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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)
2nd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
94
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)
11th
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 April 2026, in the Secure Email Gateway (SEG) category, the mindshare of Proofpoint Email Protection is 19.9%, down from 22.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Symantec Messaging Gateway is 2.5%, down from 2.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Secure Email Gateway (SEG) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Proofpoint Email Protection19.9%
Symantec Messaging Gateway2.5%
Other77.6%
Secure Email Gateway (SEG)
 

Featured Reviews

AshishKochhar - PeerSpot reviewer
Information Technology Team Lead at a manufacturing company with 201-500 employees
Advanced email protection has blocked targeted attacks and reduces manual threat handling
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. If Proofpoint could provide offers or discounts for customers who are already using the product or for new customers implementing it, along with some free services or add-ons, that would be helpful in terms of financial expense. Proofpoint Email Protection has recently introduced AI functionality in terms of data security capabilities and protecting AI assistance from targeted attacks. This is important since everything is now related to AI. The solution is doing threat detection and real-time threat detection and response pretty well. There are a few things I would like to see improved. Sometimes Proofpoint Email Protection takes time to analyze the workflow and the nature of the email. In this age of AI, the solution should analyze an email on the first receipt and determine whether it should pass or be marked as spam without checking previous data. Another improvement would be to have a more user-friendly dashboard. Additionally, if Proofpoint could add the same features in BCP as part of email protection in BCP, it would be helpful since I currently have to take a different add-on for BCP, and integrating it would save costs. I cannot say that threats have increased or decreased with Proofpoint Email Protection because it depends on the mail flow. The solution captures and filters out all threats, and the email threats vary every day depending on how many users are receiving how many emails per day. Today there might be 1,000 emails, tomorrow 5,000, and the day after 500. Proofpoint Email Protection does its job by scanning all emails and threats are reduced to some extent. Since I am aware that virus definitions are updated every day, I cannot blame Proofpoint Email Protection if they take time to determine the nature of an email being received. There are sometimes emails that are false positives, and Proofpoint Email Protection is a bit strict in analyzing false positives, sometimes stopping emails that are actually required. It analyzes the previous nature of an email and if a template looks like an informational template or related to spam, it blocks it because it looks similar to one blocked earlier. However, the template might actually be required. If I receive the same template today that is also blocked by Proofpoint Email Protection, that particular template might be useful and should not be blocked. In such cases, I have to raise it as a false positive stating that this is something in use or my users use and should be released. When AI starts doing its work, it analyzes the email from a sender with a particular template and releases it, but if the same email and template come from another sender, it blocks it according to the policies.
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 positively impacts my organization because it is a simpler solution in terms of user interaction compared to my previous email gateway, and its detection capabilities are considerably more advanced."
"Our clients have definitely seen an ROI; their level of breach and reporting of malicious emails from their user base actually went down by over 50% by using this product."
"It's a mature product. It does a good job in detection."
"Proofpoint is the main tool for blocking spam because it denies the connection altogether."
"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 solution offers very good flexibility. You can blacklist or whitelist with ease."
"The setup was easy."
"The stability is very good."
"The solution is excellent at blocking spam."
"The solution is stable and the performance is good."
"Symantec Messaging Gateway has a good GUI, and it is very powerful in detecting viruses and spam."
"Messaging Gateway is stable."
"Symantec is a secure product."
"I've been using Messaging Gateway for ten years."
"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."
 

Cons

"Proofpoint is fairly expensive."
"As a manager with multiple customers using Proofpoint Email Protection, having the ability to manage the admin console more efficiently would be beneficial."
"The reporting section could be enhanced. I like some reports but if they could allow us to create custom reports with more flexibility it would enhance the reports more."
"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."
"We find the cost to be prohibitive."
"I feel there is still room for improvement because many features are in POD and not yet available in the Admin Portal."
"The only downside with Proofpoint Email Protection is the cost."
"I think Proofpoint Email Protection could be improved if the user interface portals could be consolidated into a single portal, as there are currently four, five, or six separate ones."
"What's 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."
"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."
"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."
"The product must improve the user dashboards."
"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."
"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."
"We've had issues in the past where the user finds spam, and Symantec does not recognize it as spam."
"The solution interface is from 2003 and is outdated. Symantec Messaging Gateway needs to update the interface."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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 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 charges per user per month to use it. There are not any additional fees in addition to the standard living fees."
"I rate the price of Proofpoint Email Protection a four out of five."
"In general, the pricing is competitive."
"It is expensive."
"They are competitively priced, but I have been forced to get quotes for other solutions now because they haven't been responding to requests to do the work that we would like them to do."
"The licensing cost of Proofpoint Email Protection is a lot higher than other solutions, such as Barracuda."
"For 150 users, we pay INR 1,60,000."
"They're a little costly compared to Microsoft."
"Symantec Messaging Gateway’s pricing is very cheap."
"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."
"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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886,426 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
13%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
6%
Financial Services Firm
18%
Construction Company
9%
Computer Software Company
7%
Marketing Services Firm
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business28
Midsize Enterprise24
Large Enterprise44
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?
This is not something that I deal with regarding pricing, setup cost, and licensing.
What needs improvement with Proofpoint Email Protection?
I would like to see improvements in the transition from Proofpoint Protection Server to Proofpoint on Demand because Proofpoint Protection Server is not very user-friendly and requires logging into...
What is your primary use case for Proofpoint Email Protection?
In my environment, I am using Proofpoint Email Protection for advanced email threat protection. For malware, spam, and virus protection, we are using their email protection module and security modu...
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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: February 2026.
886,426 professionals have used our research since 2012.