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Proofpoint Enterprise DLP vs Symantec Data Loss Prevention comparison

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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:
 

ROI

Sentiment score
4.5
Proofpoint Enterprise DLP boosts ROI by enhancing security, reducing workload, saving costs, and preventing data breaches effectively.
Sentiment score
6.2
Symantec Data Loss Prevention improves efficiency, reduces costs by up to 25%, and enhances data security management, offering clear ROI.
The package that Proofpoint provides is better in the long run, especially since results have been seen in prevention and responses to exercises concerning external files being sent out during various departures.
Software Developer at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees
ROI from Proofpoint Enterprise DLP is evident in terms of incident reduction, operational efficiency, and breach cost avoidance.
Director Cybersecurity at a media company with 1,001-5,000 employees
This allowed us to coach and train our users in managing their risky behaviors, as well as the alerting capabilities, which were superior and helped free up my team's time to focus on other important tasks.
IT Director at a insurance company with 10,001+ employees
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
6.2
Proofpoint Enterprise DLP customer service is praised for responsiveness and efficiency, with strong support during configuration and security analysis.
Sentiment score
6.3
User experiences with Symantec Data Loss Prevention support vary widely, with mixed reviews on responsiveness, effectiveness, and cost concerns.
They are technical and provide options that help narrow down solutions.
Software Developer at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees
This service or features plays a big role in protecting the information and protecting the sensitive details which are entered in the email body or somewhere in the emails as a subject, as a signature, or in any form.
Sr System Engineer at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Proofpoint Enterprise DLP consultants are also provided who help in the security domain and analyze the monthly details about attacks and what needs to be done.
Senior Solution Architect at a tech vendor with 5,001-10,000 employees
The support provided from both Symantec Turkey and distributor companies enables us to support customers and partners effectively.
Technical Team Leader at Redington (India) Ltd
The support team changed from MTechPro to a different partner, affecting our experience.
Information Security Engineer 4 at Amadeus
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
5.9
Proofpoint Enterprise DLP offers scalable, cloud-native data protection with centralized management for emails, cloud services, and endpoints, aiding growth.
Sentiment score
7.6
Symantec Data Loss Prevention is scalable and adaptable for enterprises, but integration and virtualization challenges are sometimes reported.
Proofpoint Enterprise DLP scales very well for enterprise environments due to its cloud-native architecture, which supports growth in users, policy complexity, integration volume, and data throughput without performance degradation.
Director Cybersecurity at a media company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Proofpoint Enterprise DLP is scalable and can be used in a large environment, especially for emails and cloud workloads.
Systems Engineer at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
Proofpoint Enterprise DLP is very scalable to any size organization, from small, medium to large.
IT Director at a insurance company with 10,001+ employees
When using native proxy solutions, scalability issues are minimized, and the solution remains stable.
Information Security Engineer 4 at Amadeus
Symantec Data Loss Prevention adapts to evolving security landscapes by handling MIP labels and sensitivity categorization.
Technical Specialist at Softcell Technologies Pvt. Ltd.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
8.1
Proofpoint Enterprise DLP is stable, reliable, and efficiently managed, with minimal downtime and prompt support for any issues.
Sentiment score
7.7
Symantec Data Loss Prevention is stable and reliable, excelling on Linux but occasionally facing latency and database connection issues.
It also automatically blocks that sender if the sender is malicious. I really value that feature.
Cyber security Officer at a government with 201-500 employees
Given the single console for managing the entire Proofpoint portfolio solution, as well as managing policies and the privacy controls, it has been a very stable and productive tool.
IT Director at a insurance company with 10,001+ employees
We can see the health status every day on Proofpoint Enterprise DLP.
Security Engineer at LTI Mindtree
The stability and scalability are its most important features.
Technical Specialist at Softcell Technologies Pvt. Ltd.
 

Room For Improvement

Proofpoint Enterprise DLP needs improved AI, usability, integration, and features like logging, case management, and data discovery.
Symantec Data Loss Prevention is complex, costly, and lacks support, requiring better integration, cloud features, and enhanced management.
An improvement opportunity would be advanced policy simulation tools for conflict detection between rules and clear rule precedence visualization, which would help understand the source of issues.
Director Cybersecurity at a media company with 1,001-5,000 employees
It is quite effective in detecting and preventing data loss through the analysis of user behavior and content.
Manager, Information Technology Operations at a retailer with 10,001+ employees
Occasional mishaps arise related to users' devices affected by Proofpoint or when Proofpoint isn't logging specific device actions.
Software Developer at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees
Symantec responded by creating an OCR module, enabling the capability to search within images.
Technical Team Leader at Redington (India) Ltd
They can improve their product and the features mainly to focus on how we can prevent that data within the organization, over the cloud, whatever it is, as that is important.
System Manager at Randstad
It is very critical to understand whether an incident is a false positive or a true positive, particularly because some false positive incidents are quarantined.
Technical Specialist at Softcell Technologies Pvt. Ltd.
 

Setup Cost

Proofpoint Enterprise DLP provides advanced security at premium pricing, with costs per user varying by features and setup included.
Symantec Data Loss Prevention is costly but valued for comprehensive protection, with potential for competitive pricing via negotiation.
Proofpoint Enterprise DLP pricing starts on a per user basis, from $2 to up to $8 or $10 per user depending on the features you need.
Senior Solution Architect at a tech vendor with 5,001-10,000 employees
Proofpoint Enterprise DLP is generally a high-pricing solution, so it generally requires additional licenses for the DLP.
Security Engineer at LTI Mindtree
It is a little bit higher and not very cheap compared to other DLP tools, but it also has a lot of value if you use it properly.
Systems Engineer at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
Symantec Data Loss Prevention is more expensive compared to competing solutions.
Technical Team Leader at Redington (India) Ltd
If it is a large target, then of course your cost will be high.
System Manager at Randstad
 

Valuable Features

Proofpoint Enterprise DLP enhances threat visibility and policy enforcement via AI, centralized management, and seamless security integration.
Symantec DLP provides robust monitoring, policy management, and data protection with advanced classification, ML, and user-friendly management.
When a user is trying to send emails, rather than sending the data through email, if they insert a USB drive and start copying files within that USB drive, irrespective of the email communication, Proofpoint Enterprise DLP can also trigger an alert for that, indicating that a USB device was inserted for that specific host.
Security Engineer at LTI Mindtree
Adaptive information protection with Proofpoint Enterprise DLP has changed how we handle sensitive data and respond to threats, allowing us to block sensitive data if it is being shared with external persons.
Graduate at a university with 10,001+ employees
The adaptive email feature helps me in tracking and automatically identifying if a user is sending sensitive information to the wrong recipient and provides real-time warning banners to nudge users when they are about to make a mistake or reduce accidental data loss.
Risk analyst at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
Symantec's OCR module enhances image analysis, crucial for detecting data loss via screenshots, improving the overall security posture against data breaches.
Technical Team Leader at Redington (India) Ltd
Symantec Data Loss Prevention helps in identifying and securing sensitive data in my organization by being used for the internal, outgoing, and inbound traffic, specifically for any personal identification data leak prevention and any PII data.
Technical Specialist at Softcell Technologies Pvt. Ltd.
Symantec Data Loss Prevention has proprietary metadata and is well-suited for endpoint-level security.
Information Security Engineer 4 at Amadeus
 

Categories and Ranking

Proofpoint Enterprise DLP
Ranking in Data Loss Prevention (DLP)
7th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
5.8
Number of Reviews
26
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Symantec Data Loss Prevention
Ranking in Data Loss Prevention (DLP)
8th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
62
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2026, in the Data Loss Prevention (DLP) category, the mindshare of Proofpoint Enterprise DLP is 1.4%, up from 1.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Symantec Data Loss Prevention is 3.7%, down from 5.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Data Loss Prevention (DLP) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Proofpoint Enterprise DLP1.4%
Symantec Data Loss Prevention3.7%
Other94.9%
Data Loss Prevention (DLP)
 

Featured Reviews

SR
Director Cybersecurity at a media company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Email data controls have reduced accidental leaks and support ongoing compliance monitoring
Overall, Proofpoint Enterprise DLP is a strong platform, but there are areas for improvement to enhance usability and effectiveness. One challenge is policy complexity and lifecycle management. As DLP programs mature, policies become layered and interdependent, leading to frustrations such as rule overlap that causes multiple triggers on a single message. Limited visibility into policy hierarchy impacts, difficulty modeling how new rules interact with existing ones, and change management requiring careful validation can all be challenging. An improvement opportunity would be advanced policy simulation tools for conflict detection between rules and clear rule precedence visualization, which would help understand the source of issues. The administrator user experience can feel dense from an admin perspective, especially when managing multiple layered policies, handling rule precedence, troubleshooting overlapping triggers, and onboarding new administration. As DLP programs mature, policy environments become complex quickly. Improvement opportunities would include visual policy mapping, impact previews, easier bulk policy editing, simpler policy cloning with conflict detection, and smarter recommendations during policy creation that would be very beneficial. Regarding data discovery and risk posture visibility, improvements are needed. While email layer protection is robust, organizations need better visibility across their repositories. There is an opportunity for built-in sensitive data discovery scanning and risk exposure mapping to identify which business units handle more sensitive data. A data movement visualization dashboard could also be beneficial, transitioning from reactive DLP blocking to proactive data exposure intelligence, which would significantly increase maturity.
Abhishek Sawant - PeerSpot reviewer
System Manager at Randstad
Has strengthened data protection across departments and supported continuous monitoring
In future updates of Symantec Data Loss Prevention, I would like to see improvements based on the many attacks happening around the world. They can improve their product and the features mainly to focus on how we can prevent that data within the organization, over the cloud, whatever it is, as that is important.
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916,771 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
15%
Outsourcing Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Insurance Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
16%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Outsourcing Company
10%
Comms Service Provider
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business3
Midsize Enterprise5
Large Enterprise27
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business23
Midsize Enterprise11
Large Enterprise30
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Proofpoint Enterprise DLP?
Proofpoint Enterprise DLP needs to focus on another area as well. For example, someone might want more security for shared drives and OneDrive. There might need to be some API connectors in the fut...
What is your primary use case for Proofpoint Enterprise DLP?
I have been working with Proofpoint Enterprise DLP for the last 10 years.
What advice do you have for others considering Proofpoint Enterprise DLP?
My core area of expertise is Proofpoint Enterprise DLP and Microsoft security. We provide user guides for normal users and conduct training from time to time, especially for DLP and phishing on ema...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Symantec Data Loss Prevention?
I am not aware of the licensing cost for Symantec Data Loss Prevention because the licensing cost is up to senior management's decision. I really don't know what the cost of that is. It is based on...
What needs improvement with Symantec Data Loss Prevention?
There is room for improvement in incident management within Symantec Data Loss Prevention because most of the incidents are false positives. It is very critical to understand whether an incident is...
What is your primary use case for Symantec Data Loss Prevention?
The primary use case for Symantec Data Loss Prevention is for data leak prevention and as a security tool.
 

Also Known As

No data available
Symantec DLP
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Hadassah University Hospital, Her Majestys Government (HMG), United Kingdom, Hitachi Consulting Software Services India Pvt Ltd., Hua Nan Bank, Hyundai Department Store Group,JW Marriott Hotel Seoul, Lake Health, McCann Erickson Israel, Molina Healthcare Inc., PGi, Quilvest Switzerland Limited, State of Nevada Public Employees Benefits Program, Symantec Corporation (Enterprise Security), The Royal Liverpool and Broadgreen University Hospitals NHS Trust, The Royal Liverpool and Broadgreen University Hospitals NHS Trust (DLP), The Saudi Industrial Property Authority, TSO cloud, Visa, Yunnan Power Grid Company
Find out what your peers are saying about Proofpoint Enterprise DLP vs. Symantec Data Loss Prevention and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
916,771 professionals have used our research since 2012.