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Barracuda Email Protection vs Cisco Secure Email Threat Defense comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary
 

Categories and Ranking

Microsoft Defender for Offi...
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Ranking in Email Security
1st
Average Rating
8.4
Number of Reviews
43
Ranking in other categories
Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) (1st), Microsoft Security Suite (9th)
Barracuda Email Protection
Ranking in Email Security
14th
Average Rating
8.6
Number of Reviews
16
Ranking in other categories
Email Archiving (3rd), Office 365 Protection (4th)
Cisco Secure Email Threat D...
Ranking in Email Security
19th
Average Rating
8.0
Number of Reviews
12
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2024, in the Email Security category, the mindshare of Microsoft Defender for Office 365 is 16.7%, down from 20.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Barracuda Email Protection is 2.4%, up from 2.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Cisco Secure Email Threat Defense is 1.2%, down from 2.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Email Security
 

Featured Reviews

SR
Nov 28, 2023
Stops evolving threats and offers peace of mind
We use the solution for wireless scanning, reporting, and monitoring.  The product is not resource-intensive.  The tool's most valuable feature is virus scanning, which has saved us from malware and ransomware.  We need to be able to whitelist data at the backend.  I have been using the product…
AshishSingh15 - PeerSpot reviewer
Nov 30, 2023
Robust security features, scalability, and seamless deployment that ensure safeguarding against diverse email threats
As a system integrator, our focus lies in delivering system integration as a service. Our approach is customer-centric, tailoring solutions based on individual client relationships. Suppose a scenario where a customer was using Office 365 and noticed a lack of attachment security in their inboxes…
BF
Jun 21, 2023
A stable solution used for email security and email filtering
The solution's initial setup is not complex. Since most engineers in the earlier days were trained on Cisco, it's pretty much manageable. The deployment differs from client to client as the deployment architecture is either on-premises, on-cloud, or a hybrid concept. If you push it on the cloud, you'll have it on AWS. You map the whole connection to your on-premises point DPTR to the Cisco ESA, then it is mapped to your Office 365. It depends on the requirement. Any cloud deployment will take three working days if you have the exact information. Then you can test it and fine-tune it.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Microsoft Defender for Office 365 helps people to work remotely. It is a secure solution. We don't need to use our company's computers or get VPN connections to the networks. I can control how they share screens and what they send to the devices. It keeps our organizations confidential and sensitive information safe."
"The most valuable feature is protection against malicious links, fishing, and impersonation. You can train people to be aware of these threats, but they're not always careful. When they're using their phones between meetings, they click on a link, and it's game over."
"The benefit that stands out to me is the ability for multiple individuals to collaborate simultaneously within the same document. Additionally, there is the option to save the document directly in the integrated OneDrive or SharePoint."
"Defender enables us to secure all 365-related activity from a single place. It gives us visibility into everything happening in Outlook, protecting us against phishing and other email-based threats. Defender helps us detect any suspicious behaviors."
"The most valuable feature is the integration. It's a single console, so we don't have to switch around between multiple products. Another valuable feature is the ease of operations and maintenance."
"The two main features that prove most beneficial for us are URL scanning and attachment scanning."
"Threat Explorer is an invaluable tool for me, and it plays a crucial role in helping me discern the origins of various email campaigns, pinpointing where they emanate from, and identifying the individuals within our organization who are affected."
"I like its investigation capabilities, as that is what is most important to me. It is fairly simple with a user-friendly interface."
"The archiving and search features are very good."
"The most valuable features of Barracuda Essentials are it's a trusted name and is rated very high on review sites. It blocks high percentages of spam and junk email and it's in the cloud. They have hardware appliances, but this is in the cloud. The solution is very effective at blocking malware and blocking spam and this is what we are looking for. There's not a whole lot of complexity, you want a solution that is very good at blocking out all of the unwanted emails."
"The solution's most valuable feature is impersonation detection."
"The most valuable features are security and ease of use."
"We check the reports sometimes to see that frequent attacks and malicious emails are being blocked by the solution."
"The most valuable features of Barracuda Email Protection are flexibility and customization."
"The product is easy to deploy and maintain."
"Barracuda email protection is stable. I would give it a nine because of its strong cybersecurity features."
"It's very easy to deploy and configure."
"This solution is easy to use."
"Secure Email Threat Defense's scalability is good."
"I would say it's very comprehensive, with multiple antivirus OEMs, virus encrypt features, encryption, and more."
"The ability to see east-west traffic is its most valuable feature. Traditionally, email defense focuses on north-south, inbound-outbound, egress-ingress traffic. With Cisco Secure Email Cloud Mailbox, it's able to quickly identify, track, tag, and categorize emails that are internal. That can typically give us visibility into if there's an internal compromised account (for example). Someone can then use that internal compromised account to email additional accounts with either malicious software or links, but internal within that Office tenant. Effectively, that email message never leaves the tenant. Any of the mail gateways really do not have any method or way of seeing this traffic since it's not leaving the environment."
"The features and functionalities are much better than Microsoft's in-built Defender plan."
"It has an efficient email filtering feature."
"On ease of use, it rates very high. It's something that I was able to get into without really looking at any documentation. I wanted to see what it felt like before I started looking at any documentation on how to use it, and it was very easy to use. It works very smoothly. The user experience is very intuitive. They did an amazing job on that."
 

Cons

"Microsoft sometimes has downtime, and we'll get several incidents coming in back to back. We have a huge backlog of notifications, many of which may be false positives. However, there might be serious alerts, so we can't risk dismissing all of them at once."
"Microsoft Defender for Office 365 should improve the troubleshooting tools. It's unclear whether the device is blocked at the firewall level or at the device itself. The granularity needed for troubleshooting is currently lacking. From my perspective, Microsoft should address this issue to benefit many users who likely share the same sentiment."
"The GUI is sometimes slow to fetch the device report and could be improved."
"Microsoft should provide more documentation for users so they can self-educate. I would like to see more documentation for advanced security features."
"It would be better if it were more scalable. It depends on the architecture, but we would like to make it more scalable for both data centers."
"The only thing they should improve is the licensing model. They should stop changing it. A year ago, the five features I mentioned were included in one product. Now, three of them are bundled into one product, and you have to pay extra for the other two. I don't mind paying extra, but I don't want them to change it every year or every six months. I need to know what I'm looking at and not worry about it next year."
"They have moved features from one console to another. Things have been moved around in the interface and it takes me time to find where certain features are."
"There needs to be an improvement in integrating the product to work across multiple operating systems, and to have better support for non-Microsoft file types."
"Two to three months back, we got fraudulent emails in which someone in the organization was being blamed."
"There is room for improvement, particularly in reaching out to technical support during deployment."
"I would like to see some additional functionality in terms of employee monitoring, as part of a work-from-home security solution."
"The platform's pricing needs improvement."
"The product must enable bulk user management."
"The solution's reporting mechanism is a little poor and could be improved."
"Barracuda Essentials can improve by continually adding more features."
"The technology works on a supervised engine, but it would be better if it ran on an unsupervised engine."
"The tool gives false positives and it needs to be more accurate. I would like to see AI as a new feature."
"The solution is a bit expensive."
"The pricing could always be better."
"Cisco's multiple product lines and verticals made this just one of their many verticals, and we could see a shift in focus."
"The search area has room for improvement. When you go to the next page, it remains at the bottom of the current page that you're on. Also, under the reports section, it allows you to see any "convictions," but if you want to search for those convictions you have to remember when they all came in and go back and edit the search accordingly. You cannot click on the list of convictions to actually see if you had a spike at a certain time."
"This solution could be improved by integration with Sandbox."
"From a technical point of view, Cisco is far behind in terms of cybersecurity, and it has to improve very much."
"We encounter issues while searching for missing emails."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Microsoft Defender for Office 365 is an add-on to the Office license. Many customers are purchasing this solution."
"The pricing is normal. Considering its popularity, it's not overpriced."
"The license is expensive because the cost is based on the number of users."
"Microsoft Defender for Office 365 comes with Microsoft Windows. It is free with the operating system."
"Defender is a little bit more expensive as compared to others. We are in the manufacturing environment. So, we don't have a high budget for all of our endpoint devices. Its cost is a major concern for us."
"While Microsoft Defender for Office 365 necessitates pricier E3 or E5 subscriptions, the extensive functionality offered by these licenses across various Microsoft products justifies the investment."
"I was working in the government and it was too expensive for us to use our Microsoft products."
"The pricing has become expensive."
"Barracuda licensing model is good."
"The product is expensive."
"We didn't have to pay a lot for the solution because we got it from a good vendor with a good user volume."
"The solution's pricing is moderate, where it is neither cheap nor expensive."
"The price of Barracuda Essentials is better than some of the competing products."
"The price is similar to that of Microsoft 365."
"On a scale from one to ten, where one is cheap, and ten is expensive, I rate the solution's pricing a seven out of ten."
"We pay annually. They never charged us for anything else. And they were quite a bit under that $20,000 mark. It was $19,074. And they've been pretty good about not skyrocketing the price or anything like that. It has gone up. It's gone up to $24,000 in 2020."
"The feedback from vendors and customer is that it is expensive."
"The solution’s pricing is manageable."
"Cisco Secure Email Cloud Mailbox does not have any competition with Sophos, Trend Micro, or other vendors of the world. However, there is a pricing premium for the solution. One has to look at it from that angle that while they are buying Cisco, there will be a premium, and Cisco justifies that premium value. That's why they're charging a high price."
"It is expensive compared to other vendors."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
17%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Government
6%
Computer Software Company
17%
Construction Company
7%
Healthcare Company
7%
Government
7%
Computer Software Company
42%
Healthcare Company
5%
Manufacturing Company
5%
Comms Service Provider
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Microsoft Defender for Office 365?
Threat Explorer is an invaluable tool for me, and it plays a crucial role in helping me discern the origins of variou...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Microsoft Defender for Office 365?
While Microsoft Defender for Office 365 necessitates pricier E3 or E5 subscriptions, the extensive functionality offe...
What needs improvement with Microsoft Defender for Office 365?
Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps is a very good solution that allows you to use a single port or tool to control eve...
What do you like most about Barracuda Email Protection?
I'm quite satisfied with the graphical user interface for Barracuda products.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Barracuda Email Protection?
We didn't have to pay a lot for the solution because we got it from a good vendor with a good user volume. We would h...
What needs improvement with Barracuda Email Protection?
Two to three months back, we got fraudulent emails in which someone in the organization was being blamed.
What do you like most about Secure Email Threat Defense?
Secure Email Threat Defense's scalability is good.
What needs improvement with Secure Email Threat Defense?
Cisco is a multi-product, diverse organization. Before it was acquired by Cisco, the company that developed Email Thr...
 

Also Known As

MS Defender for Office 365
Barracuda Essentials
Cisco Secure Email Cloud Mailbox, Cisco CMD, Cisco Cloud Mailbox Defense
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Microsoft Defender for Office 365 is trusted by companies such as Ithaca College.
ACT Government, Acumen Group, AGIP, Delta Dental Plans Association, Desai/Nasr Consulting Engineers, Inc., Equinox Information Systems
Luiss University, Lone Star College, T-Systems, Magyar Telekom
Find out what your peers are saying about Barracuda Email Protection vs. Cisco Secure Email Threat Defense and other solutions. Updated: September 2024.
800,688 professionals have used our research since 2012.