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Microsoft Defender for Office 365 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

Microsoft Defender for Offi...
Ranking in Secure Email Gateway (SEG)
1st
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
53
Ranking in other categories
Email Archiving (1st), Email Security (1st), Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) (2nd), Microsoft Security Suite (10th)
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 November 2025, in the Secure Email Gateway (SEG) category, the mindshare of Microsoft Defender for Office 365 is 27.5%, down from 33.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Symantec Messaging Gateway is 2.4%, down from 2.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Secure Email Gateway (SEG) Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Microsoft Defender for Office 36527.5%
Symantec Messaging Gateway2.4%
Other70.1%
Secure Email Gateway (SEG)
 

Q&A Highlights

CO
Dec 09, 2022
 

Featured Reviews

Vikas Ingle - PeerSpot reviewer
Centralized tenant enables group control but setup process complicates implementation
Actually earlier, I used to have full controls with Trend Micro. Microsoft Defender for Office 365 is now part of a centralized tenant for my entire group. I don't have control on that, as another team is maintaining it. Since I don't have full visibility of the features, I cannot make significant comments.
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

"Microsoft Defender has a feature to protect each and every attachment. Even if it's an encrypted attachment, it will check for any potential threats."
"Does a thorough job of examining email and URLs for malicious content."
"Some of the valuable features on the email side are anti-phishing, anti-malware, and Safe Links."
"The ability to respond to threats if very important."
"Scalability-wise, I do not think there are any issues so far."
"Our customers are satisfied with Defender for 365 because Microsoft products are easy to use and customize to meet the client's needs. Everything is in one place, so we can adjust policies as needed for phishing, DLP, ATP, or any other security features that our clients want to apply."
"I like its investigation capabilities, as that is what is most important to me. It is fairly simple with a user-friendly interface."
"The email protection is excellent, especially in terms of anti-phishing policies."
"It has very good capabilities for managing malware."
"Symantec Messaging Gateway has a huge knowledge base about phishing, spamming, spoofing, etc."
"The feature that I like the best is the fingerprinting concept."
"The most valuable features of Symantec Messaging Gateway are advanced content filtering, malware, and antivirus defense."
"I like that it's simple and easy to configure, deploy, and manage. The reporting function has all the features we're looking for, and we are fine with that."
"Symantec’s spyware and malware signature database is very good compared to other products."
"It is a solid and stable product."
"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."
 

Cons

"The UI needs to be more user-friendly."
"Microsoft could improve by offering recommendations for domain spoofing attacks, especially scenarios where DNS records like SPF, DKIM, and DMARC are not properly published."
"One area for improvement is integration. For example, when it comes to external SaaS platforms, we were not able to get a lot of information on integrations with such apps for security and authentication."
"There is room for improvement in terms of reporting."
"The visibility for the weaknesses in the system and unauthorized access can be improved."
"Several simulation options are available within 365, and the phishing simulation could be better."
"They have moved features from one console to another. Things have been moved around in the interface and it takes me time to find where certain features are."
"Microsoft security solutions work as expected. They are constantly updating the solutions to make them better. At the same time, the changes can impact a customer's environment, and we need to adjust settings. Sometimes we aren't aware of the changes, and nothing is pushed from the backend automatically."
"They really need to create a good package that competes with Microsoft."
"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."
"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 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."
"The biggest problem is it's an on-prem product and we're trying to get out of having equipment in data centers."
"The product must improve the user dashboards."
"Symantec Messaging Gateway should include better exclusions and exceptions for better administration."
"We've had issues in the past where the user finds spam, and Symantec does not recognize it as spam."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The product is very expensive."
"Compared to other brands, Microsoft Defender for Office 365's pricing is competitive."
"I know that the product is incredibly expensive."
"Microsoft Defender for Office 365 is an add-on to the Office license. Many customers are purchasing this solution."
"Microsoft Defender for Office 365 comes with Microsoft Windows. It is free with the operating system."
"Defender is a little bit more expensive as compared to others. We are in the manufacturing environment. So, we don't have a high budget for all of our endpoint devices. Its cost is a major concern for us."
"The product is expensive."
"I was working in the government and it was too expensive for us to use our Microsoft products."
"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."
"A subscription for technical support costs extra."
"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."
"Symantec Messaging Gateway’s pricing is very cheap."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
6%
Financial Services Firm
22%
Computer Software Company
15%
Government
7%
Manufacturing Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business23
Midsize Enterprise8
Large Enterprise27
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business11
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise8
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Microsoft Defender for Office 365?
Threat Explorer is an invaluable tool for me, and it plays a crucial role in helping me discern the origins of various email campaigns, pinpointing where they emanate from, and identifying the indi...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Microsoft Defender for Office 365?
Microsoft is quite affordable with a lot of features available for any size organization.
What needs improvement with Microsoft Defender for Office 365?
I think that Microsoft Defender for Office 365 could be improved if it could use VirusTotal to compare the programs or anything that I download. VirusTotal helps to identify viruses, malware, troja...
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

MS Defender for Office 365
Symantec.cloud, Symantec Email Security.cloud
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Microsoft Defender for Office 365 is trusted by companies such as Ithaca College.
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 Defender for Office 365 vs. Symantec Messaging Gateway and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.
872,869 professionals have used our research since 2012.