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Fortinet FortiMail 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

Fortinet FortiMail
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
67
Ranking in other categories
Email Security (5th)
Symantec Messaging Gateway
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
20
Ranking in other categories
Secure Email Gateway (SEG) (12th)
 

Mindshare comparison

While both are Messaging and Collaboration solutions, they serve different purposes. Fortinet FortiMail is designed for Email Security and holds a mindshare of 3.3%, down 5.4% compared to last year.
Symantec Messaging Gateway, on the other hand, focuses on Secure Email Gateway (SEG), holds 2.3% mindshare, down 3.0% since last year.
Email Security Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Fortinet FortiMail3.3%
Microsoft Defender for Office 3659.1%
Proofpoint Email Protection8.1%
Other79.5%
Email Security
Secure Email Gateway (SEG) Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Symantec Messaging Gateway2.3%
Microsoft Defender for Office 36521.4%
Proofpoint Email Protection20.9%
Other55.400000000000006%
Secure Email Gateway (SEG)
 

Featured Reviews

Abhimanyu Das - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Associate at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Targeted email filtering has reduced spam and phishing and now saves significant investigation time
The best features of Fortinet FortiMail include its techniques and tactics, which are highly effective compared to other solutions such as Microsoft 365. Although Fortinet FortiMail may not be as advanced in some aspects, it is well recognized for its strong performance in handling spam and phishing. It performs thorough mail scanning and also offers a sandboxing feature that enhances protection. Fortinet FortiMail has had a positive impact on my organization by significantly reducing unwanted email activities such as spam and phishing. It provides accurate detection and generates results that often exceed what can be achieved through manual analysis. Since deploying Fortinet FortiMail, I have observed a reduction in investigation time by at least 20 to 30 percent.
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

"Technical support is great. They are able to look at their patches and offer quick responses. We even have an account manager in the Middle East. They are very good."
"The GUI isn't hard to use. When we do a demo and explain the features of Fortinet products to our customers, they understand very quickly. They can easily manage their systems without us."
"It actually filters the compromised emails when on a network layer itself."
"Fortinet FortiMail is a complete product addressing mail security concerns. It helps to know spam subscriptions and create restriction policies."
"The most valuable aspects of this solution are that it protects us from spam and phishing attacks. We had a lot of attacks coming in and then we deployed this solution and they stopped. We no longer have any spam or phishing issues."
"The most valuable features of this solution are anti-spam, sender reputation, and antivirus."
"From our experience with Fortinet FortiMail, we have found that it's a very strong platform for ensuring company security."
"FortiMail effectively filters all emails coming to our mail server, blocking malicious ones automatically."
"The solution is excellent at blocking spam."
"Symantec’s spyware and malware signature database is very good compared to other products."
"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 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."
"It has very good capabilities for managing malware."
"The feature that I like the best is the fingerprinting concept."
"The cloud-based interface is very user-friendly."
"The setup is pretty simple."
 

Cons

"Improving the upgrade process, making it more user-friendly, and simplifying the management of hardware components could enhance the overall user experience and appeal of Fortinet's email security solution."
"I don't know if it is possible, but I would like to see Artificial Intelligence and machine learning introduced."
"High Availability needs improvement."
"I think the security of the product could improve."
"The solution could be improved by providing a virtual machine facility with a complete set of options in the VM setup."
"The logging information is sometimes not clear or easy to understand."
"Issues with the current email search functionality."
"The only drawback to this solution is that the firmware is frequently updated, and each update results in downtime."
"It could be more scalable."
"This product would benefit from better integration with Symantec Endpoint Protection."
"The solution takes up a lot of memory."
"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."
"Messaging Gateway's advanced malware detection could be improved."
"The solution interface is from 2003 and is outdated. Symantec Messaging Gateway needs to update the interface."
"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."
"The false positive submissions must be improved."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Fortinet Fortimail has reasonable pricing."
"Price-wise, you get what you pay for in Fortinet FortiMail. Apart from the licensing costs, no additional expenses are attached to the solution's pricing."
"Fortinet FortiMail is a little bit expensive."
"9,000 Euro per annum for Fortinet Mail and sandbox."
"There is a license required for this solution and it is on an annual basis. I am satisfied with the price."
"The pricing is good."
"FortiMail has extra charges for installation, configuration, and project management."
"You need to pay additional fees for premium support."
"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."
"It's a bit expensive compared to its competitor Barracuda Email Security Gateway but cheaper than Sophos Email."
"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."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
6%
Financial Services Firm
18%
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business32
Midsize Enterprise22
Large Enterprise15
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business11
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise8
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Fortinet FortiMail?
In my opinion, points for improvement for Fortinet FortiMail include sometimes the speed and fine-tuning the false positive problems, especially with the signed PDF attachments and the whitelist an...
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Also Known As

FortiMail
Symantec.cloud, Symantec Email Security.cloud
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Magromer Cueros y Pieles S.A.
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 vs. Symantec Messaging Gateway and other solutions. Updated: January 2024.
881,565 professionals have used our research since 2012.