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Fortinet FortiMail 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

Fortinet FortiMail
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
68
Ranking in other categories
Email Security (8th)
Symantec Messaging Gateway
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
20
Ranking in other categories
Secure Email Gateway (SEG) (13th)
 

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 2.7%, down 3.7% compared to last year.
Symantec Messaging Gateway, on the other hand, focuses on Secure Email Gateway (SEG), holds 3.1% mindshare, up 2.4% since last year.
Email Security Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Fortinet FortiMail2.7%
Proofpoint Email Protection5.9%
Microsoft Defender for Office 3655.0%
Other86.4%
Email Security
Secure Email Gateway (SEG) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Symantec Messaging Gateway3.1%
Proofpoint Email Protection16.7%
Mimecast Advanced Email Security14.5%
Other65.7%
Secure Email Gateway (SEG)
 

Featured Reviews

Abhimanyu Das - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Cybersecurity Engineer at Kyndryl
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.
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

"Fortinet FortiMail has a lot of valuable features. It works great. It also has an antivirus feature. Support for Fortinet FortiMail was also great when my team wanted to block some geographic IPs, but couldn't figure out how to do it. The support team provided clear communication on how to resolve that issue. Another valuable feature of Fortinet FortiMail is SPAM filtering which tells you how many spammy emails you've received. Based on my current use cases, I'm happy with Fortinet FortiMail."
"They have a feature called CDR, Content Disarm, Reconstruction, click protection, and DLP for encryption purposes."
"We do have, as of late, spam outbreaks, and this solution has been pretty reliable in dealing with them."
"Both logging and reporting are very good, as well as the antivirus profiles, content emails, content profile, and application profile."
"The deployment is simple and once up and running it is easy to manage."
"Fortinet utilizes specialized processing units, which network faster and sample more efficiently compared to others."
"FortiMail is a stable product."
"The technical support is excellent."
"Symantec is a secure product."
"It has very good capabilities for managing malware."
"My advice to others who plan to use Symantec Messaging Gateway is that it's a very good product, it's very stable, and it's user-friendly, but the only problem is that it doesn't have good partner support here in Bolivia, where I'm located."
"It is a solid and stable product."
"I like that it's simple and easy to configure, deploy, and manage. The reporting function has all the features we're looking for, and we are fine with that."
"The setup is pretty simple."
"I've been using Messaging Gateway for ten years."
"Symantec Messaging Gateway is stable and scalable. Installation is easy, and the deployment and maintenance can be done by one administrative person."
 

Cons

"The solution is user-friendly to a degree but the dashboard needs improvement."
"It can be somewhat difficult to prepare precise or very deep rules to improve security, though the product is very good."
"Fortinet FortiMail should allow more flexibility with the content rules."
"The main area for improvement is the pricing."
"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."
"A room for improvement in Fortinet FortiMail is that it only has a hardware version. I also didn't find the solution scalable, so that's another area for improvement."
"Sometimes, authentic emails get blocked by the solution's firewall."
"Fortinet FortiMail can be improved in terms of its dashboard, which is small and not visually appealing, making deeper investigations difficult."
"What needs to be improved in Symantec Messaging Gateway is its local partner support, as it's not as technical."
"If the customer has to think about budget and solutions to reduce IT cost, they should get away from Symantec and try using Microsoft."
"The product must improve the user dashboards."
"Symantec Messaging Gateway should include better exclusions and exceptions for better administration."
"The false positive submissions must be improved."
"It will provide Excel reports and PDF reports, but it would be great if they supported the concept of Crystal Reports."
"We've had issues in the past where the user finds spam, and Symantec does not recognize it as spam."
"Recently, I've had some problems regarding their support. The tech was acquired by Broadcom, and since then, the support part is very bad."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Fortinet Fortimail has reasonable pricing."
"The fees for Fortinet FortiMail can be complicated. However, overall the pricing is fair."
"The price is acceptable for the support license it includes."
"Fortinet FortiMail is a little bit expensive."
"This is a good solution and value for the money."
"The pricing is good."
"It's not as that expensive with the competitive different brands. The products sell a lot."
"Fortinet FortiMail has an annual license agreement."
"They're a little costly compared to Microsoft."
"Symantec Messaging Gateway’s pricing is very cheap."
"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."
"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."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
10%
Construction Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Outsourcing Company
7%
Outsourcing Company
19%
Construction Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Comms Service Provider
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business33
Midsize Enterprise23
Large Enterprise14
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business11
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise9
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Fortinet FortiMail?
I think they should improve Fortinet FortiMail on-premises by enhancing its user interface. Additional features they could have in the future would include advanced analytics capabilities. I do thi...
What is your primary use case for Fortinet FortiMail?
I do have a partnership with Fortinet. I have been both a partner and reseller.
Ask a question
Earn 20 points
 

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 Proofpoint, Microsoft, Check Point Software Technologies and others in Email Security. Updated: October 2026.
920,929 professionals have used our research since 2012.