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Sophos Email vs Symantec Messaging Gateway comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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

Sophos Email
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
35
Ranking in other categories
Email Security (17th), Office 365 Protection (4th)
Symantec Messaging Gateway
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
20
Ranking in other categories
Secure Email Gateway (SEG) (12th)
 

Mindshare comparison

While both are Messaging and Collaboration solutions, they serve different purposes. Sophos Email is designed for Email Security and holds a mindshare of 1.6%, down 1.8% compared to last year.
Symantec Messaging Gateway, on the other hand, focuses on Secure Email Gateway (SEG), holds 3.1% mindshare, up 2.5% since last year.
Email Security Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Sophos Email1.6%
Proofpoint Email Protection5.9%
Microsoft Defender for Office 3655.1%
Other87.4%
Email Security
Secure Email Gateway (SEG) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Symantec Messaging Gateway3.1%
Proofpoint Email Protection17.7%
Mimecast Advanced Email Security14.1%
Other65.1%
Secure Email Gateway (SEG)
 

Featured Reviews

ManojNair2 - PeerSpot reviewer
Director at a tech services company with 1-10 employees
Comprehensive detection has protected email traffic and now simplifies endpoint security work
Sophos Email security is the primary product I use. It scans all your inbound and outbound email for malware. It also has a capability for looking for phishing and spear phishing content and blocking it. Email has an extended capability that includes what's called a secure web gateway. All user traffic gets managed through that, making it a combination product. The version of the product you run determines which features are available. Reporting is competent. There is scope for more improvements, which they will do as they do every year regularly. They keep updating the product. Reporting gives you the relevant details of what is happening, so it's mature on that front. The main benefit is security for your email. The beauty of the Sophos system is that the XDR functionality runs across the system. Sophos, Trend Micro, and Microsoft are the only three that have a very strong system with this concept. XDR stands for extended detection and response, and it's a technology where the system automatically exchanges security signals between the endpoint, the email, and other similar products of the same brand. If you have Sophos Endpoint and Sophos Email, you have very good connectivity from the endpoint to the cloud at the email level and to some extent onto the browsing traffic. You have a very rounded security aspect.
Dennis O'Reilly - PeerSpot reviewer
Cyber SecOps Principal at Dotcom Security
The product provides good content filtering options, but the false positive submissions must be improved
The tool is very stable. I rate the stability a seven out of ten. It's an on-premise application that runs on a virtual machine. It has dependencies on the hypervisor host that we're running it on. If it's not configured, the application can be influenced by it. Sometimes, there is a service stop error while the service is still running. Sometimes, the service just stops. Some policies do not act the way that we intend them to respond.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"I have found Sophos Email to be scalable."
"Sophos offers a giant suite through their central managed console, they became MSP friendly."
"Sophos Email provides both inbound and outbound filtering."
"The installation is straightforward."
"There are quite a number of features in this solution, including VIP protection, time of click protection, the Sandstorm feature, and smart banners that help us know whether the email has malicious content."
"We have been receiving a lot of spam emails and we are using Sophos Email to help prevent the spam."
"It is really good for anti-spam, anti-malware, and especially for ransomware."
"Sophos Email is a stable solution."
"Symantec Messaging Gateway is stable and scalable."
"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."
"The stability is good; it's not buggy or glitchy, it works well, the performance is good, and they kept up with security patches."
"The solution is "set and forget". You pay for it and everything is done for you."
"It has very good capabilities for managing malware."
"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."
"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."
 

Cons

"The solution's technical support is slow and unresponsive. You need to book time in order to get support."
"Price is obviously a challenging part, and I think it is the biggest problem we have suffered from over the last two or three years due to a 7 to 8% hike per year, twice a year, which is why we have some renewals on Sophos Email, Sophos XDR, EDR, and the firewall, but due to price hike, they are unable to renew it."
"Email installation could be more user-friendly so that it can be done without involving the partner."
"The solution's sandboxing and spam control features could be improved."
"Sophos Email needs to increase the number of promos."
"Their technical support is slow to respond."
"The tool has some performance issues and bugs, making it an area where improvements are required."
"Sophos Email has few improvements to implement, including the handling of incoming emails in the systems. It needs to add additional feature that helps in enhancing the scanning processes of these emails. While adding these features, it should work towards improving the current features also."
"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."
"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."
"Recently, I've had some problems regarding their support. The tech was acquired by Broadcom, and since then, the support part is very bad."
"The product must improve the user dashboards."
"What needs to be improved in Symantec Messaging Gateway is its local partner support, as it's not as technical."
"They really need to create a good package that competes with Microsoft."
"Symantec Messaging Gateway should include better exclusions and exceptions for better administration."
"Messaging Gateway's advanced malware detection could be improved."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I rate the product's pricing a seven out of ten."
"Sophos Email is neither cheap nor expensive."
"The pricing is affordable, so I’d rate it around a four out of ten on the pricing scale. We pay about fifty pounds a month, including hardware so that costs may differ without it."
"I rate the price of Sophos Email a four out of five."
"The tool's pricing is medium."
"Licensing is paid on a yearly basis."
"There is an additional fee for their central managed console."
"Sophos Email is a little expensive for us, but it's necessary. We have a subscription and renew it every three years."
"Symantec Messaging Gateway’s pricing is very cheap."
"A subscription for technical support costs extra."
"It's a bit expensive compared to its competitor Barracuda Email Security Gateway but cheaper than Sophos Email."
"For 150 users, we pay INR 1,60,000."
"They're a little costly compared to Microsoft."
"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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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Outsourcing Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Construction Company
8%
Outsourcing Company
20%
Construction Company
16%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Marketing Services Firm
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business27
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise5
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business11
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise9
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Sophos Email?
Regarding Sophos Email pricing, I would rate it between six or seven out of ten.
What needs improvement with Sophos Email?
Some existing functionality in the product needs better articulation in how data is displayed. In one place there is data, but the way the data should be shown is not being shown right now. I have ...
What is your primary use case for Sophos Email?
I work on the endpoints. I work on endpoint, email, and firewall. Email, I use it on my personal domain, so I know what it does.
Ask a question
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Also Known As

Sophos Email Security
Symantec.cloud, Symantec Email Security.cloud
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Del Monte Foods, Terra Verde, spicerhaart, RIVERLITE, Dataprise, SureBridge, Reed's School, Sayfol International School
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, Microsoft, Check Point Software Technologies and others in Email Security. Updated: September 2026.
916,056 professionals have used our research since 2012.