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Fortinet FortiMail Cloud 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

Fortinet FortiMail Cloud
Ranking in Secure Email Gateway (SEG)
6th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
24
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Email (4th)
Symantec Messaging Gateway
Ranking in Secure Email Gateway (SEG)
9th
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 September 2025, in the Secure Email Gateway (SEG) category, the mindshare of Fortinet FortiMail Cloud is 4.6%, up from 2.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Symantec Messaging Gateway is 2.5%, up from 2.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Secure Email Gateway (SEG) Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Fortinet FortiMail Cloud4.6%
Symantec Messaging Gateway2.5%
Other92.9%
Secure Email Gateway (SEG)
 

Featured Reviews

Pravin Mandlik - PeerSpot reviewer
Provides enhanced email security with potential agent compatibility issues
There are definitely features that Fortinet should work on. I'm not the right person to implement those features. For a portable cloud solution, a customer has more affinity towards a solution where endpoint security is already in place. In endpoint security, they are not at the latest quadrant. That is why a customer with existing endpoint security solutions like Trend Micro might prefer a main security solution from that vendor. If we go for FortiMail Cloud and have a separate endpoint security solution, there are two agents that have to sit on a customer endpoint. From that perspective, Fortinet policies add an extra load to the endpoint. Maybe other solutions have an advantage when it comes to Fortinet.
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

"The most valuable features are the low price and its ability to integrate with other Fortinet products."
"The most valuable features are filtering and sandboxing."
"I am impressed with the tool's ability to setup rules and destinations. It also helps to monitor suspicious items."
"This is a solid email monitoring and security system that learns and maintains a two-way dialog with email system administrators."
"Content disarming and analysis are essential features in our email security setup"
"It has the best feature for processed mail analysis."
"The most valuable feature is the advanced threat protection."
"FortiMail Cloud is very fast."
"It is a solid and stable product."
"It has very good capabilities for managing malware."
"Symantec’s spyware and malware signature database is very good compared to other products."
"The feature that I like the best is the fingerprinting concept."
"Symantec Messaging Gateway has a huge knowledge base about phishing, spamming, spoofing, etc."
"The cloud-based interface is very user-friendly."
"Messaging Gateway is stable."
"Symantec is a secure product."
 

Cons

"The tool's UI can be simple since it's cluttered now and you can't understand where you are going. It's not obvious to find out the menus or things that you are looking to find."
"The URL filtering and handling should be enhanced because it doesn't support all languages. I believe that this would be easy to enhance in the future."
"I can't see the feedback to the FortiMail gateway."
"I would like to see more advanced sandbox features, where you can actually download to a machine where you can test."
"We can't import files into the Fortinet FortiMail Cloud sensors. That's a drawback, as they need to provide a feature to import files."
"The downside of this solution is that it is difficult to implement policies on FortiMail."
"Email sorting is missing from this solution."
"Fortinet FortiMail Cloud doesn't have AI features, making it an outdated tool for me."
"Sometimes the solution picks up false positive for viruses during scans."
"We've had issues in the past where the user finds spam, and Symantec does not recognize it as spam."
"Messaging Gateway's advanced malware detection could be improved."
"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."
"This product would benefit from better integration with Symantec Endpoint Protection."
"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."
"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."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The product's price is reasonable."
"A license for our company using FortiMail and FortiCare (filtering and support) was $4000."
"The pricing depends on various factors, including the type of licenses and subscriptions you have procured"
"It's on a subscribed basis."
"You only have to purchase one license for multiple participants."
"When we're talking about pricing, other products have about the same price. That is normal."
"I see how manageable and flexible the licenses are."
"I rate the price of Fortinet FortiMail Cloud a five on a one to ten scale, where one is the low price, and ten is the high price. It is an averagely priced product."
"Symantec Messaging Gateway’s pricing is very cheap."
"They're a little costly compared to Microsoft."
"For 150 users, we pay INR 1,60,000."
"A subscription for technical support costs extra."
"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."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
10%
University
7%
Non Profit
7%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Financial Services Firm
23%
Computer Software Company
15%
Government
8%
Manufacturing Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business16
Midsize Enterprise8
Large Enterprise2
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business11
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise8
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Fortinet FortiMail Cloud?
Content disarming and analysis are essential features in our email security setup
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Fortinet FortiMail Cloud?
The price of Fortinet FortiMail Cloud in Egypt is very competitive against other products, including the setup cost and licensing of this solution.
What needs improvement with Fortinet FortiMail Cloud?
The improvement in Fortinet FortiMail Cloud can be made regarding the classification process itself because it has some false positives.
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

Black Gold Regional Schools, Amadeus Hospitality, Jefferson County, Chunghwa Telecom, City of Boroondara, Dimension Data
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 Fortinet FortiMail Cloud vs. Symantec Messaging Gateway and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
867,497 professionals have used our research since 2012.