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Microsoft Exchange Online Protection (EOP) 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

Microsoft Exchange Online P...
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
38
Ranking in other categories
Email Security (5th), Anti-Malware Tools (7th)
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. Microsoft Exchange Online Protection (EOP) is designed for Anti-Malware Tools and holds a mindshare of 1.3%, down 2.2% compared to last year.
Symantec Messaging Gateway, on the other hand, focuses on Secure Email Gateway (SEG), holds 2.7% mindshare, up 1.8% since last year.
Anti-Malware Tools
Secure Email Gateway (SEG)
 

Featured Reviews

Sandeep G. - PeerSpot reviewer
Easy to deploy and user-friendly with simple dashboards
I'm also using Microsoft Defender. We've also used Proofpoint. Proofpoint has more granularity. It also offers different features. Exchange Online and Defender offer safe attachments and anti-malware. However, they just have one single option for features, and you check a box, and it enables one blanket policy. With Proofpoint, you can choose your options. Microsoft products are good and more user-friendly in general. They are just missing the granularity aspect. In Proofpoint, the tap and trap work very well, and it has some kind of monitoring as well for the tap and trap. When you're moving from Proofpoint to Microsoft, if you need to do a comparison and if you need to showcase to the customer all features are working as expected, some functionalities might be a little difficult for us to showcase. Maybe that dashboard will differ. It's a common dashboard that we have for Microsoft. Maybe Proofpoint has got more features, however, for use cases, it'll be a little difficult to demonstrate to the customer. We've moved to this solution since we were moving the majority of our products to Azure. We wanted to move to the cloud to reduce hardware costs and avoid having a separate server, which we do not need for Exchange.
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

"With Microsoft Exchange Online Protection, if malware is attached to a mailer, it's very easy to go into the incident alert and find out what's happening with that identity and the mail."
"The initial setup of Microsoft Exchange Online Protection was easy."
"It's definitely scalable."
"Online Protection's most valuable feature is its admin interface."
"The product protects against malware."
"We use the solution to receive emails. We do not use the calendar function as our clients are slow adaptors to the latest features."
"The email policy configuration options in Microsoft EOP are satisfactory."
"In general, my company is happy with Microsoft support...My company hasn't faced any stability issues with the solution."
"The cloud-based interface is very user-friendly."
"Symantec Messaging Gateway has a good GUI, and it is very powerful in detecting viruses and spam."
"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 most valuable feature of the solution is the content filtering policies because the solution offers huge options for configuration, such as hardware manipulation, et cetera, and the dictionaries make the work easier."
"The solution is stable and the performance is good."
"It has very good capabilities for managing malware."
"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 anti-malware and spam features are valuable."
 

Cons

"The solution can be complex at times. It would be nice to have the on-server version. It needs to improve the stability as well."
"Some of the searchability when looking for specifics in Exchange logs is tedious."
"When you're using a Microsoft product solution, you can scale it, but if you're not, there are limitations."
"I would like to get reports about vulnerable connections from our clients with information about domains, public IPs, etc. That would be highly useful."
"The licensing can be on the expensive side, especially in the cloud space."
"Performance and speed should continue to be improved."
"The tool is not 100% stable."
"Having orchestration features added to Microsoft Exchange Online Protection, particularly automation and remediation, would be quite useful."
"The solution interface is from 2003 and is outdated. Symantec Messaging Gateway needs to update the interface."
"The solution takes up a lot of memory."
"Sometimes the solution picks up false positive for viruses during scans."
"Symantec Messaging Gateway should include better exclusions and exceptions for better administration."
"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."
"The product must improve the user dashboards."
"They really need to create a good package that competes with Microsoft."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is a low-price solution."
"The solution is expensive but is backed by Microsoft's reputation."
"Online Protection is fairly expensive."
"Apart from the license fee for the solution, there are no additional costs."
"Regarding the price, it's comparable to other service providers. We've also looked at Check Point's offerings, and the pricing doesn't seem to be an issue."
"The price of Microsoft Exchange Online Protection is reasonable."
"On a scale of one to ten, where one is cheap, and ten is very expensive, I rate the pricing a six. For licensing, we can make monthly or yearly payments. Right now, we pay 5 USD per month to secure a person's license."
"The solution should reduce the cost."
"For 150 users, we pay INR 1,60,000."
"Symantec Messaging Gateway’s pricing is very cheap."
"A subscription for technical support costs extra."
"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."
"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
Computer Software Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Government
9%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
22%
Computer Software Company
20%
Government
8%
Manufacturing Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Microsoft Exchange Online Protection?
The initial setup was easy. The configuration process is very straightforward.
What needs improvement with Microsoft Exchange Online Protection?
I would like to improve the setting of rules in Microsoft Exchange Online Protection (EOP) as it is currently working fine but has room for enhancements.
What is your primary use case for Microsoft Exchange Online Protection?
I am using Microsoft Exchange Online Protection (EOP) ( /products/microsoft-exchange-online-protection-eop-reviews ) for word processing, spreadsheet management, Power BI, checking my meetings, usi...
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

Microsoft EOP, MS Exchange Online Protection
Symantec.cloud, Symantec Email Security.cloud
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
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 Microsoft Exchange Online Protection (EOP) vs. Symantec Messaging Gateway and other solutions. Updated: January 2024.
851,604 professionals have used our research since 2012.