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Fortinet FortiMail 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

Fortinet FortiMail
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
67
Ranking in other categories
Email Security (6th)
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. Fortinet FortiMail is designed for Email Security and holds a mindshare of 3.5%, down 5.5% compared to last year.
Symantec Messaging Gateway, on the other hand, focuses on Secure Email Gateway (SEG), holds 2.5% mindshare, down 3.0% since last year.
Email Security Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Fortinet FortiMail3.5%
Microsoft Defender for Office 3659.6%
Proofpoint Email Protection7.9%
Other79.0%
Email Security
Secure Email Gateway (SEG) Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Symantec Messaging Gateway2.5%
Microsoft Defender for Office 36524.2%
Proofpoint Email Protection20.3%
Other53.0%
Secure Email Gateway (SEG)
 

Featured Reviews

Abhimanyu Das - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Associate at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Targeted email filtering has reduced spam and phishing and now saves significant investigation time
The best features of Fortinet FortiMail include its techniques and tactics, which are highly effective compared to other solutions such as Microsoft 365. Although Fortinet FortiMail may not be as advanced in some aspects, it is well recognized for its strong performance in handling spam and phishing. It performs thorough mail scanning and also offers a sandboxing feature that enhances protection. Fortinet FortiMail has had a positive impact on my organization by significantly reducing unwanted email activities such as spam and phishing. It provides accurate detection and generates results that often exceed what can be achieved through manual analysis. Since deploying Fortinet FortiMail, I have observed a reduction in investigation time by at least 20 to 30 percent.
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 most valuable features are the endpoint defense features, it is very secure."
"FortiMail is a stable product."
"The product helps users handle security challenges as it offers prefiltering options and does relatively good incident reporting."
"They have a feature called CDR, Content Disarm, Reconstruction, click protection, and DLP for encryption purposes."
"The most valuable features of Fortinet FortiMail are its virus outbreak prevention and FortiSandbox integration."
"The solution can scale."
"This excellent email gateway minimizes spam, inspects suspicious emails and isolates infected attachments with little administrative effort."
"The anti-spam functionality is good and works well."
"Symantec is a secure product."
"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 good GUI, and it is very powerful in detecting viruses and spam."
"Messaging Gateway is stable."
"The cloud-based interface is very user-friendly."
"The solution is "set and forget". You pay for it and everything is done for you."
"Symantec’s spyware and malware signature database is very good compared to other products."
"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."
 

Cons

"They should add a lot of threat-intelligence feeds from different sources - not only from one source (FortiGuard)."
"I don't know if it is possible, but I would like to see Artificial Intelligence and machine learning introduced."
"The Ui isn't that intuitive."
"The tool needs to improve its pricing policy. Also, it needs to be more user-friendly. I would want it to improve email security as well."
"There are features that other solutions have that this one is lacking, such as reporting options. I hope in future releases they advance their features list."
"The area that could use some improvement in Fortinet FortiMail is the integration process. I would like the integration to be easier."
"Maybe FortiMail's integration could be better."
"The product should work on licensing and provide more detail once the license is selected for the customer."
"The false positive submissions must be improved."
"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 will provide Excel reports and PDF reports, but it would be great if they supported the concept of Crystal Reports."
"In a later release, it would be nice if the messaging gateway supported the cluster feature."
"It could be more scalable."
"We've had issues in the past where the user finds spam, and Symantec does not recognize it as spam."
"The solution takes up a lot of memory."
"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."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Fortinet FortiMail has an annual license agreement."
"You need to pay additional fees for premium support."
"There is a license required for this solution."
"The tool is very expensive."
"There is a license required for this solution and it is on an annual basis. I am satisfied with the price."
"The pricing is good."
"The fees for Fortinet FortiMail can be complicated. However, overall the pricing is fair."
"The pricing is on the higher side."
"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."
"For 150 users, we pay INR 1,60,000."
"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."
"A subscription for technical support costs extra."
"Symantec Messaging Gateway’s pricing is very cheap."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
6%
Financial Services Firm
18%
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business32
Midsize Enterprise22
Large Enterprise15
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business11
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise8
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Fortinet FortiMail?
In my opinion, points for improvement for Fortinet FortiMail include sometimes the speed and fine-tuning the false positive problems, especially with the signed PDF attachments and the whitelist an...
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Also Known As

FortiMail
Symantec.cloud, Symantec Email Security.cloud
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Magromer Cueros y Pieles S.A.
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 Fortinet FortiMail vs. Symantec Messaging Gateway and other solutions. Updated: January 2024.
881,082 professionals have used our research since 2012.