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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

"The targeted attack protection that we use has been great, as has the email filtering and the rules that we have set for Proofpoint."
"The initial implementation is pretty easy to handle."
"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 has very strong detection for most of the phishing and malicious emails received from the outside."
"Overall, we've been happy with the product and the results we've gotten."
"It was easy to set up."
"Proofpoint Email Protection offers an additional layer of protection compared to other brands like Microsoft, Mimecast, and Barracuda. While these major companies excel at detecting malicious attachments, the solution goes further by analyzing the context of emails, allowing for more nuanced decision-making."
"The tool has improved our workflow by ensuring people receive only the emails they need for work rather than being inundated with hundreds or thousands of unnecessary emails daily."
"It has very good capabilities for managing malware."
"The cloud-based interface is very user-friendly."
"The main thing that I appreciate about this product is that the database of spam, malware, and ransomware is very large."
"The stability is good; it's not buggy or glitchy, it works well, the performance is good, and they kept up with security patches."
"Symantec’s spyware and malware signature database is very good compared to other products."
"Since Symantec Messaging Gateway is a Linux-based solution it is stable."
"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 anti-malware and spam features are valuable."
 

Cons

"Proofpoint has a lot of false alarms. Even their mail flow rules are not the best thing."
"The setup requires expertise. It needs someone with experience on managing it, and I would rate the implementation as needing someone experienced."
"I rate the technical support at a 3 out of 10, with 10 being the best."
"It has too many screens. It is kind of a conglomeration of products. In other words, they built product A, product B, and product C, and they are yet to integrate them into a single administrative console. I would certainly like to see a more seamless administrative interface. I would also like to see them include more bang for the buck, by including features like email fraud protection, rather than making their product so piecemeal, where you are buying little pieces. I agree with the idea of having multiple tiers or layers, but maybe as small, medium, and large, as opposed to an a la carte menu."
"Sometimes it doesn't detect actual spam emails, and sometimes it catches normal emails."
"I believe they still need to improve by consolidating some portals, as currently, you have to log in separately to a few of them."
"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."
"While ingesting the logs into our SIEM tool, most organizations don't have the capability to buy the email gateway as it is quite an expensive one."
"The biggest problem is it's an on-prem product and we're trying to get out of having equipment in data centers."
"Sometimes the solution picks up false positive for viruses during scans."
"It will provide Excel reports and PDF reports, but it would be great if they supported the concept of Crystal Reports."
"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 product must improve the user dashboards."
"Messaging Gateway's advanced malware detection could be improved."
"In a later release, it would be nice if the messaging gateway supported the cluster feature."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We sell annual licenses for this solution."
"Proofpoint Email Protection is a reasonably priced product, which means that it is neither too low nor too high in terms of price."
"The end customer is buying our solution, which can be for monthly or annual usage depending on our payment and business model."
"Proofpoint is fairly expensive."
"The licensing cost of Proofpoint Email Protection is a lot higher than other solutions, such as Barracuda."
"Proofpoint Email Protection has comparable pricing."
"The solution charges per user per month to use it. There are not any additional fees in addition to the standard living fees."
"Annually, it costs us about $92,000. This is pretty much what it costs us. There is no additional cost."
"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."
"They're a little costly compared to Microsoft."
"Symantec Messaging Gateway’s pricing is very cheap."
"A subscription for technical support costs extra."
"For 150 users, we pay INR 1,60,000."
"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%
Comms Service Provider
6%
Construction Company
16%
Financial Services Firm
16%
Outsourcing Company
11%
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.
908,834 professionals have used our research since 2012.