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Mimecast Email Security 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

Mimecast Email Security
Ranking in Secure Email Gateway (SEG)
4th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.2
Number of Reviews
31
Ranking in other categories
Office 365 Protection (3rd)
Symantec Messaging Gateway
Ranking in Secure Email Gateway (SEG)
6th
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 August 2025, in the Secure Email Gateway (SEG) category, the mindshare of Mimecast Email Security is 12.4%, down from 15.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Symantec Messaging Gateway is 2.6%, up from 2.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Secure Email Gateway (SEG)
 

Featured Reviews

ShaheenKapery - PeerSpot reviewer
Provides valuable security features and has a straightforward setup process
The initial setup process is straightforward and takes a weekend at most. A .com domain can take up to forty-eight hours, while a local domain takes about four to eight hours because it has to propagate through the international DNS records. It is a cloud-only solution. If you're managing email security on-premises, you use your bandwidth to download emails, including spam, and then use your servers to clean it up. For example, say a third of your email is spam; this consumes significant bandwidth and resources. However, if you use Mimecast, they filter the emails on their servers before delivering them to you. It can be a major selling point in regions with expensive bandwidth, such as Africa. You can save bandwidth and improve overall efficiency by offloading the spam filtering to Mimecast.
Girish Vijay - PeerSpot reviewer
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

"We like Mimecast's spam filtering. The email signature feature is also a big plus for our users."
"The platform's most valuable features are journaling and email archiving, effectively stopping phishing attacks."
"The solution offers good technical support."
"What I like about the integration is that it is directly into Microsoft 365, users can use their Microsoft 365 credentials to log into the portal and access their mail."
"URL inspection works pretty well."
"The reviewer gave Mimecast Email Security a rating of 10 out of 10."
"The initial setup is very straightforward."
"The biggest advantage of Mimecast Email Security is its spam filtering. Its filtering feature is interesting."
"The feature that I like the best is the fingerprinting concept."
"The cloud-based interface is very user-friendly."
"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 Messaging Gateway is stable and scalable. Installation is easy, and the deployment and maintenance can be done by one administrative person."
"The most valuable features of Symantec Messaging Gateway are advanced content filtering, malware, and antivirus defense."
"It has very good capabilities for managing malware."
"The solution is stable and the performance is good."
"The setup is pretty simple."
 

Cons

"The solution is very expensive."
"The reaction time between a new threat being identified and Mimecast picking it up needs to be narrowed a bit."
"Mimecast need to ensure that the body text format is correctly handled and that images are properly embedded in the body text."
"From an administrative point of view, Mimecast is a little bit cumbersome and difficult. It's not something that the end-user can easily find navigate themselves."
"They should improve the cookies management feature."
"The solution should include more AI features instead of Mimecast's more general static configuration tooling."
"We have subscribed to an archival service, and yet, when we have to get our data out, we have to pay a fee to get our own data. They charge an extraction fee."
"The solution's console interface was recently changed for the admins, but the previous one was much better because we could open tabs on it."
"It will provide Excel reports and PDF reports, but it would be great if they supported the concept of Crystal Reports."
"The product must improve the user dashboards."
"In a later release, it would be nice if the messaging gateway supported the cluster feature."
"The false positive submissions must be improved."
"Sometimes the solution picks up false positive for viruses during scans."
"The solution interface is from 2003 and is outdated. Symantec Messaging Gateway needs to update the interface."
"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."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We pay monthly fees to our provider."
"There are additional costs beyond the standard licensing fee."
"The product price is moderate. I rate the pricing a five out of ten."
"I'm always going to say the price needs to be lower, but it's reasonable."
"The product has good pricing in terms of return on investment."
"On a scale of one to ten, where one is cheap, and ten is expensive, I rate the pricing a ten."
"The customers can select the license packages as per their requirements."
"Compared to the other products in the market, it is neither cheap but nor very expensive. I would rate it somewhere in the middle, 5 out of 10."
"A subscription for technical support costs extra."
"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."
"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."
"Symantec Messaging Gateway’s pricing is very cheap."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Comms Service Provider
5%
Financial Services Firm
22%
Computer Software Company
16%
Government
9%
Manufacturing Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Mimecast Email Security with Targeted Threat Protection?
The interface of this solution is very easy to navigate and user-friendly. There is no delivery in email and other communications, making it reliable. The configuration is relatively easy.
What needs improvement with Mimecast Email Security with Targeted Threat Protection?
If I ask you about the room for improvement, we discussed the phishing aspect, the DNS system, and the key rotation. Apart from that, are there any other areas that you would like to see improved o...
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

Mimecast Email Security with Targeted Threat Protection
Symantec.cloud, Symantec Email Security.cloud
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Azizi Developments, Affinity Credit Union, Aftercare, Al Abbar Group
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 Mimecast Email Security vs. Symantec Messaging Gateway and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
865,295 professionals have used our research since 2012.