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

Fortra's Clearswift Secure Email Gateway vs Symantec Messaging Gateway comparison

 

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:
 

Categories and Ranking

Fortra's Clearswift Secure ...
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
0
Ranking in other categories
Email Security (41st)
Symantec Messaging Gateway
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
20
Ranking in other categories
Secure Email Gateway (SEG) (9th)
 

Mindshare comparison

While both are Messaging and Collaboration solutions, they serve different purposes. Fortra's Clearswift Secure Email Gateway is designed for Email Security and holds a mindshare of 1.0%, up 0.5% compared to last year.
Symantec Messaging Gateway, on the other hand, focuses on Secure Email Gateway (SEG), holds 2.6% mindshare, up 2.5% since last year.
Email Security Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Fortra's Clearswift Secure Email Gateway1.0%
Microsoft Defender for Office 36511.4%
Proofpoint Email Protection8.2%
Other79.4%
Email Security
Secure Email Gateway (SEG) Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Symantec Messaging Gateway2.6%
Microsoft Defender for Office 36527.6%
Proofpoint Email Protection21.0%
Other48.8%
Secure Email Gateway (SEG)
 

Featured Reviews

PC
Stable, but malware needs improvement and customer support is poor
They need to improve the malware in the product. I am not satisfied with Clearswift because of the lack of customer support. The support is poor, the supplier takes a lot of time and it's expensive. We have some issues here when I contact the supplier, it takes a lot of time for them to get back to us but there's no solution. I am now looking at Symantec as a possible alternative.
Dennis O'Reilly - PeerSpot reviewer
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

"Ability to create your own content-filtering policies with relative ease."
"A stable solution."
"The anti-malware and spam features are valuable."
"The solution is stable and the performance is good."
"Messaging Gateway is stable."
"The setup is pretty simple."
"The solution is excellent at blocking spam."
"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 good GUI, and it is very powerful in detecting viruses and spam."
"The most valuable features of Symantec Messaging Gateway are advanced content filtering, malware, and antivirus defense."
 

Cons

"FTP server and TRUST Manager functionality."
"Malware needs improvement."
"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."
"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 solution interface is from 2003 and is outdated. Symantec Messaging Gateway needs to update the interface."
"What needs to be improved in Symantec Messaging Gateway is its local partner support, as it's not as technical. The support my company gets from the partner isn't good. Vendor support is good, but local partner support isn't. I'm happy with Symantec Messaging Gateway as a solution, but the problem is with its partner support. To me, Symantec Messaging Gateway is a complete solution, but it can be very difficult to search the web for resolutions to issues or problems you experience from it. If this could be improved or resolved in the next release of Symantec Messaging Gateway, then that would be good."
"Symantec Messaging Gateway should include better exclusions and exceptions for better administration."
"Messaging Gateway's advanced malware detection could be improved."
"The false positive submissions must be improved."
"In a later release, it would be nice if the messaging gateway supported the cluster feature."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"They're a little costly compared to Microsoft."
"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."
"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."
"For 150 users, we pay INR 1,60,000."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Email Security solutions are best for your needs.
872,655 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Government
10%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Financial Services Firm
22%
Computer Software Company
15%
Government
7%
Manufacturing Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business11
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise8
 

Questions from the Community

Ask a question
Earn 20 points
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

No data available
Symantec.cloud, Symantec Email Security.cloud
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
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 Microsoft, Abnormal AI, Proofpoint and others in Email Security. Updated: September 2025.
872,655 professionals have used our research since 2012.