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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
7.0
Number of Reviews
51
Ranking in other categories
Email Security (2nd), Security Awareness Training (2nd), Digital Risk Protection (3rd), Office 365 Protection (2nd)
Symantec Messaging Gateway
Ranking in Secure Email Gateway (SEG)
5th
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 2025, in the Secure Email Gateway (SEG) category, the mindshare of Proofpoint Email Protection is 20.7%, down from 22.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Symantec Messaging Gateway is 4.9%, up from 4.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Secure Email Gateway (SEG)
 

Featured Reviews

AhmedRamadan - PeerSpot reviewer
Optimize email security with effective sandboxing and auto Pull for quarantine
Proofpoint is used as an email security gateway for big enterprises, primarily for their on-premises servers. Many customers also use it alongside Office 365 Proofpoint offers a complete solution for email security with features like DLP, email archiving, and encryption. The most valuable…
Girish Vijay - PeerSpot reviewer
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

"It's the top choice because no company can operate without security. Ensuring email protection is a major priority for any organization when building its infrastructure."
"It's detection of true positives are great, as it's cloud based it's very scalable and stable."
"It's a mature product. It does a good job in detection."
"The most valuable feature is the ability to remove bad messages that were delivered, prior to being classified as unwanted."
"Proofpoint Email Protection is the best solution from the perspective of email security."
"I would recommend Proofpoint Email Protection to others because it is useful, simple to use, and provides whatever is required."
"The spam filter for email is good."
"The most valuable features of Proofpoint Email Protection are the performance from being on the cloud."
"The cloud-based interface is very user-friendly."
"The setup is pretty simple."
"Messaging Gateway is stable."
"The solution is stable and the performance is good."
"It is a solid and stable product."
"Symantec is a secure product."
"The anti-malware and spam features are valuable."
"Symantec Messaging Gateway has a good GUI, and it is very powerful in detecting viruses and spam."
 

Cons

"It's scalable, but the devil's in the details — you have to know your email volumes."
"The solution could lower its price."
"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 stability and UI are the two areas of the solution with certain shortcomings that need improvement."
"Proofpoint Email Protection could improve the Mail Trace feature and make navigation easier."
"The incident reporting on offer needs to be improved. It's lacking right now. It should be on the platform somewhere."
"I want Security Awareness Training in there as a package deal. A lot of companies are starting to value email security a little bit more and take it a little bit more seriously, and the great product that we link together with a lot of these sales is a training product called Security Awareness Training. It is an upsell that we do with Proofpoint, and it is definitely something that I recommend everybody with email security to look into. It would be great if Security Awareness Training is included with the email security."
"Sometimes it doesn't detect actual spam emails, and sometimes it catches normal emails."
"The biggest problem is it's an on-prem product and we're trying to get out of having equipment in data centers."
"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 should include better exclusions and exceptions for better administration."
"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 solution takes up a lot of memory."
"It could be more scalable."
"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."
"The false positive submissions must be improved."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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 licensing is basically $8/user."
"The price is reasonable."
"It is multiple times more expensive, which made it very much less attractive."
"The licensing cost of Proofpoint Email Protection is a lot higher than other solutions, such as Barracuda."
"In general, the pricing is competitive."
"We sell annual licenses for this solution."
"Pricing has recently been increased and the cost is a downside"
"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."
"Symantec Messaging Gateway’s pricing is very cheap."
"A subscription for technical support costs extra."
"They're a little costly compared to Microsoft."
"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
Educational Organization
31%
Computer Software Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Computer Software Company
21%
Financial Services Firm
18%
Government
9%
Manufacturing Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Proofpoint Email Protection?
Proofpoint is considered a very expensive solution compared to others like FortiMail, being double in cost. Customers pay around $90,000 yearly for a 1,000-user organization, with the subscription ...
What needs improvement with Proofpoint Email Protection?
Phishing detection & Response capabilities could improve further to match some of the capabilities offered by competitors. Proofpoint could expand its PDR capabilities to improve its efficiency...
What needs improvement with Symantec Messaging Gateway?
The solution takes up a lot of memory. The system becomes slow. The performance must be improved.
What is your primary use case for Symantec Messaging Gateway?
We use the solution to secure our data and emails.
 

Also Known As

Proofpoint Enterprise Protection, Cofense PhishMe, 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: January 2025.
841,004 professionals have used our research since 2012.