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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
6.9
Number of Reviews
60
Ranking in other categories
Email Security (2nd), Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) (4th), Digital Risk Protection (3rd), Office 365 Protection (1st)
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 Proofpoint Email Protection is 20.9%, up from 21.1% 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 (%)
Proofpoint Email Protection20.9%
Symantec Messaging Gateway2.3%
Other76.8%
Secure Email Gateway (SEG)
 

Featured Reviews

IS
Threat Hunter at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees
Email protection has reduced phishing workload and keeps unwanted messages out of inboxes
A few things about how Proofpoint Email Protection can be improved include implementing artificial intelligence within their platform to start really understanding the organization that is using their product, what sort of emails they are expecting and if the emails that are being expected should be let in and if the emails that are not being expected should not be let in. I'll give you a further example for this. If someone just tries to send an email from a Gmail address, which is a free public service email service provider, then because anyone in the world can create a Gmail account, I think it is nice and good for Proofpoint Email Protection to actually first check and do a reality check if we have received an email from this address and look at the intent of the email to really see what the email is trying to do and then classify based on that. I still see there is a lack. Hence why I started this conversation with AI and hoping that Proofpoint Email Protection will bring AI in and to really start analyzing these emails, the intent, and whether they really fit the customer organization. We are a manufacturing company, so whether it really fits that profile. I would say if we can get a better user experience from Proofpoint Email Protection products, that would be good. For example, other service providers that provide secure email gateway have the functionality where you can split promotional and bulk email and have them sent to a separate folder. I think if we can have that sort of feature, that would be great where Proofpoint Email Protection just keeps the important emails in the inbox folder and move everything else that is not really business related into a promotional, spam, bulk folder. This is an improvement that I would really like to see. I give it an eight because I am expecting a lot more from Proofpoint Email Protection, more automations, more understanding of who their customer is, what sort of business they do, and what sort of email they are supposed to be receiving and letting through. I think the day when I really have only 1% of work to do and 99% is automated by whatever automation services Proofpoint Email Protection uses would be ideal. I think I have covered any other improvements needed for Proofpoint Email Protection pretty well right from AI to splitting emails based on priorities. I think I have given some pretty broad and good examples.
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

"It's easy to use, even for those new to IT."
"It's very good at identifying threats."
"Proofpoint Email Protection is a good product, and its most beneficial feature is the Threat Response Auto-Pull. I also like that it's an integrated email security solution."
"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 solution scales well."
"The most valuable features are the business email compromise protection and targeted attack prevention."
"The most valuable feature of Proofpoint Email Protection is the central location dashboard for viewing all the related information for risk."
"Proofpoint Email Protection is stable enough and does its job of virus, malware, and email scam detection. Setting it up is not too complicated."
"Messaging Gateway is stable."
"The solution is stable and the performance is good."
"The setup is pretty simple."
"It has very good capabilities for managing malware."
"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 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 has a huge knowledge base about phishing, spamming, spoofing, etc."
"Symantec’s spyware and malware signature database is very good compared to other products."
 

Cons

"There is room for improvement in detecting and preventing phishing attacks. While the solution performs well in some aspects, it struggles with phishing threats."
"I believe they still need to improve by consolidating some portals, as currently, you have to log in separately to a few of them."
"The areas that have room for improvement in Proofpoint Email Protection include their cost of ownership, which is fairly high."
"The scalability can be improved, and the solution can be optimized."
"The email DLP portion could be a bit easier."
"Integration for reporting needs to be improved, it's too complex."
"We find the cost to be prohibitive."
"I want Security Awareness Training in there as a package deal. A lot of companies are starting to value email security a little bit more and take it a little bit more seriously, and the great product that we link together with a lot of these sales is a training product called Security Awareness Training. It is an upsell that we do with Proofpoint, and it is definitely something that I recommend everybody with email security to look into. It would be great if Security Awareness Training is included with the email security."
"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."
"Messaging Gateway's advanced malware detection could be improved."
"It will provide Excel reports and PDF reports, but it would be great if they supported the concept of Crystal Reports."
"The solution interface is from 2003 and is outdated. Symantec Messaging Gateway needs to update the interface."
"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."
"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."
"We've had issues in the past where the user finds spam, and Symantec does not recognize it as spam."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"The solution is expensive."
"It is multiple times more expensive, which made it very much less attractive."
"The licensing cost of Proofpoint Email Protection is a lot higher than other solutions, such as Barracuda."
"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 price of Proofpoint Email Protection a four out of five."
"Annually, it costs us about $92,000. This is pretty much what it costs us. There is no additional cost."
"They're a little costly compared to Microsoft."
"Symantec Messaging Gateway’s pricing is very cheap."
"It's a bit expensive compared to its competitor Barracuda Email Security Gateway but cheaper than Sophos Email."
"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."
"For 150 users, we pay INR 1,60,000."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
11%
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
6%
Financial Services Firm
18%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Government
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business22
Midsize Enterprise16
Large Enterprise21
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business11
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise8
 

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?
I have not seen specific outcomes or metrics since implementing Proofpoint Email Protection, such as a reduction in phishing incidents or improved response time. Proofpoint Email Protection can imp...
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Also Known As

Proofpoint Enterprise Protection, 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: December 2025.
881,733 professionals have used our research since 2012.