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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 October 2025, in the Secure Email Gateway (SEG) category, the mindshare of Fortinet FortiMail Cloud is 4.5%, up from 2.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Symantec Messaging Gateway is 2.6%, up from 2.5% 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 Cloud4.5%
Symantec Messaging Gateway2.6%
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 deployment is simple."
"The most valuable features are filtering and sandboxing."
"If there is a problem somewhere Fortinet can act on it immediately. That is very important."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is the ability to check to see if the email is real."
"FortiMail Cloud is very fast."
"Cost-wise, it's a bit expensive, but it's totally worth it."
"Fortinet and other software ensure that my company's email remains safe, helping to avoid access issues at some cost in production."
"The implementation was very professional. There are a lot of features I can get through Fortinet and FortiMail, such as security. FortiGuard is the most reliable and professional mitigation center to handle incidents and risk that I have to face."
"The most valuable features of Symantec Messaging Gateway are advanced content filtering, malware, and antivirus defense."
"The solution is stable and the performance is good."
"The setup is pretty simple."
"Symantec Messaging Gateway has a good GUI, and it is very powerful in detecting viruses and spam."
"Symantec Messaging Gateway is stable and scalable. Installation is easy, and the deployment and maintenance can be done by one administrative person."
"The solution is excellent at blocking spam."
"The solution is "set and forget". You pay for it and everything is done for you."
"Messaging Gateway is stable."
 

Cons

"There are no specific new features I would suggest at this moment."
"The dashboard could use improvement."
"The setup of the rules can be improved. I think it should be simplified and would be the best improvement in the system."
"The price is relatively expensive."
"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."
"Fortinet FortiMail Cloud doesn't have AI features, making it an outdated tool for me."
"They could look at strengthening anti-spam with the newly observed domains."
"Fortinet policies add an extra load to the endpoint."
"It could be more scalable."
"The solution takes up a lot of memory."
"The biggest problem is it's an on-prem product and we're trying to get out of having equipment in data centers."
"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 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."
"They really need to create a good package that competes with Microsoft."
"The documentation could have more detailed examples of how to use the product in various situations. As more companies shift to the cloud, they could better integrate the on-prem and cloud versions through an on-prem client."
"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."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I see how manageable and flexible the licenses are."
"The licensing is for three years. In the beginning, we did not pay monthly, it was paid once for three years."
"When we're talking about pricing, other products have about the same price. That is normal."
"The product's price is reasonable."
"It should cost around $60,000. We bought it as a bundle, so everything comes together in the license. That is standard."
"A license for our company using FortiMail and FortiCare (filtering and support) was $4000."
"The price of this solution could be more competitive."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"They're a little costly compared to Microsoft."
"A subscription for technical support costs extra."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
10%
University
7%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Non Profit
6%
Financial Services Firm
21%
Computer Software Company
16%
Government
7%
Manufacturing Company
7%
 

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: September 2025.
871,829 professionals have used our research since 2012.