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Sophos Email vs Symantec Messaging Gateway comparison

 

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
7.1
Number of Reviews
32
Ranking in other categories
Email Security (10th), Office 365 Protection (1st)
Symantec Messaging Gateway
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
20
Ranking in other categories
Secure Email Gateway (SEG) (6th)
 

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 2.1%, down 2.6% compared to last year.
Symantec Messaging Gateway, on the other hand, focuses on Secure Email Gateway (SEG), holds 2.6% mindshare, up 1.9% since last year.
Email Security
Secure Email Gateway (SEG)
 

Featured Reviews

Ahmed_Fahmy - PeerSpot reviewer
Provides a powerful and simple email protection with proven management benefits
Sophos Email is integrated with Office 365 and Google Workspace. It offers anti-spam functionality, which is easy to manage and comes with documentation on how to integrate it with Office 365 and Google Workspace. It provides a defense layer for email protection, scanning every incoming and outbound email for malware and spam. It can also function temporarily as an email solution if my vendor from Office 365 or Google Workspace is out of service.
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

"The tool is a good solution for protecting against email attacks and monitoring networks. It supports our compliance efforts and is easy to use and stable."
"I cannot guarantee any email by its name. It can be spam. Sophos Email helps to double-check whether an email is spam or not. It has a dashboard which gives an overview of the alerts."
"The anti-spam functionality of Sophos Email is good."
"The most valuable feature of Sophos Email is the sandbox. We're able to scan the file, isolate it, and look at it before it is delivered. It is highly effective."
"Endpoint and server protection are very effective."
"The tool's most valuable feature is the anti-spam detection filter. Its threat email intelligence features help to identify email data."
"Good VIP protection, time of click protection and the Sandstorm feature."
"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 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 feature that I like the best is the fingerprinting concept."
"The solution is excellent at blocking spam."
"The cloud-based interface is very user-friendly."
"The solution is "set and forget". You pay for it and everything is done for you."
"The anti-malware and spam features are valuable."
"Messaging Gateway is stable."
"The most valuable features of Symantec Messaging Gateway are advanced content filtering, malware, and antivirus defense."
 

Cons

"It was sometimes hard to find the settings in the solution's interface."
"The tool's integration becomes an issue when the internet connection is weak."
"Sophos Email does not work with split delivery. If I have a domain with 100 mailboxes and want to protect only 50, it is not recommended by Sophos or not possible to configure."
"The tool’s stability should be improved."
"Enhancing rule creation and customization features would provide users with greater control over their email security settings."
"Sophos Email can improve mail security."
"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."
"The solution should be able to support the cloud environment."
"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."
"It could be more scalable."
"The biggest problem is it's an on-prem product and we're trying to get out of having equipment in data centers."
"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."
"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."
"What's 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."
"They have updated the version of the Messaging Gateway and the new features they are adding the need to be re-evaluated. They have done some changes on the policy."
"Sometimes the solution picks up false positive for viruses during scans."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Most of our clients are on a perpetual license. If there is a budget issue, they can choose a subscription. However, most of the clients choose the perpetual license."
"It falls somewhere in the middle—it's not excessively expensive nor very cheap."
"I rate the product's pricing a seven out of ten."
"The tool's pricing is medium."
"Sophos Email is priced lower than its competitors."
"Sophos Email is neither cheap nor expensive."
"The pricing is quite reasonable, with a fixed cost and no additional charges."
"Licensing is paid on a yearly basis."
"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."
"Symantec Messaging Gateway’s pricing is very cheap."
"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."
"For 150 users, we pay INR 1,60,000."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Financial Services Firm
23%
Computer Software Company
18%
Government
8%
Manufacturing Company
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Sophos Email?
The solution's identity proxy feature is very good and reliable.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Sophos Email?
Sophos Email pricing is a bit high, especially since I purchase through a partner, and they sell it at a higher price since they also seek to make a profit.
What needs improvement with Sophos Email?
Sophos Email does not work with split delivery. If I have a domain with 100 mailboxes and want to protect only 50, it is not recommended by Sophos or not possible to configure.
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

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 Sophos Email vs. Symantec Messaging Gateway and other solutions. Updated: January 2024.
861,524 professionals have used our research since 2012.