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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

Cloudflare One
Sponsored
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
23
Ranking in other categories
Email Security (20th), Secure Web Gateways (SWG) (12th), Data Loss Prevention (DLP) (22nd), Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB) (12th), Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection (8th), Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) Solutions (13th), Access Management (12th), Bot Management (3rd), ZTNA as a Service (8th), ZTNA (4th), Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) (9th), Remote Browser Isolation (RBI) (2nd)
Sophos Email
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
35
Ranking in other categories
Email Security (14th), Office 365 Protection (3rd)
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

Email Security Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Sophos Email1.6%
Proofpoint Email Protection6.3%
Microsoft Defender for Office 3655.7%
Other86.4%
Email Security
Secure Email Gateway (SEG) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Symantec Messaging Gateway2.8%
Proofpoint Email Protection18.3%
Microsoft Defender for Office 36514.8%
Other64.1%
Secure Email Gateway (SEG)
 

Featured Reviews

CV
Network Architect at IP Dimension
Cloud security has improved remote access and has reduced costs for smaller client sites
I have used Cloudflare One's Identity-Aware Proxy, and it is quite straightforward from what I have seen so far. The app registration on the Azure side integrates fully into Cloudflare, and I am very satisfied with that part because it is easy to set up. The integration of Cloudflare One's Secure Web Gateway and Zero Trust Network Access works without any issues. That part is pretty automatic, and if you complete the rest of the setup, it comes together by itself with no issues from my side. What makes it nice is that we can actually start replacing on-site firewalls at this stage for the smaller clients because it does not matter if they go to a coffee shop or work from home; they are still secured by the same connection. The hops get shorter and you get better latency. We have done testing to see if it is better. One thing that we did notice with our proof of concept with our current client is that they have people connecting from the UK. When they used their previous VPN solution, uploading CAD drawings and other files to the server took a long time. They mentioned that it is much quicker on Cloudflare One's solution. I definitely believe that is part of the improved performance, and I am satisfied with that as well. What is nice about Cloudflare One is that it makes the setup easier and also easier to train technicians to maintain it. Compared to legacy systems, we do not need to get fancy firewalls in place that are costly. That is definitely also a cost-saver with Cloudflare One.
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.
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 best feature is rate limiting. If I'm expecting 500 visits per hour, Cloudflare will limit the requests if I suddenly get 50,000."
"It's a perfect solution from my perspective; it's easy to understand and easy to configure."
"Clover is the best product globally."
"It's the endpoint exposition. We don't need to expose our VPN server to the internet and need a zero-test solution. I can apply some conditional access to the endpoint that's connecting to our network to check their security policies or the security condition of their workstation. Once the workstation is trying to connect to my internal network, then I would like to check the discrete condition of these endpoints that are trying to access my internal network. We created some conditional access. We have CrowdStrike, to check if the CrowdStrike is installed, to check if it's updated, and to check for Windows updates. We created some conditional policies to check it."
"Cloudflare Access is a stable solution."
"Cloudflare DDoS is better than its competitors for its security, deployment, and scalability."
"Using Cloudflare One makes my work quite easy because for DDoS protection, all I need to do is understand the OSI model and click; it makes it easier than trying to write a command line or use a Linux command."
"Enables me to work from two locations."
"You will find a lot of value in this solution and the small difference in price should not matter, it does protect well."
"The main benefit is security for your email, and the beauty of the Sophos system is that the XDR functionality runs across the system so you have very good connectivity from the endpoint to the cloud at the email level and to some extent onto the browsing traffic, giving you a very rounded security aspect."
"The solution is very good at covering all of my organization's needs."
"I would recommend Sophos Email to both end-users and other entities that want to protect their emails."
"The filtering capabilities are precious and far superior to others I've used. It's intuitive in what it pushes to quarantine, and users can quickly review, free, or delete items without needing an administrator, making it ideal for a multi-user environment."
"The anti-malware, risk scanning has been pretty spot on."
"I found the user interface friendly."
"Endpoint and server protection are very effective."
"Symantec’s spyware and malware signature database is very good compared to other products."
"The anti-malware and spam features are valuable."
"The solution is a leader in anti-spam email products and you can block 99% of spam emails, making it very effective with great performance."
"Symantec Messaging Gateway is stable and scalable. Installation is easy, and the deployment and maintenance can be done by one administrative person."
"Symantec Messaging Gateway has a huge knowledge base about phishing, spamming, spoofing, etc."
"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."
"Symantec is a secure product."
"I've been using Messaging Gateway for ten years."
 

Cons

"For the topic of improvement, providing some training material is one of my suggestions."
"The response time for support must be reduced."
"The tool should provide on-premise versions. Currently, all versions are cloud-based."
"There are premium tier live service and lower tier live service, so we opted for the lower tier. But there is no medium tier where we pay a little extra and get a bit more service. So if that can be improved."
"Our subscription plan for the solution has a limitation of bot signatures."
"The free plan has limitations. For example, I can only set up three rules, and the application firewall is unavailable."
"Operating and tuning the product is difficult."
"The onboarding process can be improved a little bit."
"Lacks visibility into spam emails."
"Sophos Email could better detect fake emails, especially when the domain names are similar. It needs to improve spotting spoofed domains, like when one letter differs in a domain name. It also needs to incorporate AI detection. Barracuda detects suspicious emails better. However, malware scanning is better in Sophos Email."
"Sophos Email can improve mail security."
"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."
"The main drawback is regarding the technical support."
"The solution should be able to support the cloud environment."
"The solution's sandboxing and spam control features could be improved."
"Their technical support is slow to respond."
"They really need to create a good package that competes with Microsoft."
"If the customer has to think about budget and solutions to reduce IT cost, they should get away from Symantec and try using Microsoft."
"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 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."
"It will provide Excel reports and PDF reports, but it would be great if they supported the concept of Crystal Reports."
"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."
"What needs to be improved in Symantec Messaging Gateway is its local partner support, as it's not as technical."
"In a later release, it would be nice if the messaging gateway supported the cluster feature."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution's pricing lacks transparency."
"Cloudflare Zero Trust Platform's pricing is good."
"The solution is not that expensive."
"My company has to make yearly payments towards the licensing costs attached to the solution. There are no hidden charges apart from the licensing costs of the solution."
"The prices are slightly expensive."
"The price tag is no longer $200,000, but rather $300,000 to $400,000. It's twice."
"The pricing of the solution is cheap. The licensing cost is also very low. I rate the cost and pricing a three out of ten."
"The pricing is somewhere in the middle. I would rate the pricing a seven out of ten."
"The pricing could improve by having additional discounts. For example, when customers buy have more than 50 or more users, there should be additional discounts."
"Licensing is paid on a yearly basis."
"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."
"The pricing is quite reasonable, with a fixed cost and no additional charges."
"The tool's pricing is medium."
"Sophos Email is priced lower than its competitors."
"The product is cheaper compared to other solutions."
"The platform is inexpensive. It offers a cost-effective licensing model. We purchase its yearly license."
"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."
"They're a little costly compared to Microsoft."
"Symantec Messaging Gateway’s pricing is very cheap."
"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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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Construction Company
19%
Comms Service Provider
11%
Outsourcing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Outsourcing Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Construction Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Construction Company
16%
Financial Services Firm
16%
Outsourcing Company
13%
Marketing Services Firm
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business10
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise12
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 needs improvement with Cloudflare Zero Trust Platform?
In my opinion, Cloudflare One can be improved mainly through compatibility, as the integration should be much simpler...
What is your primary use case for Cloudflare Zero Trust Platform?
Cloudflare One's primary use case for my organization is to protect servers and to provide remote access with the VPN...
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 ...
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 wh...
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Also Known As

Cloudflare Area 1 Email Security, Cloudflare Bot Management, Cloudflare Gateway, Cloudflare Zero Trust Platform, Cloudflare DDoS, Cloudflare SASE & SSE Platform
Sophos Email Security
Symantec.cloud, Symantec Email Security.cloud
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

23andMe
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: July 2026.
908,834 professionals have used our research since 2012.