email Protection on my organization, having worked for one of the world's largest organizations that uses Proofpoint consistently for email security."
"Proofpoint Email Protection has positively impacted my organization by definitely reducing the load on administrators for releasing emails and other spam operations that used to be handled by administrators."
"Proofpoint is the main tool for blocking spam because it denies the connection altogether."
"Proofpoint Email Protection is really good at what they do within their email protection niche."
"The solution is very user-friendly."
"Overall, it is a good product, providing everything in a single dashboard where we can find all the information related to the risks involved within a suspicious email."
"Since Symantec Messaging Gateway is a Linux-based solution it is stable."
"We use the solution for its advanced virus protection, phishing and other features."
"The setup is pretty simple."
"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."
"It is a solid and stable product."
"Symantec Messaging Gateway has a good GUI, and it is very powerful in detecting viruses and spam."
"The solution is excellent at blocking spam."
"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."
 

Cons

"Proofpoint is fairly expensive."
"Proofpoint Email Protection provides a solution for user training, which I did not end up going with because I chose KnowBe4. That is the only part I did not appreciate about it."
"The downside is I feel the vendor support is a little lacking and should be more responsive."
"Pricing for the platform could still be cheaper."
"The areas of Proofpoint Email Protection that could be improved or enhanced involve the email rewrite functionality. It can be aggressive sometimes, rewriting a lot of very benign content."
"To improve Proofpoint Email Protection, I suggest improving the UI from the pod to align with the new admin.proofpoint.com interface, as the pod is still existing for a reason, but the interface is definitely outdated."
"There have been a few cases where an obvious phishing email has not been blocked, but perhaps Proofpoint Email Protection was still learning and needed some extra time to figure out that the email was malicious."
"The scalability can be improved, and the solution can be optimized."
"Symantec Messaging Gateway should include better exclusions and exceptions for better administration."
"They really need to create a good package that competes with Microsoft."
"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."
"Sometimes the solution picks up false positive for viruses during scans."
"It could be more scalable."
"We've had issues in the past where the user finds spam, and Symantec does not recognize it as spam."
"Recently, I've had some problems regarding their support. The tech was acquired by Broadcom, and since then, the support part is very bad."
"Support could be better. What's also lacking when you compare it with Proofpoint and other threat protection solutions is that it does the basic stuff, but we need more advanced threat handling."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution uses a licensing model that is reasonable compared to other products."
"In general, the pricing is competitive."
"The licensing is basically $8/user."
"Annually, it costs us about $92,000. This is pretty much what it costs us. There is no additional cost."
"We sell annual licenses for this solution."
"Pricing has recently been increased and the cost is a downside"
"The solution charges per user per month to use it. There are not any additional fees in addition to the standard living fees."
"Proofpoint Email Protection is a reasonably priced product, which means that it is neither too low nor too high in terms of price."
"Symantec Messaging Gateway’s pricing is very cheap."
"A subscription for technical support costs extra."
"They're a little costly compared to Microsoft."
"For 150 users, we pay INR 1,60,000."
"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."
"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%
Computer Software Company
6%
Financial Services Firm
17%
Construction Company
15%
Outsourcing Company
10%
Marketing Services Firm
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business28
Midsize Enterprise24
Large Enterprise62
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.
908,344 professionals have used our research since 2012.