All our Office 365 emails will first go through Barracuda. It checks for any EXEs and the like, checking the email contents to allow or stop those. We also use the solution for archiving and backups.
Network Administrator at Ras Al Khaimah International Airport
The solution did a great job of blocking EXEs and phishing emails
Pros and Cons
- "Its backups are valuable."
- "The dashboard's UI could be improved to make changes to the blocklist."
What is our primary use case?
How has it helped my organization?
From a security point of view, Barracuda Email Security improved our mail environment. Other than that, its backups are valuable.
What needs improvement?
The dashboard's UI could be improved to make changes to the blocklist. We currently have to go into the mail and check the list and the dashboard, and it would be better if we could directly block particular domains or emails instead.
For how long have I used the solution?
I've used this solution for almost four years.
Buyer's Guide
Barracuda Email Security Gateway
November 2024
Learn what your peers think about Barracuda Email Security Gateway. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: November 2024.
816,406 professionals have used our research since 2012.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
Barracuda has been stable till now.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
We have 100 users using Barracuda Email Security Gateway.
How are customer service and support?
Barracuda's technical support is fine.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We used to have FortiMail, and we migrated to Barracuda. Barracuda is much more effective than FortiMail. Barracuda handles spam better.
What about the implementation team?
An integrator handled the initial setup.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
We find the solution's pricing okay.
What other advice do I have?
Our management wants to migrate to E5 from E3 and says we don't need Barracuda Email Security. However, we are unsure if E5 will have the same features as Barracuda.
I recommend Barracuda, and from a security point of view, I would rate it a nine out of ten. It didn't let any EXEs or phishing emails through.
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Assistant Manager, Information Technology Systems at Getz Pharma
Great message tracking and messaging logs but has a complex setup
Pros and Cons
- "It can scale."
- "The initial setup can be a little bit complex."
What is our primary use case?
We primarily use the solution for email security.
What is most valuable?
The solution is largely stable.
It can scale.
Overall, it has been working fine without issue.
The message tracking and messaging logs have proven to be quite useful.
What needs improvement?
The initial setup can be a little bit complex.
When we implemented Barracuda three years back, although the deployment went smoothly, we also needed to implement some changes regarding the configuration, which were affecting the stamp control rate. Some options were not so easy to remember and we had to search for directions.
For example, if I want to change the mail flow settings, there are two different options available in Barracuda. If I apply a change on one option and didn't change the configuration on the other option, the mail flow doesn't work. Yet the second option is always hidden. I always need to search for it when I need to change some mail flow settings.
For how long have I used the solution?
I've used the solution for more than three years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The product is stable. Sometimes some spamming issues occur, however, we manage to control those after making some changes.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
We have a model that supports 5,000 users. We currently have 3,500 users. We have room to scale.
The solution does work fine with a large number of users.
How are customer service and support?
I administer the solution and provide troubleshooting and issue resolution as required. The support from Barracuda is pretty good overall when I reach out.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Neutral
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
I have an experience with Barracuda Email Security, Microsoft Exchange, and Microsoft Defender.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup and implementation process is complex. It is not exactly easy.
I'd rate it 2.5 out of five in terms of ease of setup.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The pricing is moderate. It was neither cheap nor expensive.
I'd rate the cost 3.5 out of five in terms of affordability.
What other advice do I have?
We're a Barracuda customer.
We are using virtual appliances, not the cloud version of the solution. That said, we do plan to move to the cloud.
While we are not planning to change Barracuda, we are planning to improve Barracuda after purchasing the cloud solution. Our plan is to enhance our email security when we integrate our appliance with the Barracuda Cloud solution.
I'd rate the solution seven out of ten. Some of the exposed emails were not blocked by our Barracuda clients. Although we have engaged the principal, and they helped troubleshoot and tweak some configurations, it's still an issue. We still face some exposed emails delivered to our management level.
I'd advise potential new users that if they plan to implement Barracuda, they should find someone knowledgeable in implementations. They need someone who will follow best practices and understand procedures laid out in the documentation. After configuration and implementation, there may still be some fine-tuning required.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Buyer's Guide
Barracuda Email Security Gateway
November 2024
Learn what your peers think about Barracuda Email Security Gateway. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: November 2024.
816,406 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Information Security Officer & DPO - Data Protection Officer at a manufacturing company with 501-1,000 employees
Provides us with good email security maturity, keeping our employees productive by blocking unwanted email
Pros and Cons
- "The spam filtering, in particular, is very important for us. We have a large volume of emails each month, something like 200,000, and Barracuda filters about 85 percent of the spam, malware, and phishing that comes in. It prevents our users from receiving this content on their computers."
- "We still have critical threats coming into our environment and delivered to our users. When we compare it with other solutions, these other solutions can already detect those threats."
What is our primary use case?
The solution is the first security layer for emails that come into our network, and we use it to filter all spam, phishing emails, and malware that come in via email.
We are now using the virtual appliance in our VMware environment.
How has it helped my organization?
In the past, we had a lot of problems from threats and malware that came into our network, directly from email. Users would receive the content and click on a malicious link or open a malicious attachment, and that caused us a lot of problems.
By choosing Barracuda as our solution for filtering, year by year we have seen a big improvement in our environment with a significant reduction in the number of threats. Consequently, we have fewer problems with users. In the past, users who clicked on this malicious content had to stop work for a long period while our support team helped them. We have almost 600 employees, and every month we had a lot of problems with that. Today we have good security maturity using this solution. It has reduced the risk in our environment. Employees lose less time due to malicious content on their computers. Barracuda has helped to secure the gateway.
What is most valuable?
The spam filtering, in particular, is very important for us. We have a large volume of emails each month, something like 200,000, and Barracuda filters about 85 percent of the spam, malware, and phishing that comes in. It prevents our users from receiving this content on their computers.
For how long have I used the solution?
We have been using Barracuda Email Security Gateway for 15 years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
In our environment today, the stability is good.
The problems we have at times are not about the performance or availability, but about the quality of the detection for some threats. The model that we have does not have a sandbox resource, which other versions Barracuda offer. Sometimes we receive a phishing email that has a malicious link, for example. Even though it is an old threat, Barracuda can't detect it. Sometimes these messages are delivered to our users. This is a gap that we have identified.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Because we use the on-premises version, we don't have many options when it comes to scalability. But in our headquarters, we have the same solution working at the same time in two different data centers for availability.
We have plans to update to the next version, preferably the cloud version, where we can have more options for using the other resources and layers that Barracuda offers. We don't have access to those today on the version we have.
How are customer service and support?
Everyone that I have contacted in their technical support is a professional. They always respond quickly and are very patient, for all the problems we have raised. The technical support really is very good. And today, that makes a real difference. Barracuda is a North American company, but they have support 24 hours a day, seven days a week. We are in a different time zone, but we always get support quickly.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
In addition to Barracuda, we used an open-source solution from Linux.
How was the initial setup?
It's not so hard to deploy. Barracuda has a huge forum on the internet with a lot of simple guides to follow. In our case, it was very simple to deploy the solution. Obviously, you need to have some knowledge about your network and the protocols, but every time that we need to use support they are always available very quickly to help us. But overall, the deployment is very simple.
The first time we deployed it, it took about three hours.
Ahead of deployment, we had some meetings with our IT team at our headquarters in Germany because we needed to create some rules in our network in Germany as well as here in Brazil. We chose the best resources for virtualization in our environment. We needed to design exactly how it would work: how Barracuda would receive emails and how we would address emails from our Microsoft Exchange before they went to Barracuda. We always used the Barracuda guidelines in the deployment process.
For our 600 users we have two people involved in the solution, a security guy and a network guy.
What was our ROI?
If we didn't have a solution like Barracuda in our environment, we would probably have a lot of problems that would directly impact our business. There would be employees who wouldn't be able to work because their machines were infected by threats after they opened email. If we calculate how many users used to be impacted in a year, and how much each one cost the company when not able to work, it would not be a good result.
With this solution, we can prevent users and their work from being impacted and, consequently, reduce the impact to our business.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
Barracuda has the best price. Every year we need to renew our license, and every year I need to compare Barracuda to two or three other players in the market. Barracuda always has a price that is 30 to 40 percent less than the other players' prices.
Last year we paid for the possibility of changing our hardware every three years. But now, because we changed the licensing model to a virtualization model, we don't need that. We just pay for the product and the support. There are two separate costs.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
Over the last two years, I have looked at other solutions that might give us more ability to handle new threats. For example, I have looked at solutions that have a sandbox feature integrated into them. But, Barracuda has given us a good idea of what it proposes to do. They already have the solution that I am looking for, but because of costs, we haven't been able to deploy it.
The advantage of Barracuda is its availability. Barracuda provides really good performance and is able to handle tons of emails by the minute and by the hour. The con is that we still have critical threats coming into our environment and delivered to our users. When we compare it with other solutions, these other solutions can already detect those threats.
What other advice do I have?
Barracuda's technology is the kind of technology that gives us a good balance among security, value, and user experience. It is not the best tool or technology on the market, but it does what it was developed to do. There are other possibilities, if you are willing to pay more. But Barracuda is the right solution for the problem in our environment.
A lot of companies pay for a good and comprehensive solution, but they usually only use 50 or 60 percent of what the solution offers. Barracuda is different. We use it 100 percent. I know what the Barracuda technology delivers for me and the value I get from it for what I pay and how I use it. It is that simple.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Disclosure: PeerSpot has made contact with the reviewer to validate that the person is a real user. The information in the posting is based upon a vendor-supplied case study, but the reviewer has confirmed the content's accuracy.
The solution has excellent customer support though it needs to improve its integration
Pros and Cons
- "Customer support is the solution's strongest point."
- "Some customers experience issues with integration."
What is our primary use case?
Our customers use this solution for screening.
What is most valuable?
Customer support is the solution's strongest point.
What needs improvement?
Some customers experience issues with integration.
For how long have I used the solution?
Our organization has integrated this solution for the last six years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
I rate the stability an eight out of ten.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
We have 12 customers using the solution.
How are customer service and support?
I used the support ticket and the response was perfect.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
What about the implementation team?
Our engineer manages the implementation and maintenance.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The solution's pricing is exceedingly high, and it continues to increase. Many-a-time, customers do not renew the solution due to the high price. I rate the solution's pricing an eight out of ten.
What other advice do I have?
Overall, I would rate this solution a seven out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Public Cloud
If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?
Microsoft Azure
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer:
Director Technical at CAD CAM Center
Full featured, effective protection, and reliable
Pros and Cons
- "The most valuable feature of Barracuda Email Security Gateway is the complete capabilities it provides. Additionally, the phishing security and sandbox features are effective."
- "The solution should add automatic alerts to the mobile."
What is our primary use case?
Our customers use the solution for security.
The solution can be deployed on-premise and in the cloud.
What is most valuable?
The most valuable feature of Barracuda Email Security Gateway is the complete capabilities it provides. Additionally, the phishing security and sandbox features are effective.
What needs improvement?
The solution should add automatic alerts to the mobile.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Barracuda Email Security Gateway for approximately 10 years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The stability of Barracuda Email Security Gateway is great.
I rate the stability of Barracuda Email Security Gateway a ten out of ten.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
The solution is used by more than 2,000 users.
I rate the scalability of Barracuda Email Security Gateway a nine out of ten.
How are customer service and support?
We do not have any regional support in my area. We are having to provide all of the support ourselves.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
I have used other solutions in the past but switched because Barracuda Email Security Gateway has a lot more features and became the leader.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup of Barracuda Email Security Gateway is simple for the cloud base version. It takes approximately one hour for the deployment.
What about the implementation team?
We use two people for the deployment of the solution.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The price of the solution should be reduced. The price in the USA is less than where we are. Our local distributor of the solution is manipulating the market.
The price of the solution can range from €6,000 to €23,000. The on-premise version is expensive. However, if it is on the cloud the price is better.
I rate the price of Barracuda Email Security Gateway a six out of ten.
The price is approximately 30 percent more than others on the market.
What other advice do I have?
If the solution is configured correctly then the maintenance is low. We are able to check the solution for our customers. We use two people for the maintenance if needed.
I would recommend this solution to others.
I rate Barracuda Email Security Gateway an eight out of ten.
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer:
IT Manager at BUTEC s.a.l.
Effective ATP, high availability, and scalable
Pros and Cons
- "The most valuable feature of the Barracuda Email Security Gateway is the ATP."
- "Barracuda Email Security Gateway can improve reporting and anti-spam. The anti-spam engine is not working well. We are seeing a lot of problems where spam is going through the gateway. Additionally, access privilege should be given to the IT support, because they don't have a lot of privileges. We are forced to give our IT support administrative access in order to clear and deliver emails and this should not be happening."
What is our primary use case?
We are using Barracuda Email Security Gateway for ATP, anti-spam, antivirus, and everything related to enabling flow.
What is most valuable?
The most valuable feature of the Barracuda Email Security Gateway is the ATP.
What needs improvement?
Barracuda Email Security Gateway can improve reporting and anti-spam. The anti-spam engine is not working well. We are seeing a lot of problems where spam is going through the gateway. Additionally, access privilege should be given to the IT support, because they don't have a lot of privileges. We are forced to give our IT support administrative access in order to clear and deliver emails and this should not be happening.
In the future, having a schedule reporting for quarantine for all users or for selected users, without reading the content of the message would be helpful.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Barracuda Email Security Gateway for approximately five years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
Barracuda Email Security Gateway is stable. We had issues with the on-premise version where they used to freeze from time to time, but with the cloud version, we have not had any issues.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Barracuda Email Security Gateway is a scalable solution.
We have approximately 500 people using the solution.
How are customer service and support?
I have used the support from Barracuda Email Security Gateway.
I rate the support from Barracuda Email Security Gateway a three out of five.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Neutral
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup of Barracuda Email Security Gateway took approximately two months to complete here in Lebanon. It was not an easy implementation.
What about the implementation team?
We used Barracuda Email Security Gateway partners to complete the implementation of the solutions.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The price of Barracuda Email Security Gateway is approximately $17 per user annually.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
We did not evaluate another solution prior to selecting Barracuda Email Security Gateway.
What other advice do I have?
We chose the solution because it was high on the rating sites and some of my friends from other companies recommend it.
My advice to others is to make sure that their business use case is well optimized, to allow the solution to be set up in the right way.
We are a construction company and we make sure that the emails related to construction pass through the solution. Other companies, such as in marketing, will want to make sure that the marketing campaign passes through. We don't want any marketing campaigns to pass through. You need to see your business use case and your business needs, and you will have to adapt the solution.
I rate Barracuda Email Security Gateway an eight out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Public Cloud
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
General Manager at Gemakom
Link protection checks links and alerts us to phishing attacks
Pros and Cons
- "The link protection and anti-phishing features are great."
- "False positives have given us issues."
What is our primary use case?
We use it ourselves as well as our customers. Our deployment is on-premise and also combined with cloud control. Cloud control is second-tier. The first tier is cloud control, the Barracuda and Barracuda cloud and then the email is passed to our Barracuda box which is on-premise. It's a gateway appliance, not a hardware box. It is normally used with Microsoft Exchange server but is also supported with Microsoft Office 365. We have 20 users but our customers have from 200 to 500 users.
What is most valuable?
They combined the cloud control and they have anti-phishing. There is link protection, which means when a link is in the email and it is similar to PayPal, for example, it gets flagged. The link protection checks the link and checks that it has been faked because it's not the original PayPal link. So when a link is not original then it's passed to Barracuda and checked in the sent box and when it's okay then it's opened. Otherwise, if it's malware then there's an alert which says, "That's a phishing attack and this is what you need to do."
What needs improvement?
We had a case where right before a link was redirected and there was no chance to ignore it. A few days ago there was a feature request to clean and redirect a link because it was a false positive. Let us say false positive in the link protection and there's no easy way to correct it.
For how long have I used the solution?
We have been using Barracuda Email Security Gateway for five years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
It's stable. The only issue is when you do an email campaign with large file attachments, PDF and then email, the system slows down. That is a problem because the queue gets full and you have to correct it and delete those emails manually.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
The scalability is pretty granular. For example, 80p protection and cloud protection, link protection, anti-phishing, you can buy it all separately. You buy the original box and then you can buy afterward the additional security features.
How are customer service and technical support?
Their support is very good. You get German and from Austria, but they also have English support world-wide. It is very good. With less response time. Short response time.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We previously used another solution. The complexity of the user interface was very complex and if you tried to make a configuration change, you end up searching for the feature and where you can edit. Also, security is a very good feature of the Barracuda Email Security Gateway. It has a per-user quarantine. It's very comfortable for the user to make his own white list or blacklist.
How was the initial setup?
The setup is straightforward, it's very easy. For example, I want to change a feature but I didn't find it easily. There's a search option and you find the manual entry and you can make a conflict change.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
It is yearly licensing. They recently increased the price but the price-performance relation is still very good. Compared to Cisco IronPort, Barracuda is less expensive and the configuration is much simpler.
What other advice do I have?
Try the Barracuda Email Essential Security Cloud Service. It's not expensive and implemented in half an hour.
I would rate it an eight out of ten.
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: partner
Head of Cyber Defense & Offensive Security at Habib Bank Limited
We have evaluated more than eight products of known vendors, and out of eight, we decided on this one.
What is most valuable?
The Anomaly-based spam detection is a very good feature of Barracuda Spam & Virus Firewall, since it not only keeps track of the Anomalies, but also protects and notifies any illegitimate attachments, content, as well as the suspicious source from which an email is arriving/contained in the email.
Another important feature that organizations are looking for is the Integration with LDAP and Active Directory. This Device has a capability to easily integrate with the AD connected with the Exchange environment.
How has it helped my organization?
Based on a true case, we had been receiving emails from different countries on a bulk scale containing malware.
Before the installation of Barracuda, we were only able to identify the threat on the Endpoint level, but after installing the Spam Filter, it keeps track of each and every activity done in an email.
What needs improvement?
Two things:
1) The backup and recovery of the rule set stored in the device.
2) In denial of service condition, the events-per-second flow creates little jerk in term of delay.
When we are considering the enterprise security, we are interested in adding the additional controls in the environment. Barracuda device has a weak distinction in its backup and recovery
Let me share a practical example: We have a Barracuda installed in a primary and backup location, it's difficult to include the exact configuration of a primary device to backup device, it has a time constraint and effort based work. This area should be considered, as Barracuda has established their good appearance in the market.
Another area that should be considered for improvement is the constant DoS attacks and bulk messages in the form of spam appearance on the device.
In a case of denial, condition on a ratio of 1200 to 1800 events per second would downgrade the performance of the device.
This was my practical role in testing the capability of this device, apart from the above two areas of improvement, this device has marvelous results in term of capacity, content, sources, and attachments.
For how long have I used the solution?
I've used this solution for two years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
Not yet.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Not yet.
How are customer service and technical support?
Best.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
Lack of technical support and very delayed responses in the case of an incident.
How was the initial setup?
Straightforward, even easy to install.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
Pricing options should be considered by the Barracuda management, as per country market research. They should consider the economy and the country-technology ratio.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
We have evaluated more than eight products of known vendors, and out of eight, we decided on this one.
What other advice do I have?
I would suggest implementing Barracuda Spam, because this solution has a multi-factor threat analysis engine, which other products don't have.
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Buyer's Guide
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Updated: November 2024
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