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Mimecast Advanced Email Security vs Symantec Messaging Gateway comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jun 2, 2026

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

Mimecast Advanced Email Sec...
Ranking in Secure Email Gateway (SEG)
3rd
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
5.9
Number of Reviews
48
Ranking in other categories
Email Archiving (2nd), Email Security (5th), Office 365 Protection (2nd)
Symantec Messaging Gateway
Ranking in Secure Email Gateway (SEG)
12th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
20
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2026, in the Secure Email Gateway (SEG) category, the mindshare of Mimecast Advanced Email Security is 14.1%, up from 12.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Symantec Messaging Gateway is 3.0%, up from 2.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Secure Email Gateway (SEG) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Mimecast Advanced Email Security14.1%
Symantec Messaging Gateway3.0%
Other82.9%
Secure Email Gateway (SEG)
 

Featured Reviews

Avinash Mishra - PeerSpot reviewer
Manager - EUC at Finthrive
Advanced email filtering has blocked massive spam volumes and prevents unauthorized data leaks
Improvements for Mimecast Advanced Email Security include enhancing the user interface and accessibility, particularly regarding admin capabilities to add or modify user accounts. Streamlining this could improve overall usability and security management for users. Reporting is another area needing improvement in Mimecast Advanced Email Security, as the reports provided are not very easy to decipher. With artificial intelligence being integrated into various tools including Mimecast Advanced Email Security, I believe there is potential to enhance functionality, enabling users to ask specific questions and retrieve concise answers instead of overwhelming data. I choose a nine for Mimecast Advanced Email Security because improvements such as better user interface and artificial intelligence integration features would greatly enhance its usability. While no tool is perfect, these adjustments could greatly elevate Mimecast Advanced Email Security's capabilities.
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

"The Large File Send feature comes in handy when you have to send fairly large attachments."
"The initial setup is easy."
"The setup was easy."
"It's really quite user-friendly. In terms of technical superiority and the product itself, there are no complaints. It is really cutting edge."
"Its administration console is very easy to use. The administration console is absolutely important because you interact with the platform through it."
"The solution is stable and reliable; there are no bugs or glitches, and it doesn't crash or freeze."
"The interface of this solution is very easy to navigate and user-friendly. There is no delivery in email and other communications, making it reliable. The configuration is relatively easy."
"Mimecast Mailbox Community is an email gateway required for every organization, regardless of size."
"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 Messaging Gateway is stable and scalable."
"The cloud-based interface is very user-friendly."
"Symantec’s spyware and malware signature database is very good compared to other products."
"The most valuable features of Symantec Messaging Gateway are advanced content filtering, malware, and antivirus defense."
"We use the solution for its advanced virus protection, phishing and other features."
"The solution is "set and forget". You pay for it and everything is done for you."
"The feature that I like the best is the fingerprinting concept."
 

Cons

"For improvement, I would say some of the catalogs, while navigating, were a little tricky."
"Mimecast Advanced Email Security needs to improve in this area because they are only focusing on a particular set of problems which is on email and human risk, whereas companies that need a slightly bigger picture will look elsewhere."
"The reaction time between a new threat being identified and Mimecast picking it up needs to be narrowed a bit."
"The solution should include more AI features instead of Mimecast's more general static configuration tooling."
"The detection rates are an area for improvement."
"The attachment scanning feature doesn't work properly."
"Their support should be improved. They are notorious for sending you to knowledge-based articles rather than actually talking to you, but that is, unfortunately, kind of becoming a trend with everything. In terms of features, I haven't had any complaints. However, I don't like the fact they moved to a paid training subscription model. They used to have a lot of free webinars for training, but they have started to charge for them in the past year."
"Improvements for Mimecast Advanced Email Security include enhancing the user interface and accessibility, particularly regarding admin capabilities to add or modify user accounts."
"In a later release, it would be nice if the messaging gateway supported the cluster feature."
"The solution takes up a lot of memory."
"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."
"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 biggest problem is it's an on-prem product and we're trying to get out of having equipment in data centers."
"Where it is not available, as is the case with unstructured data, this product fails miserably."
"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."
"Support could be better. What's also 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."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The product price is moderate. I rate the pricing a five out of ten."
"The product has good pricing in terms of return on investment."
"Compared to the other solutions in the market, Mimecast Email Security with Targeted Threat Protection's pricing is fine."
"It is a bit expensive."
"Two subscription options are currently offered: monthly and yearly. My suggestion is to opt for the yearly subscription as it can give some discount. The pricing isn't high as other cloud solutions are pricier than Microsoft's offerings."
"On a scale of one to ten, where one is cheap, and ten is expensive, I rate the pricing a ten."
"The licensing costs are per-user for the product that you get with them."
"Compared to the other products in the market, it is neither cheap but nor very expensive. I would rate it somewhere in the middle, 5 out of 10."
"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."
"A subscription for technical support costs extra."
"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."
"They're a little costly compared to Microsoft."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Outsourcing Company
10%
Computer Software Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Construction Company
8%
Outsourcing Company
19%
Construction Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Marketing Services Firm
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business20
Midsize Enterprise13
Large Enterprise23
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business11
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise9
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Mimecast Email Security with Targeted Threat Protection?
There is room for improvement since new threats are emerging. Considering the availability of new features would be worthwhile. Mimecast Email Security is somewhat expensive compared to the competi...
Ask a question
Earn 20 points
 

Also Known As

Mimecast Email Security with Targeted Threat Protection, Mimecast Web Security, Mimecast Mailbox Continuity, Email and Collaboration Threat Protection
Symantec.cloud, Symantec Email Security.cloud
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Hewlett-Packard Company (HP), Cushman and Wakefield, PIB Group, Swissport
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 Mimecast Advanced Email Security vs. Symantec Messaging Gateway and other solutions. Updated: August 2026.
913,076 professionals have used our research since 2012.