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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
6.8
Number of Reviews
83
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 March 2026, in the Secure Email Gateway (SEG) category, the mindshare of Proofpoint Email Protection is 21.1%, down from 21.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Symantec Messaging Gateway is 2.3%, 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 Protection21.1%
Symantec Messaging Gateway2.3%
Other76.6%
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

"The most valuable features of Proofpoint Email Protection are the performance from being on the cloud."
"Proofpoint Email Protection ensures users have clean mailboxes and are not bothered by unwanted email."
"The solution has very strong detection for most of the phishing and malicious emails received from the outside."
"Proofpoint Email Protection has positively impacted my organization by definitely lowering the amount of phishing or scam-type emails that our users were receiving, helping them focus more on their work rather than dealing with these types of fraudulent emails."
"Proofpoint Email Protection has positively impacted our organization as it has been deployed for more than five years, serving as a good SEG that protects our staff members before email hits their inboxes and filters out junk or spam, allowing users to spend significantly more time on real work rather than going through unnecessary emails."
"It's very good at identifying threats."
"From a mail gateway perspective, I think Proofpoint Email Protection is one of the most complete options compared to others."
"The solution's technical support is good. I rate the technical support a ten out of ten."
"The solution is excellent at blocking spam."
"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."
"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."
"Symantec Messaging Gateway has a good GUI, and it is very powerful in detecting viruses and spam."
"Symantec Messaging Gateway has a huge knowledge base about phishing, spamming, spoofing, etc."
"Symantec Messaging Gateway is stable and scalable. Installation is easy, and the deployment and maintenance can be done by one administrative person."
"Messaging Gateway is stable."
"Symantec is a secure product."
 

Cons

"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."
"Proofpoint Email Protection does miss a lot of phishing attacks, and threat actors are using AI to create these phishing attacks."
"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 have noticed some lagging and issues with the Proofpoint Protection Server, which is not the cloud solution or the Admin Portal solution. It seems to lag quite a lot when we try to work with folders, quarantine folders, or configure anything in there."
"The solution could lower its price."
"Unfortunately, the whole product is going downhill right now, ever since they were sold to Thoma Bravo. We're constantly having problems with stability and the product in general."
"You only receive one model in Proofpoint Email Protection and the other ones you have to purchase at a high price. There should be more available with the solution and additional models should be less expensive."
"However, for low-size or mid-level organizations, it can be challenging in terms of cost, management, and resource utilization, which could be a problem for low-level enterprises."
"The biggest problem is it's an on-prem product and we're trying to get out of having equipment in data centers."
"Symantec Messaging Gateway should include better exclusions and exceptions for better administration."
"This product would benefit from better integration with Symantec Endpoint Protection."
"The product must improve the user dashboards."
"The solution takes up a lot of memory."
"It will provide Excel reports and PDF reports, but it would be great if they supported the concept of Crystal Reports."
"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."
"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."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is expensive."
"I rate the price of Proofpoint Email Protection a four out of five."
"It is multiple times more expensive, which made it very much less attractive."
"Proofpoint is fairly expensive."
"Proofpoint Email Protection is a reasonably priced product, which means that it is neither too low nor too high in terms of price."
"The solution charges per user per month to use it. There are not any additional fees in addition to the standard living fees."
"Pricing has recently been increased and the cost is a downside"
"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."
"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."
"A subscription for technical support costs extra."
"They're a little costly compared to Microsoft."
"For 150 users, we pay INR 1,60,000."
"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."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
11%
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
6%
Financial Services Firm
18%
Computer Software Company
9%
Marketing Services Firm
7%
Manufacturing Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business27
Midsize Enterprise23
Large Enterprise38
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 do not handle the pricing, setup cost, and licensing for Proofpoint Email Protection, but I think it's a bit pricey compared to other solutions, even though we found no competitor with comparable...
What needs improvement with Proofpoint Email Protection?
Some of the old portal features of Proofpoint Email Protection are missing in the new portal, so some of the settings could be modernized. The TRAP mail gateway product of Proofpoint Email Protecti...
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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.
884,122 professionals have used our research since 2012.