No more typing reviews! Try our Samantha, our new voice AI agent.

Avanan vs Barracuda Email Security Gateway comparison

Sponsored
 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Feb 8, 2026

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

Cloudflare One
Sponsored
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
23
Ranking in other categories
Email Security (20th), Secure Web Gateways (SWG) (15th), Data Loss Prevention (DLP) (21st), Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB) (11th), Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection (7th), Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) Solutions (13th), Access Management (12th), Bot Management (3rd), ZTNA as a Service (8th), ZTNA (3rd), Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) (10th), Remote Browser Isolation (RBI) (3rd)
Avanan
Average Rating
9.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.8
Number of Reviews
18
Ranking in other categories
Email Security (14th), Data Loss Prevention (DLP) (27th)
Barracuda Email Security Ga...
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
55
Ranking in other categories
DMARC Authentication Software (3rd), Secure Email Gateway (SEG) (7th)
 

Mindshare comparison

Email Security Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Avanan2.7%
Microsoft Defender for Office 3658.8%
Proofpoint Email Protection8.1%
Other80.4%
Email Security
Secure Email Gateway (SEG) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Barracuda Email Security Gateway9.0%
Proofpoint Email Protection21.1%
Microsoft Defender for Office 36519.9%
Other50.0%
Secure Email Gateway (SEG)
 

Featured Reviews

CV
Network Architect at IP Dimension
Cloud security has improved remote access and has reduced costs for smaller client sites
I have used Cloudflare One's Identity-Aware Proxy, and it is quite straightforward from what I have seen so far. The app registration on the Azure side integrates fully into Cloudflare, and I am very satisfied with that part because it is easy to set up. The integration of Cloudflare One's Secure Web Gateway and Zero Trust Network Access works without any issues. That part is pretty automatic, and if you complete the rest of the setup, it comes together by itself with no issues from my side. What makes it nice is that we can actually start replacing on-site firewalls at this stage for the smaller clients because it does not matter if they go to a coffee shop or work from home; they are still secured by the same connection. The hops get shorter and you get better latency. We have done testing to see if it is better. One thing that we did notice with our proof of concept with our current client is that they have people connecting from the UK. When they used their previous VPN solution, uploading CAD drawings and other files to the server took a long time. They mentioned that it is much quicker on Cloudflare One's solution. I definitely believe that is part of the improved performance, and I am satisfied with that as well. What is nice about Cloudflare One is that it makes the setup easier and also easier to train technicians to maintain it. Compared to legacy systems, we do not need to get fancy firewalls in place that are costly. That is definitely also a cost-saver with Cloudflare One.
Robert Melendez - PeerSpot reviewer
Vice President Information Technology at Makeready
Enhances email security and has a very simple and easy-to-use UI
Spam protection is the most valuable feature. We have implemented the tool to enhance our email security. It helps prevent phishing attacks. The anomaly detection capabilities are baked into the security platform. The product integrates wonderfully with Microsoft 365. It's built right on a cloud platform and works almost natively. The solution has a very simple and easy-to-use UI. The tool appears extremely powerful and has a good solid feature set. It catches things that are bad for my environment. The user interface is good the way it is. If the solution continues down that path, I see no problems with the way it is going. It feels like a mature product.
MM
Graduate Student at ain shams
Secures email by identifying threats and managing email policies effectively
The intuitive management interface feature makes email security policies very easy to implement as it's all about features that need to be enabled or disabled. Our investigation in any incident or mail is very useful as it provides all details about incoming mails, enabling thorough review and detection. The real-time threat intelligence feature is particularly useful as it detects all kinds of threats identified by incoming mails. The Impersonation license utilizes AI tools. Sometimes some phishing mails are reported as phishing, but they are not actually phishing mails. They are detected due to certain words and languages that appear suspicious but were generated by AI tools. Everyone or an advisor may use it for their own purpose or learning, even though it indicates that the mail detected is phishing when it's not.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"What makes it nice is that we can actually start replacing on-site firewalls at this stage for the smaller clients because it does not matter if they go to a coffee shop or work from home; they are still secured by the same connection."
"Cloudflare Zero Trust Platform removes the risk of exposing the applications to the public."
"This solution is easy to understand and easy to configure."
"I'm very satisfied with the environment and the dashboard."
"Cloudflare Access is a stable solution."
"Using Cloudflare One makes my work quite easy because for DDoS protection, all I need to do is understand the OSI model and click; it makes it easier than trying to write a command line or use a Linux command."
"It is a stable solution."
"The best feature is rate limiting. If I'm expecting 500 visits per hour, Cloudflare will limit the requests if I suddenly get 50,000."
"Avanan Cloud Email Security has empowered teams with modern data security management knowledge and provided enough awareness that helps employees to prepare for any outcomes."
"We have highly benefited from this platform since we deployed it, as it has provided reliable security to our email infrastructure and developed a secure working environment."
"If we look at four to five years ago, we had close to six or eight people click a link in an email per month. Now, we are probably down to about five or six clicks a year, if not less."
"The ease of installation and the AI capacity of the product are valuable."
"Overall, this tool's cost is fairly cheap given its features and excellent output."
"Prevention of account takeover by ransomware attackers has solved long-term problems that had become normal in the company."
"The most valuable feature of Avanan is its Anti-Malware solution for Office 365, and box.com."
"Avanan has been an everlasting security solution for our email and messaging applications."
"There are plenty of features, such as sandboxing capabilities with zero threat protection; it has all the leading email security appliances compared to other solutions."
"The security protection is the best and it's GUI is user-friendly."
"It not only tackles spam effectively but also incorporates advanced features like ATP and active features which ensures a comprehensive and adaptable email security solution tailored to their heterogeneous environment."
"Barracuda is good at keeping the garbage from reaching your inbox."
"It seems good in terms of spam blocking and virus blocking; it is lightweight, and we can filter all of our inbound and outbound emails, with controls for rate control, quarantine, and tagging, and we can see whether an email is a spam email or a phishing email."
"This solution has helped to significantly reduce the amount of junk email that we receive."
"Barracuda has one of the best email security solutions for SMB and big enterprises."
"The initial setup was very easy and user-friendly."
 

Cons

"The pricing is an area that can be improved. Pricing, as far as I recall, was the source of our problems."
"The free plan has limitations. For example, I can only set up three rules, and the application firewall is unavailable."
"From a logging perspective, it is still a bit difficult to see exactly what users are being blocked with the current views."
"I would like them to include a VPN feature to provide a secure connection to the data center."
"When there are any dynamic changes in complex applications, the tool takes a lot of time, making its analytics-related area a major matter of concern where improvements are needed."
"The software has automated alerts, but the automated alerts are not available in the mobile app."
"The initial onboarding was causing us some confusion."
"The response time for support must be reduced."
"Integration with various SaaS offerings, who are leading in the SaaS market. Examples include: SNOW (ServiceNow), Salesforce.com"
"Integration with various SaaS offerings, who are leading in the SaaS market."
"The email filtration system is not well set since it sometimes blocks useful emails that are safe."
"Sometimes it seemed like the allow list wasn't working. I've created many allow list rules however, they still seem to be blocked; the same is true with the blocked list rules."
"There are times when we have false positives."
"Email querying is not efficient throughout."
"It should also offer a quick backup in case any email is wrongly quarantined or deleted to ensure no data loss."
"It should reduce the amount of time needed for thorough scanning."
"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."
"The solution should add automatic alerts to the mobile."
"There is room for improvement in the speed of the interface, specifically the cloud interface, is a bit slow."
"Its integration with other solutions can be improved. There should be integration for telemetry information, system information, and other types of information with other solutions. Barracuda currently doesn't have that. Barracuda has its own platform. Its integration with firewalls is quite good, and it communicates really well with firewalls, but I have not seen any other integration. Based on what I know, it does have an API at the backend, but I have not used it."
"We detect some failures in some mails; not all mails pass through consistently. Some mails pass while others are dropped without any apparent logic, despite having the policy set for specific recipients or senders."
"This product can always be made more secure."
"The technical support is not available globally 24/7 and this is the biggest problem with the product."
"I have noticed that it takes a little time to get familiar with after deploying and some tweaks need to be done as things come up."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price tag is no longer $200,000, but rather $300,000 to $400,000. It's twice."
"The solution's pricing lacks transparency."
"The pricing is somewhere in the middle. I would rate the pricing a seven out of ten."
"The solution is not that expensive."
"The pricing of the solution is cheap. The licensing cost is also very low. I rate the cost and pricing a three out of ten."
"My company has to make yearly payments towards the licensing costs attached to the solution. There are no hidden charges apart from the licensing costs of the solution."
"The prices are slightly expensive."
"Cloudflare Zero Trust Platform's pricing is good."
"Good pricing arrangement as an SaaS offering."
"The product is not the cheapest in the market."
"The pricing of Avanan is reasonable."
"Having the flexibility and modeling to do the pricing that best fits the needs of the organization is incredibly ideal. That is what Avanan does. They know exactly how many users are using it, etc. We can tune the invoicing associated with how we are using the product so we can charge it back to the shows appropriately."
"Avanan’s price is comparable to Barracuda."
"It is a cost-effective and relatively cheap solution as compared to others. Our customers have a yearly subscription. We do have a few customers with monthly subscriptions, but they have cloud-based Email protection, which is a different type of solution. Both solutions are very good."
"We find the solution's pricing okay."
"As far as advanced email security systems, this product is mid-range on the pricing scale."
"I rate the price of Barracuda Email Security Gateway a ten on a scale of one to ten, where one is low price and ten is high price."
"Barracuda Email Security Gateway is an affordable solution that caters to small, midsize, and high-end businesses with great revenue."
"We have a long agreement with Barracuda Email Security Gateway. We're very pleased with the cost and the solution. The cost is in the average range for this type of solution."
"We pay between $8 and $10 USD per user per month."
"The price of Barracuda Email Security Gateway is approximately $17 per user annually."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Email Security solutions are best for your needs.
885,880 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Construction Company
23%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Computer Software Company
6%
Computer Software Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Construction Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
8%
Construction Company
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business10
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise11
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business7
Midsize Enterprise8
Large Enterprise6
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business34
Midsize Enterprise13
Large Enterprise13
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Cloudflare Access?
Cloudflare Access has strong integration with Microsoft, among other platforms. However, when it comes to Kaspersky, ...
What is your primary use case for Cloudflare Access?
Cloudflare Access provides secure access to internal applications for employees, external members of the organization...
What advice do you have for others considering Cloudflare Access?
Cloudflare Access is one of the best integrations available. While about two hundred vendors offer similar services, ...
What do you like most about Avanan?
Spam protection is the most valuable feature.
What needs improvement with Avanan?
Avanan doesn't cover certain tool segments. Barracuda provides backup and retention of emails and Microsoft 365’s bac...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Barracuda Sentinel?
Compared to the features and stability, Barracuda Email Security Gateway is affordable in terms of pricing, setup cos...
What needs improvement with Barracuda Sentinel?
On technical aspects, I think Barracuda needs to provide a fast response to any vulnerability on the system and enhan...
What is your primary use case for Barracuda Sentinel?
My main use case for Barracuda Email Security Gateway is to protect our email and our email users, protecting our bus...
 

Also Known As

Cloudflare Area 1 Email Security, Cloudflare Bot Management, Cloudflare Gateway, Cloudflare Zero Trust Platform, Cloudflare DDoS, Cloudflare SASE & SSE Platform
No data available
Barracuda Spam and Virus Firewall, Barracuda Sentinel
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

23andMe
Bethel School District, ServiceSource, Capital Caring
Evolution Recruitment Solutions, Evans Delivery Company, Osoyoos Credit Union, Synovis Life Technologies, Camden County Technical Schools, DEK, Evans Delivery Company, Colgate Rochester Crozer, Hemmera, South Carolina Heart Center, Ferma Corporation, Major League Baseball (MLB), Healy Brothers Automotive Group
Find out what your peers are saying about Avanan vs. Barracuda Email Security Gateway and other solutions. Updated: January 2024.
885,880 professionals have used our research since 2012.