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Proofpoint Email Protection vs Symantec Advanced Threat Protection 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

Proofpoint Email Protection
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
53
Ranking in other categories
Email Security (3rd), Security Awareness Training (2nd), Digital Risk Protection (3rd), Office 365 Protection (2nd), Secure Email Gateway (SEG) (3rd)
Symantec Advanced Threat Pr...
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
16
Ranking in other categories
Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) (19th)
 

Mindshare comparison

Proofpoint Email Protection and Symantec Advanced Threat Protection aren’t in the same category and serve different purposes. Proofpoint Email Protection is designed for Secure Email Gateway (SEG) and holds a mindshare of 21.0%, up 18.0% compared to last year.
Symantec Advanced Threat Protection, on the other hand, focuses on Advanced Threat Protection (ATP), holds 2.0% mindshare, up 2.0% since last year.
Secure Email Gateway (SEG) Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Proofpoint Email Protection21.0%
Microsoft Defender for Office 36527.6%
Mimecast Email Security12.5%
Other38.9%
Secure Email Gateway (SEG)
Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Symantec Advanced Threat Protection2.0%
Palo Alto Networks WildFire10.7%
Microsoft Defender for Endpoint9.0%
Other78.3%
Advanced Threat Protection (ATP)
 

Featured Reviews

AhmedRamadan - PeerSpot reviewer
Optimize email security with effective sandboxing and auto Pull for quarantine
Proofpoint is used as an email security gateway for big enterprises, primarily for their on-premises servers. Many customers also use it alongside Office 365 Proofpoint offers a complete solution for email security with features like DLP, email archiving, and encryption. The most valuable…
TapabrataSamanta - PeerSpot reviewer
Reliable platform with effective integration capabilities
Our primary use case for the product is to provide advanced threat protection to our clients, primarily in the banking and financial sectors Symantec ATP has been beneficial in ensuring robust security for our clients. Its effectiveness in detecting and mitigating threats has improved customer…

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"I would recommend Proofpoint Email Protection to others because it is useful, simple to use, and provides whatever is required."
"The solution offers very good flexibility. You can blacklist or whitelist with ease."
"The most valuable feature is the ability to remove bad messages that were delivered, prior to being classified as unwanted."
"From a business perspective, the solution was very helpful as it speeded our business flow and increased email delivery."
"The solution scales quite well."
"The initial implementation is pretty easy to handle."
"The most valuable feature of Proofpoint Email Protection is the dashboards and their visibility, easy configuration, and artificial intelligence. Additionally, the reports are very important and helpful."
"Its anti-phishing functionality is the most valuable. Certainly, the biggest problem I have is phishing."
"The Application Control code and the easy integration are valuable features."
"The technical support services are excellent."
"You don't have to buy a separate email security platform. You can enable that using their endpoint, and I like that. You don't have to have two agents running on the same box."
"The great advantage in using this product is it creates multiple services."
"The product integrates well with our systems, and we have not encountered any problems."
"Endpoint to network protects the line."
"All of the solution's features are quite valuable for us. We especially like the threat protection it provides."
"The incident management on the solution is very good. You get a lot of detailed information about an incident. You also get a lot of documentation in connection with the CVI or integration."
 

Cons

"Pricing for the platform could still be cheaper."
"The reporting section could be enhanced. I like some reports but if they could allow us to create custom reports with more flexibility it would enhance the reports more."
"The largest complaint that we hear from our customers is that there is no local support."
"Proofpoint has a lot of false alarms."
"Proofpoint Email Protection could improve the Mail Trace feature and make navigation easier."
"The product's deployment is complex and requires technical knowledge."
"The price could be improved."
"The flexibility of the solution can be improved."
"An improvement could be made on the reporting because then it would be easier to collect information and submit it for compliance."
"There are limits with respect to blocking files by hash value or blocking IP addresses, and these limits should be removed."
"The security features need to be improved."
"Scalability could be better."
"Symantec appliances need improvement. The whole appliance environment is a robust system and it needs a massive amount of storage space. If you have to increase or speed up the background storage it's a pretty complicated process. The scalability and sizing is critical, and if you do it wrong you run into issues pretty quickly."
"It should be able to collect information if the agent is disabled."
"The support for new OSs and older OSs could be a little tighter. They need to be more upfront about what protection services they're going to provide on new OSs. I haven't seen the Windows 11 version out yet. It is either already released in Beta, or the Beta will be released soon. There could be a little bit more advanced updates on what they're doing to help protect Windows 11 environments. They can let us know in advance so that we know it is going to be protected. We can't roll out the new OS without putting end-point protection on it. So, they should tell us what is their support model for that, and what are they doing to protect Windows 11. They're not telling me, and that's a criticism. The same issue is applicable to all the other antivirus tools. It is not just Symantec; all of them have this problem."
"It also needs network-based threat protection for shared folders and files."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution charges per user per month to use it. There are not any additional fees in addition to the standard living fees."
"They are competitively priced, but I have been forced to get quotes for other solutions now because they haven't been responding to requests to do the work that we would like them to do."
"The licensing cost of Proofpoint Email Protection is a lot higher than other solutions, such as Barracuda."
"The solution uses a licensing model that is reasonable compared to other products."
"I rate the product price a seven on a scale of one to ten, where one is low price and ten is high price."
"In general, the pricing is competitive."
"I rate the price of Proofpoint Email Protection a four out of five."
"Proofpoint is fairly expensive."
"The price is quite expensive."
"Symantec Advanced Threat Protection's pricing is comparable."
"Pricing is good. It is nice to have a great product at a fair price."
"The pricing of this solution is inexpensive and affordable."
"Symantec Endpoint Protection has an average price."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
6%
Financial Services Firm
11%
University
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Insurance Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business21
Midsize Enterprise13
Large Enterprise17
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business9
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise13
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Proofpoint Email Protection?
In terms of pricing, it is okay compared to others. I would say it is normal. Additional costs do come in, but it enhances security.
What needs improvement with Proofpoint Email Protection?
I believe they still need to improve by consolidating some portals, as currently, you have to log in separately to a few of them.
What do you like most about Symantec Advanced Threat Protection?
Symantec Endpoint Protection provides end-to-end protection. Along with antivirus protection, it has a lot of key areas, including intrusive prevention, firewall features, and application and devic...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Symantec Advanced Threat Protection?
The price is quite expensive because a different entity has taken over the company.
What needs improvement with Symantec Advanced Threat Protection?
One area for improvement could be the pricing model. Future releases could further enhance integration capabilities with other platforms and simplify the licensing model to compete more with Micros...
 

Also Known As

Proofpoint Enterprise Protection, Cofense PhishMe, Proofpoint Digital Protection
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Blocket, University of Waterloo, Lincoln Memorial University, WellSpan Health, U-Haul, Carestream Health, Westinghouse
ECI
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft, Abnormal AI, Proofpoint and others in Secure Email Gateway (SEG). Updated: October 2025.
872,655 professionals have used our research since 2012.