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Proofpoint Email Protection vs Symantec Web Isolation 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
6.7
Number of Reviews
98
Ranking in other categories
Email Security (1st), Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) (3rd), Digital Risk Protection (3rd), Office 365 Protection (1st), Secure Email Gateway (SEG) (2nd)
Symantec Web Isolation
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
Anti-Malware Tools (58th)
 

Mindshare comparison

Proofpoint Email Protection and Symantec Web Isolation 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 19.5%, down 22.3% compared to last year.
Symantec Web Isolation, on the other hand, focuses on Anti-Malware Tools, holds 0.6% mindshare, up 0.1% since last year.
Secure Email Gateway (SEG) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Proofpoint Email Protection19.5%
Microsoft Defender for Office 36517.0%
Mimecast Email and Collaboration Threat Protection15.9%
Other47.6%
Secure Email Gateway (SEG)
Anti-Malware Tools Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Symantec Web Isolation0.6%
Microsoft Defender for Endpoint6.9%
VirusTotal3.1%
Other89.4%
Anti-Malware Tools
 

Featured Reviews

Vivek_Jaiswal - PeerSpot reviewer
Cyber Security Senior Specialist at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Advanced email defenses have protected healthcare staff and simplified incident response
There are many things that could be improved, but once you are very well-known about this application, you could perform that improvement plan. There are many scenarios where I have worked with Proofpoint Email Protection where a requirement was not fulfilled due to the limitation of the product. For example, we have Report Phish automation. With Proofpoint Email Protection, we can configure Report Phish and forward the email to any email addresses or shared mailboxes that we provide in the configuration. That email is forwarded as is with whatever the user reports as a phishing email. However, some organizations do not want the reported phishing email to go as is into their ticketing tool because it might contain malicious attachments and malicious links that are not required to go into their internal organization. Proofpoint Email Protection has that limitation. They cannot forward or restrict, but could forward only limited information such as some header information, sender subject details, or only limited information. As it is, the email can be forwarded, not as limited information. Proofpoint TRAP solution also has limitations. It cannot create alert notifications for some specific requirements because Proofpoint works the way it is designed, and if you want it to work based on our requirement, that should not be possible. There is a scope of limitations here. There are many improvements that should be made. First, they should work on their false positive minimization. Proofpoint generally takes all emails, investigates them, and classifies them. There are many situations where legit emails are blocked because that domain is found to be under a malicious category somehow, but actually it is not. False positive minimization could be improved, and they could enhance their other applications or solutions. There are many things that they could improve from each application and each portal.
VamsiMohan - PeerSpot reviewer
CTO at Huber
User-friendly, reliable, and good support
We use Symantec Web Isolation for real-time health checking, vulnerability alerts, and threat analysis The most valuable feature of Symantec Web Isolation is the user-friendliness of the solution. Symantec Web Isolation could improve by reducing licensing costs. I have been using Symantec Web…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Provides better control over emails, especially those sent via Office 365 on the cloud."
"Proofpoint Email Protection has positively impacted my organization by definitely lowering the amount of phishing or scam-type emails that our users were receiving, helping them focus more on their work rather than dealing with these types of fraudulent emails."
"Proofpoint Email Protection ensures users have clean mailboxes and are not bothered by unwanted email."
"The most valuable feature is the ability to remove bad messages that were delivered, prior to being classified as unwanted."
"The solution scales well."
"The solution's technical support is good. I rate the technical support a ten out of ten."
"Proofpoint Email Protection has positively impacted my organization by simplifying the analysis of emails since it provides segregated statements that highlight the important parameters we need to check, allowing us to efficiently conclude if the alerts are false positives or true positives."
"Proofpoint Email Protection's initial installation is straightforward. It took us less than a day to complete the implementation."
"The most valuable feature of Symantec Web Isolation is the user-friendliness of the solution."
"The most valuable feature of Symantec Web Isolation is the user-friendliness of the solution."
 

Cons

"As an enterprise, we have high demands on the services, and if we have to wait for something like a week or weeks, it is not acceptable; we need solutions in one or two days sometimes because if there is spam going around, you cannot wait weeks."
"As an enterprise, we have high demands on the services, and if we have to wait for something like a week or weeks, it is not acceptable; we need solutions in one or two days sometimes because if there is spam going around, you cannot wait weeks."
"The solution can be expensive."
"The largest complaint that we hear from our customers is that there is no local support."
"I believe if the GUI were more user-friendly for people using it for the first time, or if there were more training available for end users to share with them, that would be good."
"We'd like to have the ability to create more customized reports."
"They do not have an on-demand scan for the internal viruses and internal users, and they don't have a scan for the exchange server against viruses and spam as Symantec does."
"I believe they still need to improve by consolidating some portals, as currently, you have to log in separately to a few of them."
"Symantec Web Isolation could improve by reducing licensing costs."
"Symantec Web Isolation could improve by reducing licensing costs."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The licensing is basically $8/user."
"Pricing has recently been increased and the cost is a downside"
"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."
"I rate the price of Proofpoint Email Protection a four out of five."
"The end customer is buying our solution, which can be for monthly or annual usage depending on our payment and business model."
"It is expensive."
"Clients pay for an annual subscription of Proofpoint Email Protection. Every client always finds it expensive."
"The solution is expensive."
"The licensing cost of Symantec Web Isolation is high."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
6%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business27
Midsize Enterprise23
Large Enterprise55
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Proofpoint Email Protection?
This is not something that I deal with regarding pricing, setup cost, and licensing.
What needs improvement with Proofpoint Email Protection?
For a beginner level, someone who is very new to email security might find it difficult to manage as an admin. Navigation can be concerning because Proofpoint Email Protection has different console...
What is your primary use case for Proofpoint Email Protection?
Proofpoint Email Protection serves as our email security solution. The entire SOC team uses Proofpoint Email Protection. The granularity in admin access is different, so each team has their own acc...
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Also Known As

Proofpoint Enterprise Protection, Proofpoint Digital Protection
Fireglass
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Blocket, University of Waterloo, Lincoln Memorial University, WellSpan Health, U-Haul, Carestream Health, Westinghouse
Jefferies
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft, Proofpoint, Mimecast and others in Secure Email Gateway (SEG). Updated: May 2026.
894,998 professionals have used our research since 2012.