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Mimecast Advanced Email Security vs Symantec Messaging Gateway comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Feb 4, 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)
4th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
5.9
Number of Reviews
31
Ranking in other categories
Office 365 Protection (3rd)
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 February 2026, in the Secure Email Gateway (SEG) category, the mindshare of Mimecast Advanced Email Security is 16.5%, up from 11.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Symantec Messaging Gateway is 2.3%, down from 3.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Secure Email Gateway (SEG) Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Mimecast Advanced Email Security16.5%
Symantec Messaging Gateway2.3%
Other81.2%
Secure Email Gateway (SEG)
 

Featured Reviews

HS
Email Security Engineer at Logic Infosecurity
Experience high detection and user-friendly policies with reliable email security implementation
The system is not user-friendly because you have to create policies that are mapped in a dictionary. As an IT engineer, I understand how it works, but explaining it to another IT person can be difficult. Having more user-friendly dashboards would improve the work experience. In Mimecast Email Security, checking policies in the dictionary or gateway is very complicated, and not everyone understands this process. If you examine the Check Point portal, it's user-friendly with easily accessible tabs that anyone can explore. With Mimecast Email Security, making changes might impact existing mailboxes. The portal is complicated compared to Check Point's user-friendly interface.
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 solution's performance is good."
"We like the content filtering and secure messaging features."
"Mimecast certainly helped my customers reduce phishing emails."
"The platform's most valuable features are journaling and email archiving, effectively stopping phishing attacks."
"The initial setup is easy."
"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."
"The reviewer gave Mimecast Email Security a rating of 10 out of 10."
"The most valuable feature is the DMARC Analyzer."
"The solution is "set and forget". You pay for it and everything is done for you."
"Symantec Messaging Gateway has a good GUI, and it is very powerful in detecting viruses and spam."
"The solution is stable and the performance is good."
"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."
"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 anti-malware and spam features are valuable."
"The setup is pretty simple."
"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."
 

Cons

"The attachment scanning feature doesn't work properly."
"Many of our users complain that the system is blocking too many attachments. It's a good practice from a security perspective, but our users think Mimecast is doing too much. It might be something we'll have to adjust."
"The reaction time between a new threat being identified and Mimecast picking it up needs to be narrowed a bit."
"They could provide a unified licensing model, including all the security features."
"The price could be better, it should be reduced."
"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."
"Its pricing can be improved. It is a bit expensive."
"Mimecast need to ensure that the body text format is correctly handled and that images are properly embedded in the body text."
"Messaging Gateway's advanced malware detection could be improved."
"We've had issues in the past where the user finds spam, and Symantec does not recognize it as spam."
"This product would benefit from better integration with Symantec Endpoint Protection."
"In a later release, it would be nice if the messaging gateway supported the cluster feature."
"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."
"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."
"It could be more scalable."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"For what it is, the product is overpriced."
"It is a bit expensive."
"The solution is expensive."
"The licensing costs are per-user for the product that you get with them."
"Compared to the other solutions in the market, Mimecast Email Security with Targeted Threat Protection's pricing is fine."
"On a scale of one to ten, where one is cheap, and ten is expensive, I rate the pricing a ten."
"It's an expensive solution."
"The product has good pricing in terms of return on investment."
"It's a bit expensive compared to its competitor Barracuda Email Security Gateway but cheaper than Sophos Email."
"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."
"A subscription for technical support costs extra."
"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."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Comms Service Provider
5%
Financial Services Firm
18%
Computer Software Company
11%
Government
7%
Manufacturing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business17
Midsize Enterprise7
Large Enterprise11
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business11
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise8
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Mimecast Email Security with Targeted Threat Protection?
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.
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...
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Also Known As

Mimecast Email Security with Targeted Threat Protection
Symantec.cloud, Symantec Email Security.cloud
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Azizi Developments, Affinity Credit Union, Aftercare, Al Abbar Group
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: December 2025.
881,665 professionals have used our research since 2012.