Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

Proofpoint Email Protection vs Symantec Messaging Gateway comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 5, 2024

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

Proofpoint Email Protection
Ranking in Secure Email Gateway (SEG)
2nd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
51
Ranking in other categories
Email Security (3rd), Security Awareness Training (2nd), Digital Risk Protection (3rd), Office 365 Protection (1st)
Symantec Messaging Gateway
Ranking in Secure Email Gateway (SEG)
5th
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 April 2025, in the Secure Email Gateway (SEG) category, the mindshare of Proofpoint Email Protection is 21.3%, down from 21.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Symantec Messaging Gateway is 5.0%, up from 4.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Secure Email Gateway (SEG)
 

Featured Reviews

AhmedRamadan - PeerSpot reviewer
Optimize email security with effective sandboxing and auto Pull for quarantine
Proofpoint is used as an email security gateway for big enterprises, primarily for their on-premises servers. Many customers also use it alongside Office 365 Proofpoint offers a complete solution for email security with features like DLP, email archiving, and encryption. The most valuable…
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

"It's a mature product. It does a good job in detection."
"Proofpoint Email Protection's initial installation is straightforward. It took us less than a day to complete the implementation."
"Proofpoint is the main tool for blocking spam because it denies the connection altogether."
"There is no downtime."
"The Phish Alarm button allows users to submit questionable emails for review and complete analysis."
"The most valuable feature is the ability to remove bad messages that were delivered, prior to being classified as unwanted."
"The tool has improved our workflow by ensuring people receive only the emails they need for work rather than being inundated with hundreds or thousands of unnecessary emails daily."
"The Tap and Trap features. They are the best features."
"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."
"Symantec Messaging Gateway has a huge knowledge base about phishing, spamming, spoofing, etc."
"The cloud-based interface is very user-friendly."
"The anti-malware and spam features are valuable."
"Symantec Messaging Gateway has a good GUI, and it is very powerful in detecting viruses and spam."
"Messaging Gateway is stable."
"The feature that I like the best is the fingerprinting concept."
"Symantec is a secure product."
 

Cons

"The incident reporting on offer needs to be improved. It's lacking right now. It should be on the platform somewhere."
"There is room for improvement in detecting and preventing phishing attacks. While the solution performs well in some aspects, it struggles with phishing threats."
"The reporting section could be enhanced. I like some reports but if they could allow us to create custom reports with more flexibility it would enhance the reports more."
"It has too many screens. It is kind of a conglomeration of products. In other words, they built product A, product B, and product C, and they are yet to integrate them into a single administrative console. I would certainly like to see a more seamless administrative interface. I would also like to see them include more bang for the buck, by including features like email fraud protection, rather than making their product so piecemeal, where you are buying little pieces. I agree with the idea of having multiple tiers or layers, but maybe as small, medium, and large, as opposed to an a la carte menu."
"They do not have an on-demand scan for the internal viruses and internal users, and they don't have a scan for the exchange server against viruses and spam as Symantec does."
"Proofpoint Email Protection could improve on the training. Every organization is different and to fine-tune it to block everything properly there needs to be better training. Sometimes it can block some of the information it shouldn't."
"Phishing detection could improve further to match some of the capabilities offered by competitors."
"Integration for reporting needs to be improved, it's too complex."
"It will provide Excel reports and PDF reports, but it would be great if they supported the concept of Crystal Reports."
"It could be more scalable."
"The solution interface is from 2003 and is outdated. Symantec Messaging Gateway needs to update the interface."
"We've had issues in the past where the user finds spam, and Symantec does not recognize it as spam."
"In a later release, it would be nice if the messaging gateway supported the cluster feature."
"The solution takes up a lot of memory."
"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."
"The product must improve the user dashboards."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Proofpoint Email Protection has comparable pricing."
"Customers pay around $90,000 yearly for a 1,000-user organization, with the subscription license being the main expense, apart from implementation fees."
"The licensing model for Proofpoint Email Protection is simple. It's based on the number of users. Price-wise, Proofpoint Email Protection is a five out of ten because it's a pretty expensive solution."
"I rate the product price a seven on a scale of one to ten, where one is low price and ten is high price."
"The price is reasonable."
"Proofpoint Email Protection is a reasonably priced product, which means that it is neither too low nor too high in terms of price."
"It is multiple times more expensive, which made it very much less attractive."
"The end customer is buying our solution, which can be for monthly or annual usage depending on our payment and business model."
"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."
"Symantec Messaging Gateway’s pricing is very cheap."
"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."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Secure Email Gateway (SEG) solutions are best for your needs.
845,040 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
30%
Computer Software Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Computer Software Company
20%
Financial Services Firm
19%
Government
9%
Manufacturing Company
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Proofpoint Email Protection?
In terms of pricing, it is okay compared to others. I would say it is normal. Additional costs do come in, but it enhances security.
What needs improvement with Proofpoint Email Protection?
In terms of improvement, the price could be better. Additionally, more security could be implemented.
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

Proofpoint Enterprise Protection, Cofense PhishMe, Proofpoint Digital Protection
Symantec.cloud, Symantec Email Security.cloud
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Blocket, University of Waterloo, Lincoln Memorial University, WellSpan Health, U-Haul, Carestream Health, Westinghouse
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 Email Protection vs. Symantec Messaging Gateway and other solutions. Updated: March 2025.
845,040 professionals have used our research since 2012.