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 (36th)
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. Fortra's Clearswift Secure Email Gateway is designed for Email Security and holds a mindshare of 1.0%, up 0.7% 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 (%)
Fortra's Clearswift Secure Email Gateway1.0%
Microsoft Defender for Office 3659.1%
Proofpoint Email Protection8.1%
Other81.8%
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

PC
Systems Administrator at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees
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.
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

"Ability to create your own content-filtering policies with relative ease."
"A stable solution."
"The feature that I like the best is the fingerprinting concept."
"The solution is stable and the performance is good."
"Messaging Gateway is stable."
"The most valuable features of Symantec Messaging Gateway are advanced content filtering, malware, and antivirus defense."
"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."
"It is a solid and stable product."
"Symantec Messaging Gateway is stable and scalable. Installation is easy, and the deployment and maintenance can be done by one administrative person."
"What I like most about Symantec Messaging Gateway is its usability. I also find its interface very friendly. The solution has a very good interface."
 

Cons

"FTP server and TRUST Manager functionality."
"Malware needs improvement."
"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."
"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."
"Sometimes the solution picks up false positive for viruses during scans."
"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."
"It will provide Excel reports and PDF reports, but it would be great if they supported the concept of Crystal Reports."
"The solution takes up a lot of memory."
"This product would benefit from better integration with Symantec Endpoint Protection."
"The product must improve the user dashboards."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"They're a little costly compared to Microsoft."
"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."
"For 150 users, we pay INR 1,60,000."
"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."
"A subscription for technical support costs extra."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Email Security solutions are best for your needs.
881,821 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
12%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Educational Organization
8%
Financial Services Firm
18%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Government
6%
 

Company Size

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

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, Proofpoint, Check Point Software Technologies and others in Email Security. Updated: January 2026.
881,821 professionals have used our research since 2012.